Refutation of All Heresies 4.32.1

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: How magicians imitate thunder.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 94–96

Βροντὴ γίνεται τρόποις πλείοσι· λίθοι τε γὰρ πλείονες καὶ μείζονες κατὰ κρημνῶν φερόμενοι διὰ σανίδων ἐπικαταπίπτουσι χαλκοῖς ἐλάσμασι καὶ βροντῇ παραπλήσιον τελοῦσι ψόφον. καὶ σανίδα δὲ λεπτήν, ᾗπερ οἱ γναφεῖς τὴν ἐσθῆτα πιέζουσι, σχοινίῳ λεπτῷ περιειλήσαντες, εἶτα ῥοίζῳ τὴν σχοῖνον ἐπισπώμενοι ῥομβοῦσι τὴν σανίδα, ἡ δὲ δονουμένη ἦχον βροντῆς ἀπεργάζεται.

English · Claude translation

Thunder is produced in several ways. Many large stones, carried down steep slopes over planks, fall on bronze plates and make a noise like thunder. And they wind a thin cord around a thin board, such as fullers press clothes with, and then, pulling the cord with a whirring, they spin the board, and it, vibrating, produces a sound of thunder.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 94–96 · 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. 4.32.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/32/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.32.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/32/1/).