Refutation of All Heresies 1.7.3

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: Anaximenes taught that air becomes fire, cloud, water, earth, and stone as it thins or thickens.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 18

Πυκνούμενον γὰρ καὶ ἀραιούμενον διάφορον φαίνεσθαι· ὅταν γὰρ εἰς τὸ ἀραιότερον διαχυθῇ, πῦρ γίνεσθαι, μέσως δὲ πάλιν εἰς ἀέρα πυκνούμενον ἐξ ἀέρος νέφος ἀποτελεῖσθαι κατὰ τὴν πίλησιν, ἔτι δὲ μᾶλλον ὕδωρ, ἐπὶ πλεῖον πυκνωθέντα γῆν, καὶ εἰς τὸ μάλιστα πυκνώτατον λίθους. Ὥστε τὰ κυριώτατα τῆς γενέσεως ἐναντία εἶναι θερμόν τε καὶ ψυχρόν.

English · Claude translation

For as it is condensed and rarefied it appears different: when it is dispersed into a thinner state, it becomes fire; when, on the other hand, it is moderately condensed into air, cloud is produced from air by felting; still more condensed, water; condensed further, earth; and at its very densest, stones. So the most decisive factors of generation are opposites, hot and cold.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 18 · 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.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.7.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/7/3/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 1.7.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/7/3/).