Refutation of All Heresies 6.53.4
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: They make the slow outermost heaven, which takes thirty years to go round, an image of Limit, which encloses their thirty-named Mother.
Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 340
Καὶ ἐπεὶ ἀντεπεζεύχθη, φησί, τῇ τῶν ὅλων φορᾷ, ὠκυτάτῃ ὑπαρχούσῃ, ὁ ὕπερθεν οὐρανός, ὁ πρὸς αὐτῷ τῷ κύτει βαρύνων καὶ ἀντιταλαντεύων τὴν ἐκείνου ὠκύτητα τῇ ἑαυτοῦ βραδυτῆτι, ὡς ἐν τριάκοντα ἔτεσι τὴν περίοδον ἀπὸ σημείου ἐπὶ σημεῖον ποιεῖσθαι, εἰκόνα λέγουσιν αὐτὸν τοῦ ὅρου, τοῦ τὴν τριακοντώνυμον μητέρα αὐτῶν περιέχοντος·
English · Claude translation
And since, he says, the highest heaven was yoked in opposition to the motion of the universe, which is very swift, the heaven that presses on the very vault and counterbalances the swiftness of the other by its own slowness, so that it completes its circuit from sign back to sign in thirty years, they say that it is an image of Limit, which encloses their Mother of thirty names;
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- Limit (Horos) is the Valentinian boundary-power; the thirty-year circuit is that of the planet Saturn.
Cite this passage
Hippolytus, Haer. 6.53.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/53/4/).
The SBL abbreviation for this work has not been checked yet.
Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 6.53.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/53/4/).
Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)
Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text