Refutation of All Heresies 4.28.2

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 magician pretends to burn the written question while secretly keeping it.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 88

Εἶτα συμπτύξας τὸν χάρτην τῷ παιδὶ δοὺς ἀποπέμπει καυθησόμενον, ἵνʼ οἴχ[ηται φέρ]ων ὁ καπνὸς τοῖς δαίμοσι τὰ γράμματα· τοῦ δὲ τὸ κελευσθὲν πράξοντος πρῶτα μὲν ἀφαιρεῖ τοῦ χάρτου μοίρας ἴσας· πλείονας δέ τινας σκήπτεται ἐγγράφειν ἑβραϊκοῖς γράμμασι δαίμονας, εἶτα μάγων Αἰγυπτίων θύσας τὸ καλούμενον κῦφι θυμίαμα ταῦτα μὲν ἐπαιωρήσας κατὰ τοῦ θυμιάματος φέρει· ὅ δʼ ἔτυχε γράψας ὁ πυνθανόμενος θεὶς κατὰ τῶν ἀνθράκων ἔκαυ[σεν],

English · Claude translation

Then, folding the paper, he gives it to the boy and sends him off to burn it, so that the smoke may go carrying the letters to the demons. While the boy is doing what he was ordered, he first tears off equal parts of the paper, and on some more of them he pretends to write the names of demons in Hebrew letters; then, burning the incense of the Egyptian magi called kyphi, he holds these up over the incense and carries them; and what the inquirer happened to write, he placed on the coals and burned it,

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 88 · 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.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.28.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/28/2/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.28.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/28/2/).