Refutation of All Heresies 4.4.1

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: Nor can the moment of birth be defined precisely.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 56

Τούτῳ τῷ λόγῳ ἀδύνατόν ἐστιν ἐκ τῆς συλλήψεως στῆσαι τὸν ὡροσκόπον. ἀλλʼ οὐδὲ ἐξ ἀποτέξεως. Πρῶτον μὲν γὰρ ἄπορόν ἐστι τὸ πότε ῥηθήσεται ἀπότεξιν εἶναι· ἆρά γε ὅταν ἄρξηται προκύπτειν εἰς τὸν ψυχρὸν ἀέρα τὸ ἀποτικτόμενον, ἢ ὅταν ὀλίγον ἐξίσχῃ, ἢ ὅταν εἰς τὴν γῆν κατενεχθῇ; οὐδʼ ἐν ἑκάστῳ τούτων δυνατόν ἐστι τὸ ἀκριβὲς τῆς ἀποτέξεως καταλαβέσθαι ἢ χρόνον ὁρίζειν.

English · Claude translation

By this argument it is impossible to fix the horoscope from conception; but not from delivery either. For first, it is hard to say when delivery is to be called delivery: is it when the child begins to emerge into the cold air, or when it has come out a little, or when it has been brought down to the ground? Nor in any of these cases is it possible to grasp the precise moment of delivery or to define its time.

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; 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.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.4.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/4/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.4.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/4/1/).