Refutation of All Heresies 4.31.2

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: A flammable mixture that seems to burn without harming.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 94

Καὶ τὸ διὰ τῆς ἅλμης δὲ πάνυ χρήσιμον. Ἔστι δὲ ἀφρὸς θαλάσσης ἐν ὀστρακίνῳ στάμνῳ μετὰ γλυκέων ἡψημένος, ᾧ ζέσαντι λύχνον ἐὰν προσάγῃς καιόμενον, ἁρπάσαν τὸ πῦρ ἐξάπτεται, καὶ καταχυθὲν τῆς κεφαλῆς οὐ καίει τὸ σύνολον. Εἰ δὲ καὶ μαννῇ ἐπιπάσσεις ζέοντι, πολλῷ μᾶλλον ἐξάπτεται. Βέλτιον δὲ δρᾷ, εἰ καὶ θείου τι προςλάβοι.

English · Claude translation

And the trick with brine is very useful. It is sea foam boiled with sweet wine in an earthenware jar; if you bring a burning lamp to it as it boils, it catches the fire and blazes, and poured on the head it does not burn at all. If you also sprinkle frankincense powder on it as it boils, it blazes much more. It works better still if it takes some sulfur too.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 94 · 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. 4.31.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/31/2/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 4.31.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/4/31/2/).