Refutation of All Heresies 7.15.1
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: Aristotle divides substance into genus, species, and the individual, which cannot be further divided.
Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 348
Ἀριστοτέλης μὲν οὖν τὴν οὐσίαν διαιρεῖ τριχῶς. Ἔστι γὰρ αὐτῆς τὸ μέν τι γένος, τὸ δέ τι εἶδος, ὡς ἐκεῖνος λέγει, τὸ δέ τι ἄτομον· ἄτομον δὲ οὐ διὰ σμικρότητα σώματος, ἀλλὰ φύσει τομὴν ἀναδέξασθαι μηδʼ ἥντινα οὖν δυνάμενον.
English · Claude translation
Aristotle, then, divides substance in three ways. For one part of it is genus, another species, as he says, and another the individual; and it is individual (atomon, “uncut”) not because of smallness of body but because by nature it cannot admit any division whatever.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- οὐσία is rendered “substance” in this summary of Aristotle's categories.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (wrong accent: οὖν): μὲν οὗν → μὲν οὖν; ἥντινα οὗν → ἥντινα οὖν.
Cite this passage
Hippolytus, Haer. 7.15.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/15/1/).
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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 7.15.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/15/1/).
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