Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 5.8.9

Hippolytus of Rome · Refutation of All Heresies · ca. 222–235 · Rome · Read in context

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: They claim the Samothracian mysteries teach their Primal Man.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 152

Τουτέστι, φησί, τὸ μέγα καὶ ἄρρητον Σαμοθρᾴκων μυστήριον, ὃ μόνοις ἔξεστιν εἰδέναι τοῖς τελείοις, φησίν, ἡμῖν. Διαρρήδην γὰρ οἱ Σαμόθρᾳκες τὸν Ἀδὰμ ἐκεῖνον παραδιδόασιν ἐν τοῖς μυστηρίοις τοῖς ἐπιτελουμένοις παρʼ αὐτοῖς ἀρχάνθρωπον.

English · Claude translation

This, he says, is the great and unspeakable mystery of the Samothracians, which only we, the perfect, he says, may know. For the Samothracians explicitly hand down that Adam as the Primal Man in the mysteries celebrated among them.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 152 · 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

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (misread letter in the digital text): Λδὰμ → Ἀδὰμ.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.8.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/8/9/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.8.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/8/9/).

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