Refutation of All Heresies 5.7.34

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, 146

Τοῦτο, φησίν, ἐστὶ τὸ μέγα καὶ ἄρρητον Ἐλευσινίων μυστήριον ὕε κύε· καὶ ὅτι, φησίν, αὐτῷ πάντα ὑποτέτακται, καὶ τοῦτʼ ἐστὶ τὸ εἰρημένον· Εἰς πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν ἐξῆλθεν ὁ φθόγγος αὐτῶν· ὡς τὸ τὴν ῥάβδον ἄγει κινήσας ὁ Ἑρμῆς, αἱ δὲ τρίζουσαι ἕπονται αἱ ψυχαὶ συνεχῶς οὕτως, ὡς διὰ τῆς εἰκόνος ὁ ποιητὴς ἐπιδέδειχε λέγων· ὡς δʼ ὅτε νυκτερίδες μυχῷ ἄντρου θεσπεσίοιο τρίζουσαι ποτέονται, ἐπεί κέ τις ἀποπέσῃσιν ὁρμαθοῦ ἐκ πέτρης, ἀνά τʼ ἀλλήλῃσιν ἔχονται. Πέτρης, φησί, τοῦ Ἀδάμαντος λέγει.

English · Claude translation

This, he says, is the great and unspeakable mystery of the Eleusinians: "Rain! Conceive!" And that all things, he says, are subjected to him, and this is what is said: "Their voice has gone out into all the earth"; just as Hermes leads them on, moving his wand, and the souls follow continually squeaking, as the poet has shown through the image, saying: "As when bats in the recess of a wondrous cave fly squeaking, when one falls from the cluster off the rock, and they cling to one another." "Rock," he says, he says of Adamas.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 146 · 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.

Scripture

Ps 19:4 (18:5 LXX) · quotation, high confidence
Rom 10:18 · allusion, medium confidence
1 Cor 15:27 · echo, medium confidence

Extrabiblical texts

Homer, Od. 24.6–8 (Homer, Odyssey) · quotation, high confidence

Topics

Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

The quotations are Ps 19:4 (18:5 LXX; cf. Rom 10:18) and Homer, Odyssey 24.6–8. "All things subjected to him" echoes 1 Cor 15:27.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (missing breathing and accent in the digital text): κινήσας ο Ἑρμῆς → κινήσας ὁ Ἑρμῆς.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.7.34 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/7/34/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.7.34 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/7/34/).