Refutation of All Heresies 5.14.2

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 Peratic book says that ignorance named this power Kronos, whose earthly copies were Cepheus, Prometheus, and Iapetus.

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Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 184

Ταύτην τὴν δύναμιν ἡ ἀγνωσία ἐκάλεσε Κρόνον, δεσμοῖς φρουρούμενον, ἐπεὶ ἔσφιγγε τὸ σύμπλεγμα τοῦ πυκνοῦ καὶ ὁμιχλώδους ἀδήλου σκοτεινοῦ ταρτάρου. Ταύτης ἐγένοντο κατʼ εἰκόνα Κηφεύς, Προμηθεύς, Ἰαπετός.

English · Claude translation

This power ignorance called Kronos, guarded with bonds, since he bound tight the tangle of dense, misty, obscure, dark Tartarus. After its image came Cepheus, Prometheus, Iapetus.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 184 · 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

Notes

Translation notes

  • Throughout this book “ignorance” (ἡ ἀγνωσία) names the pagan religion that gave the powers the names of gods.

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (stray comma at the start of the section in the digital text): , Ταύτην → Ταύτην.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.14.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/14/2/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.14.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/14/2/).

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