Refutation of All Heresies 5.27.2

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: The initiate swears secrecy, enters to the Good one, and drinks living water as a ritual washing.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 230

Ἔστι δὲ ὁ ὅρκος οὗτος· Ὀμνύω τὸν ἐπάνω πάντων, τὸν ἀγαθὸν, τηρῆσαι τὰ μυστήρια ταῦτα καὶ ἐξειπεῖν μηδενί, μηδὲ ἀνακάμψαι ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἐπὶ τὴν κτίσιν. Ἐπειδὰν δὲ ὀμόσῃ τοῦτον τὸν ὅρκον, εἰσέρχεται πρὸς τὸν ἀγαθὸν καὶ βλέπει, ὅσα ὀφθαλμὸς οὐκ εἶδε καὶ οὖς οὐκ ἤκουσε καὶ ἐπὶ καρδίαν ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἀνέβη, καὶ πίνει ἀπὸ τοῦ ζῶντος ὕδατος, ὅπερ ἐστὶ λουτρὸν αὐτοῖς, ὡς νομίζουσι, πηγὴ ζῶντος ὕδατος ἁλλομένου.

English · Claude translation

This is the oath: “I swear by the one who is above all, the Good, to keep these mysteries and to divulge them to no one, and not to turn back from the Good to the creation.” When he has sworn this oath, he enters to the Good one and sees what eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not entered into the heart of man, and he drinks from the living water, which for them, as they think, is a washing, a spring of living water springing up.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 230 · 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

1 Cor 2:9 · quotation, high confidence
John 4:14 · allusion, high confidence

Topics

Heresy

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.27.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/27/2/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 5.27.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/5/27/2/).