Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 4.37.3

Hippolytus of Rome · Refutation of All Heresies · ca. 222–235 · Rome · Read in context

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 lamp in a cut-off flask is lowered to make the moon seem to descend.

Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 104

καὶ τῆς ἐτυμολογικῆς δὲ λαγήνου περικόψας τὸν τράχηλον καὶ τὸν πυθμένα, ἐνθεὶς λύχνον καὶ περιθείς τι τῶν ἐπιτηδείων πρὸς τὸ διαυγεῖν σχῆμα, τὰς ἐφʼ ὑψηλοῦ κρύβδην ὑπό τινος σκέπην τις τῶν συμπαικτῶν, μετὰ τὸ λαβεῖν τὸ σύνθημα ἐκ μετεώρου καταχεῖ τὰ μηχανήματα, ὥστε δοκεῖν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ κατιέναι τὴν σελήνην.

English · Claude translation

and, cutting off the neck and bottom of a … flask, putting a lamp inside and placing around it some shape suited to shine through, one of the accomplices, hidden high up under some cover, after receiving the signal, lets the devices down from aloft, so that the moon seems to come down from heaven.

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; the problem in this passage is discussed in the notes.
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

  • ἐτυμολογικῆς, describing the flask, is corrupt and is not translated.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.37.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/37/3/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 4.37.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/37/3/).

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