Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 7.16.1

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: Aristotle's example: “animal” in general, which is no particular animal, gives the particular animals their being.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 348

Λέγομεν εἶναι ζῷον ἁπλῶς, οὐχὶ τὶ ζῷον. Ἔστι δὲ τοῦτο τὸ ζῷον οὐ βοῦς, οὐχ ἵππος, οὐκ ἄνθρωπος, οὐ θεός, οὐκ ἄλλο τι τῶν ὁτιδήποτε ἔστι δηλοῦν, ἀλλὰ ἁπλῶς ζῷον. Ἀπὸ τούτου τοῦ ζῴου αἱ πάντων τῶν κατὰ μέρος ζῴων ἰδέαι τὴν ὑπόστασιν ἔχουσι.

English · Claude translation

We say that there is animal simply, not some particular animal. And this animal is not an ox, not a horse, not a human being, not a god, nor anything else that can be pointed to at all, but simply animal. From this animal the forms of all the particular animals have their subsistence.

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

  • ὑπόστασις is rendered “subsistence” (real existence).

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.16.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/16/1/).

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

Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 7.16.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/16/1/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage