Refutation of All Heresies 5.8.30

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, 160

Αὕτη, φησίν, ἐστὶν ἡ γῆ ἡ καλὴ καὶ ἀγαθή, ἣν λέγει Μωϋσῆς· Εἰσάξω ὑμᾶς εἰς γῆν καλὴν καὶ ἀγαθήν, εἰς γῆν ῥέουσαν γάλα καὶ μέλι. Τοῦτο, φησίν, ἐστὶ τὸ μέλι καὶ τὸ γάλα, οὗ γευσαμένους τοὺς τελείους ἀβασιλεύτους γενέσθαι καὶ μετασχεῖν τοῦ πληρώματος. Τοῦτο, φησίν, ἐστὶ τὸ πλήρωμα, διʼ οὗ πάντα γινόμενα γεννητὰ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀγεννήτου γέγονέ τε καὶ πεπλήρωται.

English · Claude translation

This, he says, is the fair and good land, of which Moses speaks: "I will bring you into a fair and good land, into a land flowing with milk and honey." This, he says, is the honey and the milk, tasting which the perfect become kingless and share in the Pleroma. This, he says, is the Pleroma, through which all begotten things that come to be from the unbegotten have come to be and been filled.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 160 · 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

Exod 3:8 · quotation, high confidence
Deut 31:20 · allusion, medium confidence

Topics

Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

The quotation combines Exod 3:8 and Deut 31:20. The Pleroma ("fullness") is the Gnostic name for the divine realm.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.8.30 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/8/30/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.8.30 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/8/30/).