Refutation of All Heresies 6.39.2

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: Marcus made the eucharistic cup turn purple or red to make people think grace had come upon it.

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Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 296–298

Καὶ δὴ πολλάκις λαμβάνων ποτήριον ὡς εὐχαριστῶν, καὶ ἐπὶ πλεῖον ἐκτείνων τὸν λόγον τῆς ἐπικλήσεως πορφύρεον τὸ κέρασμα ἐποίει φαίνεσθαι καί ποτε ἐρυθρόν, ὡς δοκεῖν τοὺς ἀπατωμένους χάριν τινὰ κατιέναι καὶ αἱματώδη δύναμιν παρέχειν τῷ πόματι.

English · Claude translation

And indeed, often taking a cup as if giving thanks and prolonging the word of the invocation, he made the mixture appear purple and sometimes red, so that those deceived thought that some grace was coming down and giving a blood-like power to the drink.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 296–298 · 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, Eucharist

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.39.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/39/2/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 6.39.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/39/2/).

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