Refutation of All Heresies 4.32.3

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.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 96

σκότος δὲ ἐν οἴκῳ ποιήσας ἐπεισάγειν φάσκει θεοὺς ἢ δαίμονας, καὶ εἴ πη ἀπαιτεῖ τις Ἀσκληπιὸν δεικνύναι, ἐπικαλεῖται οὕτως λέγων· Υἷα πάλαι φθίμενον, πάλιν ἄμβροτον, Ἀπόλλωνος κικλῄσκω λοιβαῖσι μολεῖν ἐπίκουρον ἐμαῖσιν· ὅς ποτε καὶ νεκύων ἀμενηνῶν μυρία φῦλα, Ταρτάρου εὐρώεντος ἀεικλαύτοισι μελάθροις δύσνοστον πλώοντα ῥόον, κελαδόν τε δίαυλον πᾶσιν ἴσον τελέσαντʼ ἄνδρεσσι [κατα]θνήτοισιν, λίμνῃ πὰρ γοόωντα καὶ ἄλλιτα κωκύοντα, αὐτὸς ἀμειδήτοιο ἐρύσαο Φερσεφονείης· εἴτʼ ἐφέπεις Τρίκης ἱερῆς ἕδος, εἴτʼ ἐρατεινὴν Πέργαμον, εἴτʼ ἐπὶ τοῖσιν Ἰαονίαν Ἐπίδαυρον, δεῦρο, μάκαρ, καλέει σε μάγων [πρόμος] ὧδε [παρεῖναι].

English · Claude translation

Making darkness in a house, he claims to bring in gods or demons; and if anyone asks him to show Asclepius, he invokes him thus, saying: "Son of Apollo, perished long ago and again immortal, I call you to come as helper to my libations; you who once rescued the countless tribes of feeble dead, who sail the hard-returning stream in the ever-wailing halls of mouldy Tartarus, the roaring double course that all mortal men alike complete, mourning by the lake and wailing without end: you yourself drew them from unsmiling Persephone. Whether you haunt the seat of holy Tricca, or lovely Pergamum, or besides them Ionian Epidaurus, come here, blessed one: the [chief] of the magi calls you to [be present] here."

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 96 · 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 hymn is otherwise unknown; its source is unidentified. Square brackets are the editor's.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.32.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/32/3/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.32.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/32/3/).