Refutation of All Heresies 6.40.4

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.

Summary: Marcus had the cup drunk quickly before the foam subsided, and people took it as divine.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 298–300

ὃ εἰ ἀπόθοιτό τις πληρωθέν, μετʼ οὐ πολὺ εἰς τὸ κατὰ φύσιν μέτρον πάλιν τραπήσεται, τῆς τοῦ φαρμάκου δυνάμεως σβεσθείσης τῇ τοῦ ὑγροῦ παραμονῇ. Διὸ μετὰ σπουδῆς τοῖς παροῦσι προσεδίδου πίνειν, οἱ δὲ ὡς θεῖόν τι καὶ θεῷ μεμελετημένον φρίσσοντες ἅμα καὶ σπεύδοντες ἔπινον.

English · Claude translation

and if one set the full cup aside, after a little it would go back to its natural measure, the drug's power being quenched as the liquid stood. Therefore he hastily gave it to those present to drink, and they drank it, shuddering as at something divine and devised by God, and at the same time hurrying.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 298–300 · 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

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.40.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/40/4/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.40.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/40/4/).