Refutation of All Heresies 4.33.2

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: The pitch trick is explained: it only seems to boil, and the hands are protected.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 98

Τῷ γὰρ λέβητι τῆς πίσσης ὡς ἐμβράσσοντι καθίησι τὰς χεῖρας· ὄξος δὲ καὶ νίτρον ἐμβαλὼν καὶ πίσσαν ὑγρὰν ὑποκαίει τὸν λέβητα· τὸ δὲ ὄξος ἄμα τῷ νίτρῳ μιγὲν ἀντιλαμβανόμενον θέρμης μικρᾶς κινεῖ τὴν πίσσαν ὡς μέχρι τῆς ἐπιφανείας κινεῖν πομφόλυγας καὶ φαντασίαν μόνην παρέχειν ζέοντος· φθάνει δὲ καὶ τὰς χεῖρας πολλάκις ἅλμῃ νιψάμενος, διὸ οὐ πάνυ τι καίει, κἂν ἀληθῶς ζέῃ· εἰ δὲ μυρσίνῃ καὶ νίτρῳ καὶ σμύρνῃ μετʼ ὄξους μίξας ἐπιχρίσας ἀπονίψει τὰς χεῖρας ἅλμῃ πλειστάκις, οὐ καίεται· τοὺς δὲ πόδας οὐ καίεται ἰχθυοκόλλᾳ καὶ σαλαμάνδρᾳ χρισάμενος.

English · Claude translation

He puts his hands into the cauldron of pitch as though it were boiling; but he has thrown in vinegar and soda and liquid pitch and lights a fire under the cauldron; the vinegar mixed with the soda, taking a little heat, stirs the pitch so as to send bubbles up to the surface and give only the appearance of boiling. He has also washed his hands many times beforehand with brine, so that it hardly burns at all even if it truly boils. And if he mixes myrtle, soda, and myrrh with vinegar, smears them on, and washes his hands many times in brine, he is not burned; and he is not burned in the feet if he smears them with fish glue and salamander.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 98 · 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. 4.33.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/33/2/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.33.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/33/2/).