Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 5.8.41

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 derive "Eleusis" from "coming" down and "Anactoreion" from going back up.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 164

Πότνια δέ ἐστι, φησίν, ἡ γένεσις ἡ πνευματική, ἡ ἐπουράνιος, ἡ ἄνω· ἰσχυρὸς δέ ἐστιν ὁ οὕτω γεννώμενος. Ἔστι γὰρ λεγόμενον τὸ μυστήριον Ἐλευσὶν καὶ ἀνακτόρειον· Ἐλευσίν, ὅτι ἤλθομεν, φησίν, οἱ πνευματικοὶ ἄνωθεν ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἀδάμαντος ῥυέντες κάτω· ἐλεύσεσθαι γάρ, φησίν, ἐστὶν ἐλθεῖν, τὸ δὲ ἀνακτόρειον τὸ ἀνελθεῖν ἄνω.

English · Claude translation

The lady, he says, is the spiritual generation, the heavenly, the one above; and strong is he who is so begotten. For the mystery is called Eleusis and Anactoreion: Eleusis because we came, he says, the spiritual ones, flowing down from above from Adamas; for eleusesthai, he says, is to come; and the Anactoreion is to go back up.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 164 · 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

Translation notes

  • The etymologies play on ἐλεύσεσθαι "to come" and ἀνελθεῖν "to go up".

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.8.41 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/8/41/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 5.8.41 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/8/41/).

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