Refutation of All Heresies 7.31.4

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, 396

Τοῦτον δὲ αὐτὸν τὸν δίκαιον λόγον τὸν τῇ φιλίᾳ συναγωνιζόμενον Μοῦσαν ὁ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς προσαγορεύων, καὶ αὐτὸς αὑτῷ συναγωνίζεσθαι παρακαλεῖ, λέγων ὧδέ πως· εἰκάραι φημερίων ἕνεκεν τινός, ἄμβροτε Μοῦσα, ἡμετέρας μελέτας διὰ φροντίδος ἐλθεῖν εὐχομένων, νῦν αὖτε παρίστασο, Καλλιόπεια, ἀμφὶ θεῶν μακαρίων ἀγαθὸν λόγον ἐμφαίνοντι.

English · Claude translation

And this very just reason that fights alongside Love Empedocles calls the Muse, and he himself calls on her to fight alongside him, speaking somewhat as follows: “For if for the sake of any mortal, immortal Muse, it pleased you that our cares should come into your thought, now once again stand by me, Calliope, as I reveal a good account of the blessed gods.”

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 396 · 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; the problem in this passage is discussed in the notes.

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.

Extrabiblical texts

Empedocles, frag. 131 (Empedocles (fragments)) · quotation, high confidence

Notes

Translation notes

Empedocles, fragment 131. The opening is corrupt in the digital text (εἰκάραι φημερίων for εἰ γὰρ ἐφημερίων).

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.31.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/31/4/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.31.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/31/4/).