Refutation of All Heresies 4.37.2

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: A lit drum partly uncovered imitates the phases of the moon.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 104

κατόπτρου· ἀλλὰ καὶ τύμπανον πολλάκις ὑφʼ ὑψηλοῦ πόρρωθεν ὄρθριον περιβαλὼν ἐσθῆτι τινί, σκεπόμενον ὑπὸ τοῦ συμπαίκτου, ἵνα μὴ πρὸ καιροῦ φανῇ, κατόπιν θεὶς λύχνον, ἐπὰν τὸ σύνθημα παράσχῃ τῷ συμπαίκτῃ, τοσοῦτον ἀφαιρεῖ τοῦ σκεπάσματος, ὅσον ἂν συνεργῆσαι τὸ προςμίμημα κατὰ τὸν καιρὸν τῆς σελήνης τὸ σχῆμα. Χρίει δὲ τὰ διαφαίνοντα τοῦ τυμπάνου μέρη κινναβάρει καὶ κόμμι......

English · Claude translation

mirror. And often, too, placing a drum high up at a distance at dawn, covering it with some garment, hidden by the accomplice so that it may not appear before the time, and putting a lamp behind it, when he gives the signal to the accomplice, he removes as much of the covering as will help the imitation to match the shape of the moon at that time. He smears the transparent parts of the drum with cinnabar and gum ……

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 104 · 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. 4.37.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/37/2/).

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Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.37.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/37/2/).

Refutation of All Heresies 4.37.2

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 104

English · Claude translation

About this passage

Notes

Translation notes

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