Refutation of All Heresies 4.48.7

Authorship disputed: The work names no author. Book 1 was long printed among Origen's works as the Philosophumena; after books 4–10 were found in a manuscript from Mount Athos (published 1851), it was assigned to Hippolytus, the usual view today, though some scholars ascribe it to another Roman writer of the same circle. Books 2 and 3 are lost, and book 4 lacks its beginning.

Summary: The two Bears represent two creations: Adam's, and the new creation in Christ.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 118–120

Αὐταὶ δὲ αἱ Ἄρκτοι, φασίν, ἑβδομάδες εἰσὶ δύο, ἐξ ἑπτὰ ἀστέρων συγκείμεναι, δισσῶν κτίσεων εἰκόνες. Πρώτη γάρ, φησίν, κτίσις ἡ κατὰ τὸν Ἀδὰμ ἐν πόνοις, ὅ ἐστιν ὁ ἐν γόνασιν ὁρώμενος. Δευτέρα δὲ ἡ κτίσις ἡ κατὰ Χριστόν, διʼ ἧς ἀναγεννώμεθα, ὅ ἐστιν ὁ Ὀφιοῦχος ἀνταγωνιζόμενος τῷ θηρίῳ καὶ κωλύων ἐπὶ τὸν στέφανον ἐλθεῖν τὸν ἡτοιμασμένον τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ.

English · Claude translation

The Bears themselves, they say, are two sevens, composed of seven stars, images of two creations. For the first creation, he says, is that according to Adam, in toils, which is the one seen kneeling. The second creation is that according to Christ, through which we are born again, which is the Serpent-holder, contending against the beast and preventing it from coming at the crown prepared for man.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 118–120 · Ludwig Duncker and F. G. Schneidewin, eds., S. Hippolyti episcopi et martyris Refutationis omnium haeresium librorum decem quae supersunt (Göttingen: Dieterich, 1859); section divisions from Paul Wendland, ed., Hippolytus Werke 3: Refutatio omnium haeresium, GCS 26 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1916) · Greek text: L. Duncker and F. G. Schneidewin, Refutationis omnium haeresium (Göttingen, 1859), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library; section divisions from P. Wendland (GCS 26, 1916), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin); both CC BY-SA 4.0

Text

As printed in Duncker–Schneidewin. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.

Translation

Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Duncker–Schneidewin; made independently of existing English translations.

Compare

Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5 (1886) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made) · Its chapter numbers differ from the standard (Wendland) numbering used here.

Topics

Heresy

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.48.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/48/7/).

The SBL abbreviation for this work has not been checked yet.

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.48.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/48/7/).