Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 7.13.1

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: Heresies are like a monster-filled sea, such as the Sicilian sea of the Odyssey, which a wise hearer should sail past.

Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 346

Πελάγει κλυδωνιζομένῳ ὑπὸ βίας ἀνέμων ἐοικότα ὁρῶντας τὰ τῶν αἱρετικῶν δόγματα ἐχρῆν τοὺς ἀκροατὰς παραπλεῖν ἐπιζητοῦντας τὸν εὔδιον λιμένα. Τὸ γὰρ τοιοῦτον πέλαγός ἐστι καὶ θηριῶδες καὶ δύσβατον, ὡς εἰπεῖν τὸ Σικελιωτικόν, ἐν ᾧ μυθεύεται Κύκλωψ καὶ Χάρυβδις καὶ Σκύλλα... καὶ τὸ Σειρήνων ὄρος, ὃ διαπλεῦσαι φάσκουσι τὸν Ὀδυσσέα Ἑλλήνων οἱ ποιηταὶ πανούργως χρησάμενον τῇ τῶν παραξένων θηρίων δεινότητι· διάφορος γὰρ ἡ τούτων ὠμότης πρὸς τοὺς διαπλέοντας ἦν.

English · Claude translation

Seeing that the doctrines of the heretics are like a sea tossed by the force of winds, the hearers ought to sail past them, seeking the calm harbor. For such a sea is both full of monsters and hard to pass, like, one might say, the Sicilian sea, in which the Cyclops, Charybdis, and Scylla are said in fable to be … and the mountain of the Sirens, which the poets of the Greeks say Odysseus sailed through, dealing cunningly with the terror of those strange beasts; for their savagery toward those who sailed through was of various kinds.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 346 · 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; the problem in this passage is discussed in the notes.
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.
Extrabiblical texts
  • Homer, Od. 12 (Homer, Odyssey) · allusion, high confidence
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • The printed text marks a gap after Scylla. The imagery is from Homer, Odyssey 9 and 12.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.13.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/13/1/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 7.13.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/13/1/).

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