HIPPOLYTUS

REFUTATIO [REFUTATION OF ALL HERESIES]

[Translated by F. Legge, in Philosophumena, or the Refutation of all Heresies, New York, 1921.]
 

BOOK V

8.39-40

[speaking of Attis as worshipped in the Cybele cult:]

... The Phrygians also say, however, that he is a "green ear of corn reaped"; and following the Phrygians, the Athenians, when initiating (any one) into the Eleusinian (Mysteries) also show to those who have been made epopts there--a green ear of corn reaped in silence. And this ear of corn is also for the Athenians the great and perfect spark of light from the Unportrayable One; just as the hierophant himself, not indeed castrated like Attis, but rendered a eunuch by hemlock, and cut off from all fleshly generation ...
 
 

BOOK IX

12.11-12

[mentions a Christian "eunuch priest":]

... Then Marcia, having succeeded in her petition to Commodus, gave the liberating letter to Hyacinthus, a eunuch priest [spadonti presbuterooi], who took it and sailed for Sardinia, and having handed to the Administrator of the place for the time being, set free all the martyrs with the exception of Callistus. But he, on his knees and weeping, besought that he also might be set free. Then Hyacinthus was moved by entreaty and required the Administrator [to do this] affirming that he was the foster-father of Marcia and arranging to hold the Administrator harmless. And he being persuaded [in turn] set Callistus free also...