Refutation of All Heresies 4.41.1

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: A talking skull is made of wax and caul, with a hidden speaking tube.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 106

Κρανίον δὲ λαλεῖν ἐπὶ γῆς θέντες ἐπιτελοῦσι τούτῳ τῷ τρόπῳ· αὐτὸ μὲν πεποίηται ἐπιπλόου βοείου, πεπλασμένον [δὲ] κηρῷ τυρρηνικῷ καὶ γύψῳ ἀναπεποιημένῃ περιτεθέντος τοῦ ὑμένος ἔμφασιν κρανίου ἐνδείκνυται, ὃ πᾶσι λαλεῖν δοκεῖ ἐνεργοῦντος τοῦ ὀργάνου, καθʼ ὃν τρόπον καὶ ἐπὶ τοῖς παισὶ διηγησάμεθα· γεράνου ἢ τινὸς τοιούτου μακροτραχήλου ζώου φάρυγγα σκευάσας, προσθεὶς τῷ κρανίῳ λεληθότως ὁ συμπαίκτης ἃ θέλει φθέγγεται. Ὃ ἐπὰν ἀφανὲς γενέσθαι θέλῃ, ἀνθράκων πλῆθος κύκλῳ περιθεὶς ὡς θυμιῶν ἐμφαίνεται, ὧν τῆς θέρμης ὁ κηρὸς ἀντιλαμβανόμενος λύεται, καὶ οὕτως ἀφανὲς τὸ κρανίον γεγονέναι νομίζεται.

English · Claude translation

They make a skull placed on the ground speak in this way. The skull itself is made of an ox's caul, molded [and] with Etruscan wax and prepared gypsum; with the membrane wrapped around it, it gives the appearance of a skull, which seems to all to speak when the instrument is at work, in the way we described in the case of the boys: preparing the windpipe of a crane or some such long-necked animal, the accomplice, fitting it secretly to the skull, utters what he wishes. When he wants it to disappear, he places a heap of coals around it as if burning incense; the wax, catching their heat, melts, and so the skull is thought to have vanished.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 106 · 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. 4.41.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/41/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.41.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/41/1/).