Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 9.10.5

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: Heraclitus: seawater is both life-giving for fish and deadly for people.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 446

Καὶ τὸ μιαρόν φησι καὶ τὸ καθαρὸν ἓν καὶ ταὐτὸν εἶναι, καὶ τὸ πότιμον καὶ τὸ ἄποτον ἓν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ εἶναι· Θάλασσα, φησίν, ὕδωρ καθαρώτατον καὶ μιαρώτατον, ἰχθῦσι μὲν πότιμον καὶ σωτήριον, ἀνθρώποις δὲ ἄποτον καὶ ὀλέθριον.

English · Claude translation

And he says that the foul and the clean are one and the same, and the drinkable and the undrinkable are one and the same: “The sea,” he says, “is the purest and the foulest water: for fish drinkable and life-giving, for men undrinkable and deadly.”

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 446 · 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
  • Heraclitus, frag. 61 (Heraclitus (fragments)) · quotation, high confidence

Notes

Translation notes

  • Heraclitus, fragment 61.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.10.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/10/5/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 9.10.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/10/5/).

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