Refutation of All Heresies 5.7.23

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: Isis seeking Osiris is read as changeable creation clothed in the seven planets.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 142

τὰ δʼ εἰσὶν οὐκ ἄλλο τι ἢ ἡρπασμένον καὶ ζητούμενον ὑπὸ τῆς ἑπταστόλου καὶ μελανείμονος αἰδοῖον Ὀσίριδος. Ὄσιριν δὲ λέγουσιν ὕδωρ. Ἡ δὲ φύσις ἑπτάστολος, περὶ αὐτὴν ἔχουσα καὶ ἐστολισμένη ἑπτὰ στολὰς αἰθερίους (τοὺς πλανήτας γὰρ ἀστέρας οὕτω προσαγορεύουσιν ἀλληγοροῦντες καὶ αἰθερίους καλοῦντες) κατʼ αὐτοὺς ἡ μεταβλητὴ γένεσις καὶ ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀρρήτου καὶ ἀνεξεικονίστου καὶ ἀνεννοήτου καὶ ἀμόρφου μεταμορφουμένη κτίσις ἀναδείκνυται·

English · Claude translation

and these are nothing other than the genitals of Osiris, snatched away and sought by the seven-robed and black-clad goddess. Osiris, they say, is water. And the seven-robed nature, having around her and clothed in seven ethereal robes (for so they call the planets, allegorizing and calling them ethereal), is according to them changeable generation, and is shown as creation transformed by the ineffable, unimageable, inconceivable, and formless one;

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 142 · 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. 5.7.23 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/7/23/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.7.23 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/7/23/).