Refutation of All Heresies 5.9.16

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, 172

Οὗτος, φησίν, ἐστὶν ὀφθαλμός, τῇ τιμῇ καὶ τοῖς χρώμασι μαρτυρῶν τῷ λεγομένῳ. Τὸ δὲ ὄνομα τοῦ δευτέρου ποταμοῦ Γεῶν, οὗτος ὁ κυκλῶν πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν Αἰθιοπίας. Οὗτος, φησίν, ἐστὶν ἀκοή, λαβυρινθώδης τις ὤν. Καὶ ὄνομα τῷ τρίτῳ Τίγρις. Οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ πορευόμενος κατέναντι Ἀσσυρίων.

English · Claude translation

This, he says, is the eye, bearing witness to what is said by its value and its colors. "And the name of the second river is Geon; this is the one that encircles the whole land of Ethiopia." This, he says, is hearing, being something like a labyrinth. "And the name of the third is Tigris. This is the one that flows over against the Assyrians."

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 172 · 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.

Scripture

Gen 2:13–14 · quotation, high confidence

Topics

Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

The quotations are Gen 2:13–14 (LXX).

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (stray space inside a word in the digital text; wrong breathing in the digital text): Τὸ δὲ ὄ νομα → Τὸ δὲ ὄνομα; οὗτος ὀ κυκλῶν → οὗτος ὁ κυκλῶν.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.9.16 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/9/16/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.9.16 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/9/16/).