Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 4.15.2

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: When their method fails, the diviners make excuses; any would-be heresiarch could exploit such nonsense.

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

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 80

Τούτους δὲ κατανοῶ σχολὴν ἄγοντας καὶ ψήφῳ γεγυμνασμένους τεθεληκέναι διὰ τῆς παραδοθείσης αὐτοῖς ἐκ παίδων τέχνης [θέλειν] εὐδοκιμοῦντας μάντεις προσαγορεύεσθαι· οἳ ἄνω κάτω τὰ στοιχεῖα καταμετροῦντες εἰς λῆρος ἐχώρησαν. Ἐπὰν γὰρ ἀποτύχωσι, τὸ ἄπορον προβάλλοντες λέγουσι, μήτι τοῦτο ὄνομα μενικὸν οὐκ ἐγένετο ἀλλὰ ἐπίθετον· ὡς καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ Ὀδυσσέως καὶ Αἴαντος ἐκπεσόντες ἐνεκάλουν. Τίς ἐκ ταύτης τῆς θαυμαστῆς φιλοσοφίας ἀφορμὰς λαβὼν καὶ θελήσας αἱρεσιάρχης καλεῖσθαι οὐ δοξασθήσεται;

English · Claude translation

I observe that these, having leisure and being practiced in reckoning, have wished, through the art handed down to them from childhood, to be called renowned seers; measuring the letters up and down, they have come to nonsense. For when they fail, they put forward the difficulty and say that perhaps this was not a proper name but an epithet, as they pleaded when they came to grief over Odysseus and Ajax. Who, taking starting points from this marvelous philosophy and wishing to be called a heresiarch, will not win renown?

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 80 · 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.
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • μενικὸν is probably corrupt; the sense "proper name" is clear from 4.14.17.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.15.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/15/2/).

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

Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 4.15.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/15/2/).

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