Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 4.5.7

Hippolytus of Rome · Refutation of All Heresies · ca. 222–235 · Rome · Read in context

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: If birth under a sign meant a violent death, thousands slain in one battle could not all share it.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 60

Εἰ γὰρ τὸν ἐν τῇ ἀκίδι τοῦ Τοξότου γεννηθέντα, ὡς οἱ μαθηματικοὶ λέγουσιν, ἀνάγκη σφαγήσεσθαι, πῶς αἱ τοσαῦται τῶν βαρβάρων μυριάδες ἀγωνιζόμεναι πρὸς τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἐν Μαραθῶνι ἢ Σαλαμῖνι ὑφʼ ἓν κατεσφάγησαν; οὐ γὰρ δή γε ἐπὶ πασῶν ὁ αὐτὸς ἦν ὡροσκόπος.

English · Claude translation

For if one born at the point of the Archer's arrow, as the mathematicians say, must be slaughtered, how were so many myriads of barbarians fighting against the Greeks at Marathon or Salamis slaughtered at once? For surely the horoscope was not the same for all of them.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 60 · 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.

Notes

Translation notes

  • "Mathematicians" is a common ancient name for astrologers.

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (wrong accent in the digital text): ἤν ὡροσκόπος → ἦν ὡροσκόπος.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.5.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/5/7/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 4.5.7 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/5/7/).

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