Refutation of All Heresies 5.26.28

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: Omphale (Babel) seduced Heracles and stripped him of his power, so his mission failed.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 226

Τῶν ἐθνῶν γὰρ εἶναι ταῦτα τὰ ὀνόματα, ἃ μετωνόμασται, φασίν, ἀπὸ τῆς ἐνεργείας τῶν μητρικῶν ἀγγέλων. Ὡς δʼ ἐδόκει κατηγωνίσθαι, προσπλέκεται αὐτῷ ἡ Ὀμφάλη, ἥτις ἐστὶ Βάβελ ἢ Ἀφροδίτη, καὶ ὑποσύρει τὸν Ἡρακλέα καὶ ἀποδιδύσκει τὴν δύναμιν αὐτοῦ, τὰς ἐντολὰς τοῦ Βαρούχ, ἃς ἐνετείλατο Ἐλωείμ, καὶ μετενδιδύσκει τὴν ἰδίαν αὐτῆς στολήν, τουτέστι τὴν δύναμιν τῆς Ἐδὲμ τῆς κάτω δυνάμεως, καὶ οὕτως ἀτελὴς ἐγένετο τοῦ Ἡρακλέους ἡ προφητεία καὶ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ.

English · Claude translation

“For these are the names given by the Gentiles,” they say, “which were renamed from the activity of the maternal angels. But when he seemed to have prevailed, Omphale, who is Babel or Aphrodite, entwines herself with him, draws Heracles aside, and strips him of his power, the commands of Baruch which Elohim commanded, and clothes him instead in her own robe, that is, the power of Eden, the power below; and so the prophecy of Heracles and his works were left incomplete.”

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 226 · 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. 5.26.28 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/26/28/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.26.28 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/26/28/).