Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 4.6.3

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 constellations were named for convenience, not because they resemble the animals.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 62

Οἶμαι δὲ μᾶλλον τοὺς ἀρχαίους [τὰ] ὀνόματα τῶν κειμένων ζώων ἐπὶ κλητοῖς ἄστροις προστεθεικέναι οἰκειώσεως χάριν, οὐχ ὁμοιοτρόπου φύσεως· τί γὰρ ἔχουσιν ὅμοιον ἄρκτῳ οἱ ἑπτὰ ἀστέρες διεστῶτες ἀπʼ ἀλλήλων; ἢ δράκοντος κεφαλῇ οἱ, ὥς φησιν ὁ Ἄρατος, πέντε; Ἀλλὰ δύο κροτάφοις, δύο δʼ ὄμμασιν, εἷς δʼ ὑπένερθεν Ἐσχατιὴν ἐπέχει γένυος δεινοῖο πελώρου.

English · Claude translation

I think rather that the ancients gave the names of the animals mentioned to certain stars for the sake of familiarity, not because of a like nature. For what likeness to a bear have the seven stars, standing apart from one another? Or to a dragon's head the five, as Aratus says: "Two on its temples, two on its eyes, and one below covers the tip of the dread monster's jaw"?

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 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.
Extrabiblical texts
  • Aratus, Phaen. 56–57 (Aratus, Phaenomena) · quotation, high confidence

Notes

Translation notes

  • The quotation is Aratus, Phaenomena 56–57.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.6.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/6/3/).

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

Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 4.6.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/6/3/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage