Refutation of All Heresies 10.7.6

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: Anaxagoras posited like particles, Democritus and Epicurus atoms, Heraclides and Asclepiades loose masses, and Plato God, matter, and pattern.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 500

Ἀλλʼ ὁ μὲν Ἀναξαγόρας ἐξ ὁμοίων τοῖς γεννωμένοις, οἱ δὲ περὶ τὸν Δημόκριτον καὶ Ἐπίκουρον ἐξ ἀνομοίων τε καὶ ἀπαθῶν, τουτέστιν ἐκ τῶν ἀτόμων, οἱ δὲ περὶ τὸν Ποντικὸν Ἡρακλείδην καὶ Ἀσκληπιάδην ἐξ ἀνομοίων [μέν], παθητῶν δέ, καθάπερ τῶν ἀνάρμων ὄγκων, οἱ δὲ περὶ τὸν Πλάτωνα ἐκ τριῶν· εἶναι ταῦτα λέγουσι θεὸν καὶ ὕλην καὶ παράδειγμα.

English · Claude translation

But Anaxagoras from things like those generated; those around Democritus and Epicurus from things unlike and impassible, that is, from the atoms; those around Heraclides of Pontus and Asclepiades from things unlike [but] passible, such as the jointless masses; and those around Plato from three, which they say are God, matter, and the pattern.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 500 · 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.

Extrabiblical texts

Plato (Plato (works)) · allusion, medium confidence

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 10.7.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/7/6/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 10.7.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/7/6/).