Refutation of All Heresies 6.48.4

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.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 320–322

Καθὼς οὖν [αἱ] ἑπτά, φησί, δυνάμεις δοξάζουσι τὸν λόγον, οὕτω καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ ἐν τοῖς βρέφεσι κλαίουσα. Διὰ τοῦτο δὲ φησὶ καὶ τὸν Δαβὶδ εἰρηκέναι· Ἐκ στόματος νηπίων καὶ θηλαζόντων κατηρτίσω αἶνον· καὶ πάλιν· Οἱ οὐρανοὶ διηγοῦνται δόξαν θεοῦ. Ἐπὰν δὲ ἐν πόνοις γένηται ἡ ψυχή, ἐπιβοᾷ οὐδὲν ἕτερον ἢ τὸ ὦ, ἐφʼ ᾧ ἀνιᾶται, ὅπως γνωρίσασα ἡ ἄνω ψυχὴ τὸ συγγενὲς αὐτῆς βοηθὸν αὐτῇ καταπέμψῃ.

English · Claude translation

“As, then, the seven powers,” he says, “glorify the Word, so also does the soul in infants, crying. For this reason,” he says, “David too said: ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nurslings you have prepared praise’; and again: ‘The heavens declare the glory of God.’ And when the soul is in pains, it cries out nothing other than omega, in which it is grieved, so that the soul above, recognizing its kin, may send down help to it.”

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 320–322 · 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.

Scripture

Ps 8:2 (8:3 LXX) · quotation, high confidence
Ps 19:1 (18:2 LXX) · quotation, high confidence

Topics

Heresy

Notes

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (unread letter in the digital text; omega is certain from the argument and from Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.14.8): τὸ (??), ἐφʼ → τὸ ὦ, ἐφʼ.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.48.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/48/4/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.48.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/48/4/).