Hippolytus, Refutatio V.6: The Naassenes and the Serpent-Name
Refutatio omnium haeresium · the Naassene report
Ἔλεγχος κατὰ πασῶν αἱρέσεων
This edition presents the verbatim Hebrew of the passage beside a fresh English rendering and a critical apparatus. It is a provisional scholarly draft, released openly for correction and not yet reviewed by a credentialed editor.
The apparatus carries a running commentary, notes on the controlled vocabulary and the rendering chosen for each term, any doctrinally-live ambiguity preserved with both readings, and cross-references to the lexicon. The Hebrew is reproduced verbatim from the Hebrew Wikisource transcription; the standard modern English translation (Kaplan, 1979) is under copyright.
Πάνυ νομίζω πεπονημένως τὰ δόξαντα πᾶσι τοῖς καθ᾿ Ἕλληνάς τε καὶ βαρβάρους <φιλοσόφοις> περί τε τοῦ θείου καὶ τῆς κόσμου δημιουργίας ἐκτεθεῖσθαι ἐν ταῖς πρὸ ταύτης τέσσαρσι βίβλοις, ὧν οὐδὲ τὰ περίεργα παραλείψας οὐ τὸν τυχόντα πόνον ἀναδέδεγμαι τοῖς ἐντυγχάνουσι, προτρεπόμενος πολλοὺς πρὸς φιλομάθειαν καὶ ἀσφάλειαν τῆς περὶ τὴν ἀλήθειαν γνώσεως. περιλείπεται τοίνυν ἐπὶ τὸν τῶν αἱρέσεων ἔλεγχον ὁρμᾶν, οὗ) χάριν καὶ τὰ προειρημένα ἡμῖν ἐκτεθείμεθα· ἀφ᾿ ὡν τὰς ἀφορμὰς μετασχόντες οἱ αἱρεσιάρχαι δίκην παλαιορράφων συγ)καττύσαντες πρὸς τὸν ἔδιον νοῦν τὰ τῶν παλαιῶν σφάλματα ὡς καινὰ παρέθεσαν τοῖς πλανᾶσθαι δυναμένοις, ὡς ἐν τοῖς ἀκολούθοις δείξομεν. τὸ λοιπὸν προκαλεῖται ἡμᾶς ὁ χρόνος ἐπὶ τὴν τῶν προκειμένων πραγματείαν χωρεῖν, ἄρξασθαι δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν τετολμηκότων τὸν αἴτιον τῆς πλάνης γενόμενον ὄφιν ὑμνεῖν διά τινων ἐφηυρημένων κατ’ αὐτοῦ ἐνέργειαν λόγων. οἱ οὖν ἱερεῖς καὶ προστάται τοῦ δόγματος γεγένηνται πρῶτοι <οἱ> ἐπικληθέντες Ναασσηνοί, τῇ Ἑβραΐδι φωνῇ οὕτως ὠνομασμένοι· νάας δὲ ὁ ὄφις καλεῖται· μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα ἐπεκάλεσαν ἐαυτοὺς γνωστικούς, φάσκοντες μόνοι τὰ βάθη γινώσκειν· ἐξ ὡν ἀπομερισθέντες πολλοὶ πολυσχιδῆ τὴν αἵρεσιν ἐποίησαν <οὖσαν> μίαν, διαφόροις ὀνόμασι τὰ αὐτὰ ὡς διελέγξει προβαίνων ὁ λόγος. οὗτοι τῶν ἄλλων ἄλλων ἀπάντων † παρὰ τὸν αὐτῶν λόγον τιμῶσιν ἄνθρωπον καὶ υἱὸν ἀνθρώπου. ἔστι δὲ ἄνθρωπος οὑτος ἀρσενόθηλυς, καλεῖται δὲ Ἀδάμας παρ’ αὐτοῖς. ὕμνοι δὲ εἰς αὐτὸν γεγόνασι πολλοὶ καὶ ποικίλοι· οἱ δὲ ὕμνοι, ὡς δι’ ὀλίγων εἰπεῖν, λέγονται παρ᾿ αὐτοῖς τοιοῦτόν τινα τρόπον· ἀπὸ σοῦ πατὴρ καὶ διὰ σὲ μήτηρ, τὰ δύο ἀθάνατα ὀνόματα, αἰώνων γονεῖς, πολῖτα οὐρανοῦ, μεγαλώνυμε ἄνθρωπε«. διαιροῦσι δὲ αὐτὸν ὡς Γηρυόνην τριχῇ· ἔστι γὰρ τούτου, φασί, τὸ μὲν νοερόν, τὸ δὲ ψυχικόν, τὸ δὲ χοϊκόν, καὶ νομίζουσιν εἶναι τὴν γνῶσιν αὐτοῦ ἀρχὴν τοῦ δύνασθαι γνῶναι τὸν θεόν, λέγοντες οὕτως· »ἀρχὴ τελειώσεως γνῶσις ἀ(νθρώπου, θεοῦ δὲ) γνῶσις ἀπηρτισμένη τελείωσις‘. ταῦτα δὲ πάντα, φησί, τὰ νοερὰ καὶ ψυχικὰ καὶ χοϊκὰ κεχώρηκε καὶ κατῆλθ(εν εἰ)ς ἴνα ἄνθρωπον ὁμοῦ, Ἰησοῦν τὸν ἐκ τῆς Μαρίας γεγενημένον· καὶ ἐλάλουν, φησίν, ὁμοῦ κατὰ τὸ αὐτὸ οἱ τρεῖς οὑτοι ἄνθρωποι ἀπὸ τῶν ἰδίων οὐσιῶν τοῖς ἰδίοις ἕκαστος. ἔστι γὰρ τῶν ὅλων τρία γένη κατ’ αὐτούς, ἀγγελικόν, ψυχικόν, χοϊκόν· καὶ τρεῖς ἐκκλησίαι. ἀγγελική, ψυχική, χοϊκή ὀνόματα δὲ αὐταῖς ἐκλεκτή, κλητή, αἰχμάλωτος.
I consider that the opinions held by all the <philosophers> among Greeks and barbarians alike, concerning the divine and the fashioning of the world, have been set out with considerable labour in the four books before this one; and having passed over not even their meddlesome curiosities, I have taken on no ordinary toil for my readers, urging many toward love of learning and toward security in the knowledge that concerns the truth.
It remains, then, to press on to the refutation of the heresies, for the sake of which we set out what was said before. For the heresiarchs, taking their starting-points from those things, and stitching them together after their own mind like menders of old clothes, have served up the errors of the ancients as new to those capable of being led astray, as we shall show in what follows.
For the rest, the hour summons us to proceed to the treatment of what lies before us, and to begin from those who have dared to hymn the serpent that became the cause of the deception, by means of certain words devised in accordance with his working. The priests, then, and champions of the doctrine were first those called Naassenes, so named in the Hebrew tongue: for naas is what the serpent is called.
After this they called themselves knowers, claiming that they alone know the depths. From these many split off and made the heresy, which is <one>, into a many-branched thing, the same matters under different names, as the argument will show as it proceeds. These, beyond all others, † according to their own account, honour Man and the Son of Man.
This Man is male-female, and is called Adamas among them. Many and varied hymns have been composed to him; and the hymns, to put it briefly, are said among them in some such manner as this: “From you a father, and through you a mother, the two immortal names, parents of aeons — O citizen of heaven, greatly-named Man.”
They divide him threefold, like Geryon; for of him, they say, one part is intellective, one ensouled, one of dust. And they hold that the knowledge of him is the beginning of being able to know God, saying thus: “The beginning of perfection is knowledge of m(an, but of God) — knowledge is perfection completed.”
And all these things, he says, the intellective and the ensouled and the of-dust, went and came down together into one man, Jesus who was born of Mary. And these three men were speaking, he says, together and at the same time, each from his own substances to his own. For there are, according to them, three kinds of the whole: angelic, ensouled, of dust; and three churches: angelic, ensouled, of dust; and their names are Chosen, Called, Captive.
It remains, then, to press on to the refutation of the heresies, for the sake of which we set out what was said before. For the heresiarchs, taking their starting-points from those things, and stitching them together after their own mind like menders of old clothes, have served up the errors of the ancients as new to those capable of being led astray, as we shall show in what follows.
For the rest, the hour summons us to proceed to the treatment of what lies before us, and to begin from those who have dared to hymn the serpent that became the cause of the deception, by means of certain words devised in accordance with his working. The priests, then, and champions of the doctrine were first those called Naassenes, so named in the Hebrew tongue: for naas is what the serpent is called.
After this they called themselves knowers, claiming that they alone know the depths. From these many split off and made the heresy, which is <one>, into a many-branched thing, the same matters under different names, as the argument will show as it proceeds. These, beyond all others, † according to their own account, honour Man and the Son of Man.
This Man is male-female, and is called Adamas among them. Many and varied hymns have been composed to him; and the hymns, to put it briefly, are said among them in some such manner as this: “From you a father, and through you a mother, the two immortal names, parents of aeons — O citizen of heaven, greatly-named Man.”
They divide him threefold, like Geryon; for of him, they say, one part is intellective, one ensouled, one of dust. And they hold that the knowledge of him is the beginning of being able to know God, saying thus: “The beginning of perfection is knowledge of m(an, but of God) — knowledge is perfection completed.”
And all these things, he says, the intellective and the ensouled and the of-dust, went and came down together into one man, Jesus who was born of Mary. And these three men were speaking, he says, together and at the same time, each from his own substances to his own. For there are, according to them, three kinds of the whole: angelic, ensouled, of dust; and three churches: angelic, ensouled, of dust; and their names are Chosen, Called, Captive.
Provisional draft (pending scholarly review)
An orientation
This edition sets the verbatim original-language text beside a fresh English rendering and a critical apparatus: a running commentary on the passage, notes on the controlled vocabulary and the rendering chosen for each term, and cross-references to the lexicon and to related sections. It is a provisional scholarly draft, released openly for correction and not yet reviewed by a credentialed editor.