Refutation of All Heresies 5.19.11

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.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 202

Αὗται οὖν εἰσὶν αἱ εἰκόνες αἱ τῶν διαφόρων ζῴων ἰδέαι. Γέγονεν οὖν ἐκ πρώτης τῶν τριῶν ἀρχῶν συνδρομῆς μεγάλης μεγάλη τις ἰδέα σφραγῖδος, οὐρανὸς καὶ γῆ. Σχῆμα δὲ ἔχουσιν ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ μήτρᾳ παραπλήσιον τὸν ὀμφαλὸν ἐχούσῃ μέσον, καὶ εἰ, φησίν, ὑπὸ ὄψιν ἀγαγεῖν θέλει τις τὸ σχῆμα τοῦτο, ἔγκυον μήτραν ὁποίου βούλεται ζῴου τεχνικῶς ἐρευνησάτω, καὶ εὑρήσει τὸ ἐκτύπωμα τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ τῆς γῆς καὶ τῶν ἐν μέσῳ πάντων ἀπαραλλάκτως ὑποκειμένων·

English · Claude translation

These images, then, are the forms of the various living creatures. From the first great concourse of the three principles came a great form of a seal, heaven and earth. Heaven and earth have a shape like a womb with the navel in the middle; and if,” he says, “anyone wishes to bring this shape before his eyes, let him skillfully examine the pregnant womb of whatever animal he likes, and he will find the impress of heaven and earth and of all things between lying there without variation;

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 202 · 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

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (missing accent in the digital text): τὸ ἐκτυπωμα → τὸ ἐκτύπωμα.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.19.11 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/19/11/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.19.11 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/19/11/).