Refutation of All Heresies 6.28.3

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 sun divides the world into the twelve signs of the zodiac.

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Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 268

Ὁ μὲν κόσμος ἐστὶν ὁ αἰσθητὸς εἷς, περὶ οὗ λέγομεν τανῦν. Διῄρηκε δʼ αὐτὸν ἀριθμητικός τις ὢν καὶ γεωμέτρης εἰς μοίρας δώδεκα. Καὶ ἔστι ταῖς μοίραις ταύταις ὀνόματα· Κριός, Ταῦρος, Δίδυμοι, Καρκίνος, Λέων, Παρθένος, Ζυγός, Σκορπίος, Τοξότης, Αἰγόκερως, Ὑδροχόος, Ἰχθύες.

English · Claude translation

The sensible world, of which we are now speaking, is one. He, being an arithmetician and geometer, has divided it into twelve parts. And these parts have names: Ram, Bull, Twins, Crab, Lion, Virgin, Balance, Scorpion, Archer, Capricorn, Water-bearer, Fishes.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 268 · 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.

Notes

Translation notes

  • The number “twelve” is unreadable in the digital text and is supplied from the twelve names that follow.

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (unread word in the digital text; the number is certain from the list that follows): μοίρας (??) Καὶ → μοίρας δώδεκα. Καὶ.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.28.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/28/3/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 6.28.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/28/3/).

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