Refutation of All Heresies 1.14.5

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: Xenophanes cited fossils of sea creatures inland as proof that the land was once under the sea.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 28

ὁ δὲ Ξενοφάνης μῖξιν τῆς γῆς πρὸς τὴν θάλασσαν γενέσθαι δοκεῖ καὶ τῷ χρόνῳ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὑγροῦ λύεσθαι, φάσκων τοιαύτας ἔχειν ἀποδείξεις, ὅτι ἐν μέσῃ γῇ καὶ ὄρεσιν εὑρίσκονται κόγχαι, καὶ ἐν Συρρακούσαις δὲ ἐν ταῖς λατομίαις λέγει εὑρῆσθαι τύπον ἰχθύος καὶ φωκῶν, ἐν δὲ Πάρῳ τύπον ἀφύης ἐν τῷ βάθει τοῦ λίθου, ἐν δὲ Μελίτῃ πλάκας συμπάντων θαλασσίων.

English · Claude translation

while Xenophanes thinks that a mixing of earth with the sea took place, and that in time it is dissolved by moisture, claiming to have such proofs as these: that shells are found inland and in mountains; and in Syracuse, he says, in the quarries, the imprint of a fish and of seals was found, and in Paros the imprint of an anchovy deep in the stone, and in Malta slabs of all kinds of sea creatures.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 28 · 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.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.14.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/14/5/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.14.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/14/5/).