Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 6.19.2

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: Simon said his Thought was the lost sheep, who once dwelt in Helen of Troy and caused the Trojan war.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 252–254

Εἶν[αι δʼ ἔλ]εγε ταύτην τὸ πρόβατον τὸ πεπλανημένον, ἥτις ἀεὶ καταγινομένη ἐν γυναιξὶν ἐτάρασσε τὰς ἐν κόσμῳ δυνάμεις διὰ τὸ ἀνυπέρβλητον αὐτῆς κάλλος, ὅθεν καὶ ὁ Τρωϊκὸς πόλεμος διʼ αὐτὴν γεγένηται. Ἐν γὰρ τῇ κατʼ ἐκεῖνο καιροῦ γενομένῃ Ἑλένῃ ἐνῷκησεν αὕτη ἡ ἐπίνοια, καὶ οὕτως πασῶν ἐπιδικαζομένων αὐτῆς τῶν ἐξουσιῶν, στάσις καὶ πόλεμος ἐπανέστη, ἐν οἷς ἐφάνη ἔθνεσιν.

English · Claude translation

He said that she was the lost sheep, who, always dwelling in women, troubled the powers in the world because of her unsurpassable beauty; whence also the Trojan war came about because of her. For this Thought dwelt in the Helen who lived at that time, and so, as all the authorities laid claim to her, strife and war arose among the nations in which she appeared.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 252–254 · 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
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (wrong accent in the digital text): Τρωϊκός πόλεμος → Τρωϊκὸς πόλεμος.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.19.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/19/2/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 6.19.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/19/2/).

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