Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 4.48.8

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 Great Bear, which the Greeks steer by, stands for a creation that turns men back.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 120

Μεγάλη δὲ ἐστὶν Ἄρκτος ἡ Ἑλίκη, φησίν, μεγάλης κτίσεως σύμβολον, πρὸς ἣν πλέουσιν Ἕλληνες, τουτέστι πρὸς ἣν παιδεύονται καὶ διὰ τῶν τοῦ βίου φερόμενοι κυμάτων ἐπακολουθοῦσιν, ἑλίκην τινὰ οὖσαν τὴν τοιαύτην κτίσιν ἢ διδασκαλίαν ἢ σοφίαν, εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω ἄγουσαν τοὺς ἑπομένους τῇ τοιαύτῃ κτίσει. Στροφὴ γὰρ τις τῆς Ἑλίκης προσηγορία καὶ ἀνακύκλωσις ἐπὶ τὰ αὐτὰ εἶναι δοκεῖ.

English · Claude translation

The Great Bear is Helice, he says, a symbol of the great creation, toward which the Greeks sail, that is, by which they are trained and which they follow as they are carried through the waves of life; such a creation or teaching or wisdom being a kind of "helix," leading back those who follow such a creation. For the name Helice seems to mean a turning and a circling back to the same things.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 120 · 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

  • The name Helice is linked with ἕλιξ "spiral".

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.48.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/48/8/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 4.48.8 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/48/8/).

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