Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 4.48.5

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-holder (Ophiuchus) holds the serpent back from the crown.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 118

Ἄνθρωπος δὲ ἕστηκεν ἑκατέραις ταῖς χερσὶ καρτερῶς κατασφίγγων καὶ εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω ἕλκων ἀπὸ τοῦ στεφάνου τὸν ὄφιν καὶ οὐκ ἐᾷ ἐφάπτεσθαι βιαζόμενον τοῦ στεφάνου τὸ θηρίον· Ὀφιοῦχον δὲ αὐτὸν ὁ Ἄρατος καλεῖ, ὅτι κατέχει τὴν ὁρμὴν τοῦ ὄφεως ἐπὶ τὸν στέφανον ἐλθεῖν πειρωμένου.

English · Claude translation

And a man stands, gripping the serpent firmly with both hands and dragging it back from the crown, and does not let the beast touch the crown, though it tries to force its way. Aratus calls him the Serpent-holder, because he checks the rush of the serpent as it tries to come at the crown.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 118 · 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

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.48.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/48/5/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 4.48.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/48/5/).

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