Refutation of All Heresies 5.13.3

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.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 180

Ἃ μὲν οὖν ἐκείνοις δοκεῖ ἔστι τάδε· ἀπὸ τῆς τῶν ἄστρων ἀπορροίας τὰς γενέσεις τῶν ὑποκειμένων ἀποτελεῖσθαι. Περιεργότερον γὰρ ἀναβλέψαντες εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν οἱ Χαλδαῖοι ἔφασαν δραστικῶν μὲν αἰτιῶν ἐπέχειν λόγον εἰς ἕκαστον τῶν καθʼ ἡμᾶς συμβαινόντων [ἐκβαίνειν τοὺς ἑπτὰ ἀστέρας], συνεργεῖν δὲ τὰ τῶν ἀπλανῶν ζωδίων μέρη.

English · Claude translation

What they hold, then, is this: that the births of the things below are brought about by the effluence of the stars. For the Chaldeans, having looked up into heaven with excessive curiosity, said that [the seven stars] hold the account of active causes for each of the things that happen to us, and that the parts of the fixed zodiac signs cooperate.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 180 · 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.

Extrabiblical texts

Sextus Empiricus, Math. 5 (Sextus Empiricus) · allusion, medium confidence

Notes

Translation notes

This astrological account follows the one Hippolytus gave in Book 4, which draws closely on Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 5 (uncertain whether directly). The bracketed words are the editor's supplement; the verb printed in them (ἐκβαίνειν) does not construe and is left untranslated.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.13.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/13/3/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.13.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/13/3/).