Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 5.9.14

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: The serpent is good and gives beauty to all, like the river from Eden dividing into four.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 170

Ὑποκεῖσθαι δὲ αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα, καὶ εἶναι αὐτὸν ἀγαθόν, καὶ ἔχειν πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ ὥσπερ ἐν κέρατι ταύρου μονοκέρωτος, ὥστε τὸ κάλλος [τῶν ἄλλων] καὶ τὴν ὡραιότητα ἐπιδιδόναι πᾶσι τοῖς οὖσι κατὰ φύσιν τὴν ἑαυτῶν καὶ οἰκειότητα, οἱονεὶ διὰ πάντων ὁδεύοντα, ὥσπερ ἐκπορευόμενον ἐξ Ἐδὲμ καὶ σχιζόμενον εἰς ἀρχὰς τέσσαρας.

English · Claude translation

All things are subject to it, and it is good, and has all things in it as in the horn of a one-horned bull, so as to give beauty [of the others] and loveliness to all things that exist according to their own nature and kinship, as though journeying through all things, as if going out from Eden and dividing into four heads.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 170 · 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.
Scripture
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • The allusions are Gen 2:10 and perhaps Deut 33:17 (the horn of the unicorn). The square brackets are the editor's.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.9.14 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/9/14/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.9.14 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/9/14/).

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