Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 7.15.2

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: A genus is like a heap of many seeds from which all species come; an example will make this clear.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 348

Τὸ δὲ γένος ἐστὶν οἱονεὶ σωρός τις ἐκ πολλῶν καὶ διαφόρων καταμεμιγμένος σπερμάτων, ἀφʼ οὗ γένους οἱονεί τινος σωροῦ πάντα τὰ τῶν γεγονότων εἴδη διάκεινται. Καὶ ἔστι τὸ γένος [αἴτι]ον πᾶσι τοῖς γεγενημένοις ἀρκοῦν. Ἵνα δὲ σαφὲς ἔσται τὸ λεγόμενον, δείξω διά του παραδείγματος, διʼ οὗ ἐπὶ τὴν ὅλην τοῦ Περιπάτου θεωρίαν ἀναδραμεῖν ἔσται.

English · Claude translation

The genus is like a kind of heap mixed together out of many different seeds, and from this genus, as from a heap, all the species of things that have come into being are distributed. And the genus is a [cause] sufficient for all things that have come into being. And so that what is said may be clear, I shall show it by an example, through which it will be possible to run back to the whole theory of the Peripatos.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 348 · 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

Translation notes

  • The bracketed letters are an editorial restoration (αἴτιον, “cause”). The Peripatos is Aristotle's school.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.15.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/15/2/).

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

Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 7.15.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/15/2/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage