Refutation of All Heresies 4.42.2

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: Hippolytus explains why he has digressed on magic.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 106

τούτου χάριν ὑπομνῆσαι θέλοντες τοὺς πολλοὺς περιεργότεροι ἐγενήθημεν πρὸς τὸ μὴ καταλιπεῖν τινὰ τόπον τοῖς ἐθέλουσι πλανᾶσθαι· ἀπηνέχθημεν δὲ οὐκ ἀλόγως εἴς τινα τῶν μάγων ἀπόρρητα, ἃ πρὸς μὲν τὸ προκείμενον οὐ πάνυ ἀναγκαῖα ἦν, πρὸς δὲ τὸ φυλάσσεσθαι τὴν τῶν μάγων πανοῦργον καὶ ἀσύστατον τέχνην εὔχρηστα ἐνομίζετο.

English · Claude translation

For this reason, wishing to remind the many, we have been rather thorough, so as to leave no room for those who wish to lead astray. Not without reason we were carried off into some of the secrets of the magi, which were not wholly necessary for the matter in hand, but were thought useful for guarding against the knavish and incoherent art of the magi.

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.

Topics

Heresy

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.42.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/42/2/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.42.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/42/2/).