Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 4.47.3

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 Dragon at the pole never sets and so, they say, sees everything.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 116

πάντων γὰρ δυνόντων τῶν κατὰ τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀστέρων μόνος οὗτος ὁ πόλος οὐδέποτε δύνει, ἀλλὰ ἄνω ὑπὲρ τὸν ὁρίζοντα ἐρχόμενος πάντα περισκοπεῖ καὶ ἐπιβλέπει καὶ λαθεῖν αὐτὸν τῶν πραττομένων, φησί, δύναται οὐδέν. Ἧχι μάλιστα μίσγονται δύσιές τε καὶ ἀντολαὶ ἀλλήλῃσι, τετάχθαι δή φησιν αὐτοῦ τὴν κεφαλήν.

English · Claude translation

for while all the stars in the heaven set, this pole alone never sets, but moving high above the horizon it surveys and oversees all things, and nothing done, he says, can escape it. "Where most of all settings and risings mingle with one another," there, he says, its head is placed.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 116 · 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.
Extrabiblical texts
  • Aratus, Phaen. 61–62 (Aratus, Phaenomena) · quotation, high confidence

Notes

Translation notes

  • The quotation is Aratus, Phaenomena 61–62.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.47.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/47/3/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 4.47.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/47/3/).

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