Refutation of All Heresies 4.35.1

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: Bowl divination uses a blue-painted room reflected in water to imitate the sky.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 100–102

Ἀλλʼ οὐδὲ τὴν λεκανομαντείαν αὐτῶν οὖσαν πανούργημα σιωπήσομαι. Οἴκημα γάρ τι κεκλεισμένον σκευάσαντες καὶ κυανῷ τὸν ὄροφον χρίσαντες εἰς δὴ τὸ παρὸν ἐπάγονται σκεύη τινὰ κυάνεα καὶ ἀνατείνουσι, μέση δὲ λεκάνη κατὰ τῆς γῆς ὕδατος μεστὴ τίθεται, ἣ τὴν ἀντανάκλασιν τῆς κυανοῦ προςπεσοῦσαν δίκην οὐρανοῦ ἐνδείκνυσιν.

English · Claude translation

Nor shall I keep silent about their bowl divination, which is a piece of knavery. Preparing a closed room and painting the ceiling blue, they bring in for the occasion some blue vessels and set them up; and in the middle a basin full of water is placed on the ground, which, as the reflection of the blue falls on it, shows it like the sky.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 100–102 · 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. 4.35.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/35/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.35.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/35/1/).