Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 4.5.9

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: Why should one man's fate to drown overrule the fates of all his shipmates?

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 60–62

Οὐ γὰρ ἔστι λέγειν ὅτι διʼ ἕνα πολλάκις, ᾧ εἵμαρται κατὰ πέλαγος φθαρῆναι, πάντες οἱ ἐν τῇ νηῒ συναπολοῦνται. Διατί γὰρ ἡ τούτου εἱμαρμένη τὰς πάντων νικᾷ, ἀλλʼ οὐχὶ διὰ τὸν ἕνα, ᾧ εἵμαρται ἐπὶ γῆς τελευτᾶν, πάντες περισώζονται;

English · Claude translation

For it cannot be said that often, because of one man who is fated to perish at sea, all in the ship perish with him. For why does his fate conquer the fates of all, and why are not all saved because of the one who is fated to die on land?

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 60–62 · 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.

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (misread letter in the digital text (Λ for Δ)): Λιατί → Διατί.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.5.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/5/9/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 4.5.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/5/9/).

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