Refutation of All Heresies 4.28.11

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: Where he lacks information the magician gives ambiguous answers that fit any outcome.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 92

Εἰ δὲ προειδείη ὅστις πάρεστι πευσόμενος, ἑτοιμότερος πρὸς πάντα γίνεται. Εἰ δὲ καὶ τὴν πεῦσιν προμάθῃ, γράφει τῷ φαρμάκῳ· καὶ ὡς ἐμπαράσκευος ἱκανώτερος νομίζεται σαφῶς γράψας τὸ ἐρωτώμενον. Εἰ δὲ ἀγνοεῖ, ὑποτοπάζει καὶ ἀμφίβολον καὶ ποικίλην ἀποφαίνεταί τι δεχόμενον μετάφρασιν, ἵνα τὴν μὲν ἀρχὴν ἄσημος οὖσα ἡ χρησμοδοσία εἰς πολλὰ ἔσται, ἐπὶ δὲ τῇ ἐκβάσει τῶν συμβησομένων πρὸς τὸ συμβὰν πρόρρησις νομίζηται.

English · Claude translation

If he knows in advance who is present to inquire, he is readier for everything. If he also learns the question beforehand, he writes with the drug; and as one well prepared he is thought more able, having clearly written what was asked. If he does not know, he guesses and declares something ambiguous and varied, open to interpretation, so that the oracle, being unclear at first, may apply to many things, and at the outcome of events may be thought a prediction of what happened.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 92 · 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. 4.28.11 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/28/11/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.28.11 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/28/11/).