Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 1.19.3

Hippolytus of Rome · Refutation of All Heresies · ca. 222–235 · Rome · Read in context

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: Plato held God to be incorporeal and matter to be potential body.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 32

Τὸν μὲν θεόν φησιν ἀσώματόν τε καὶ ἀνείδεον καὶ μόνοις σοφοῖς ἀνδράσι καταληπτὸν εἶναι· τὴν δὲ ὕλην δυνάμει μὲν σῶμα, ἐνεργείᾳ δὲ οὐδέπω· ἀσχημάτιστον γὰρ αὐτὴν οὖσαν καὶ ἄποιον, προσλαβοῦσαν σχήματα καὶ ποιότητας γενέσθαι σῶμα.

English · Claude translation

He says that God is incorporeal and formless and comprehensible only to wise men; and that matter is body in potency but not yet in actuality; for being without shape and without quality, it became body by taking on shapes and qualities.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 32 · 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.

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (missing accent in the digital text; wrong accent in the digital text): καταληπτὸν εἷναι → καταληπτὸν εἶναι; αὐτὴν οὐσαν → αὐτὴν οὖσαν.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.19.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/19/3/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 1.19.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/19/3/).

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