Refutation of All Heresies 9.13.2

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.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 462

ἣν παρέδωκέ τινι λεγομένῳ Σοβιαΐ, χρηματισθεῖσαν ὑπὸ ἀγγέλου, οὗ τὸ ὕψος σχοίνων κδ, ὃ γίνεται μίλια (??), τὸ δὲ πλάτος αὐτοῦ σχοίνων δ, καὶ ἀπὸ ὤμου εἰς ὦμον σχοίνων (??), τὰ δὲ ἴχνη τῶν ποδῶν αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ μῆκος σχοίνων (??) ἡμίσους, ἃ γίνεται μίλια δεκατέσσαρα, τὸ δὲ πλάτος σχοίνου ἑνὸς ἡμίσους, τὸ δὲ ὕψος ἡμισχοινίου.

English · Claude translation

which he handed on to a certain one called Sobiai, as revealed by an angel whose height was twenty-four schoenoi, which makes … miles, and his breadth four schoenoi, and from shoulder to shoulder … schoenoi, and the prints of his feet in length three and a half schoenoi, which make fourteen miles, and in breadth one and a half schoenoi, and in height half a schoenus.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 462 · 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

A schoenus is a Persian measure of distance (about 4 miles by Hippolytus's reckoning). Some numerals are unreadable in the digital text and are marked “…”; “three and a half” follows the sum of fourteen miles.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (wrong breathing/accent: οὗ): ἀγγέλου, οὖ τὸ → ἀγγέλου, οὗ τὸ.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.13.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/13/2/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.13.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/13/2/).