The text originally consisted of ten Books, but of these the
first three, and part of the fourth, are missing from the MS. The
Origen text supplies part of the lacuna, but two entire Books, and
part of a third are missing.
Now these special Books, we learn from the Introduction, dealt with
the doctrines and Mysteries of the Egyptians and Chaldaeans, whose
most sacred secrets Hippolytus boasts that he has divulged.
Curiously enough, not only are these Books lacking but in the Epitome
at the beginning of Book X. the summary of their contents is also
missing, a significant detail, which, as has been suggested by
critics, looks like a deliberate attempt on the part of some copyist
to suppress the information contained in the Books in question.
Incidentally this would seem to suggest that the worthy bishop was not
making an empty boast when he claimed to be a revealer of secrets.
But what is of special interest to us is the treatment meted out to
the Christian Mystics, whom Hippolytus stigmatizes as heretics, and
whose teaching he deliberately asserts to be simply that of the Pagan
Mysteries. He had come into possession of a secret document belonging
to one of these sects, whom he calls the Naassenes; this document he
gives in full, and it certainly throws a most extraordinary light upon
the relation which this early Christian sect held to exist between the
New, and the Old, Faith.
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