Refutation of All Heresies 4.3.10

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, 56

Ἔτι δὲ καὶ ὡς κατὰ τὰ λοιπὰ μέρη τοῦ σώματος διαφέρουσιν ἀλλήλων αἱ γυναῖκες κατὰ ἐνέργειάν τε καὶ τὰς λοιπὰς αἰτίας, οὕτως καὶ κατὰ τὴν τῆς μήτρας ἐνέργειαν τὰς μὲν θᾶττον συλλαμβανούσας τὰς δὲ βράδιον. Καὶ οὐ παράδοξον, ὅπου καὶ αὐταὶ αὑταῖς συγκρινόμεναι νυνὶ μὲν εὐσύλληπτοι θεωροῦνται νυνὶ δὲ οὐδαμῶς. Τούτου δʼ οὕτως ἔχοντος ἀδυνάτως ἐσα λέγειν πρὸς ἀκρίβειαν πότε συνέχεται τὸ καταβληθὲν σπέρμα, ἵνα ἀπὸ τούτου τοῦ χρόνου στήσωσιν οἱ Χαλδαῖοι τῆς γενέσεως τὸν ὡροσκόπον.

English · Claude translation

Moreover, just as women differ from one another in the other parts of the body in activity and other causes, so also in the activity of the womb, some conceiving more quickly and some more slowly. And this is not surprising, since the same women, compared with themselves, are seen now to conceive easily and now not at all. This being so, it is impossible to say precisely when the deposited seed is retained, so that from this time the Chaldeans may fix the horoscope of the birth.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 56 · 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; the problem in this passage is discussed in the notes.

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.

Notes

Translation notes

The words ἀδυνάτως ἐσα are corrupt in the digital text; the sense "it is impossible" is clear.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (wrong breathing in the digital text): ἴνα ἀπὸ → ἵνα ἀπὸ.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.3.10 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/3/10/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.3.10 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/3/10/).