Refutation of All Heresies 4.15.3

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: Hippolytus turns to physiognomy, divination from the face.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 80

Ἀλλʼ ἐπεὶ καὶ ἑτέρα τις τέχνη βαθυτέρα ἐστὶ παρὰ τοῖς πανσόφοις Ἑλλήνων μεριμνηταῖς, οἷς εὔχονται μαθητεύειν οἱ αἱρετικοὶ διὰ τὸ ταῖς αὐτῶν δόξαις χρῆσθαι πρὸς τὰ ὑπʼ αὐτῶν ἐπιχειρούμενα, καθὼς ὑποδειχθήσεται μετʼ οὐ πολύ (αὕτη δέ ἐστι μετωποσκοπικὴ μαντεία, μᾶλλον δὲ μανία), οὐδὲ ταύτην σιωπήσομεν.

English · Claude translation

But since there is also another, deeper art among the all-wise students of the Greeks, whose disciples the heretics pray to be, because they use their opinions for their own undertakings, as will be shown shortly (this is divination by the forehead, or rather madness), we shall not keep silent about this either.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 80 · 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.

Topics

Heresy

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.15.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/15/3/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.15.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/15/3/).