Refutation of All Heresies 1.13.2

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: Democritus taught that atoms move in the void and that there are countless worlds.

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Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 26

Λέγει δὲ ὁμοίως Λευκίππῳ περὶ στοιχείων, πλήρους καὶ κενοῦ, τὸ μὲν πλῆρες λέγων ὄν, τὸ δὲ κενόν, οὐκ ὄν· ἔλεγε δὲ ὡς ἀεὶ κινουμένων τῶν ὄντων ἐν τῷ κενῷ· ἀπείρους δὲ εἶναι κόσμους καὶ μεγέθει διαφέροντας, ἔν τισι δὲ μὴ εἶναι ἥλιον μηδὲ σελήνην, ἔν τισι δὲ μείζω τῶν παρʼ ἡμῖν, καὶ ἔν τισι πλείω.

English · Claude translation

He speaks like Leucippus about the elements, the full and the void, calling the full being and the void non-being; and he said that the things that exist are always moving in the void; and that there are boundless worlds differing in size, in some of which there is neither sun nor moon, in some they are larger than ours, and in some more numerous.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 26 · 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 (wrong accent in the digital text): δὲ εἷναι κόσμους → δὲ εἶναι κόσμους.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.13.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/13/2/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 1.13.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/13/2/).

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