Refutation of All Heresies 5.21.4

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: Metals mixed in gold or silver, and water in wine, can be separated by skill.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 212

Χρῶνται δὲ καὶ ἑτέροις παραδείγμασι, λέγοντες καταμεμῖχθαι καὶ χρυσίῳ χαλκόν, καὶ τέχνη τις εὕρηται ἡ διακρίνουσα τὸν χαλκὸν ἀπὸ τοῦ χρυσίου. Ὁμοίως δὲ κἂν ἐν ἀργύρῳ κασσίτερος ἢ χαλκὸς ἤ τι τῶν ὁμογενῶν καταμεμιγμένον εὑρεθῇ, μίξεως τινὶ τέχνῃ κρείττονι καὶ ταῦτα διακρίνεται. Ἤδη δέ τις καὶ ὕδωρ μεμιγμένον οἴνῳ διακρίνει.

English · Claude translation

They use other examples as well, saying that bronze is mixed even with gold, and an art has been found that separates the bronze from the gold. Likewise, if tin or bronze or something of the same kind is found mixed in silver, these too are separated by an art superior to the mixing. And already someone separates even water mixed with wine.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 212 · 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.

Topics

Heresy

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.21.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/21/4/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.21.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/21/4/).