Refutation of All Heresies 5.25.4

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: Heracles names the sons, recovers his horse, and leaves; Hippolytus now turns to Justin's use of the myth.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 218

Ἐκέλευσε δὲ αὐτοῖς γεννωμένοις ὀνόματα θεῖναι τὴν τεκοῦσαν, Ἀγάθυρσον, Γελωνὸν καὶ Σκύθην. Λαβὼν δὲ τούτου μισθὸν τὸν ἵππον παρὰ τῆς θηριώδους κόρης, ἀπηλλάττετο φέρων καὶ τὰς βοῦς. Μακρὸς δὲ ὁ μετὰ ταῦτα μῦθος Ἡροδότῳ, χαιρέτω δὲ τὸ νῦν. Τίνα δὲ τὰ Ἰουστίνῳ δοκοῦντα, μετάγοντι τὸν μῦθον εἰς τὴν τῶν ὅλων γέννησιν, ἡμεῖς διηγησόμεθα.

English · Claude translation

He ordered the mother to give them names when they were born: Agathyrsus, Gelonus, and Scythes. And receiving the horse from the monstrous girl as his wage for this, he departed, taking the cattle as well. The myth that follows in Herodotus is long; let it go for now. But what Justin's views are, as he transfers the myth to the generation of all things, we will relate.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 218 · 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

Herodotus, Hist. 4.10 (Herodotus, Histories) · allusion, high confidence

Topics

Heresy

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.25.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/25/4/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.25.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/25/4/).