Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 7.19.6

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 defines the soul as the actuality of an organic body, and God, cause of all good things, is harder still to know.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 354

Ἔστι γὰρ, φησί, ψυχὴ φυσικοῦ σώματος ὀργανικοῦ ἐντελέχεια, ἣ τίς ποτέ ἐστι, λόγων [πάνυ πολλῶν] δεῖται καὶ μεγάλης ζητήσεως. Ὁ δὲ θεός, ὁ πάντων τούτων τῶν ὄντων καλῶν αἴτιος, οὗτος τῆς ψυχῆς ἔστι καὶ μακροτέρῳ λόγῳ θεωροῦντι γνωσθῆναι χαλεπώτερος.

English · Claude translation

For the soul, he says, is the actuality (entelecheia) of a natural organic body; and what this is needs [very many] words and much inquiry. And God, the cause of all these beautiful things that exist, is even harder than the soul to know, even for one who contemplates with longer reasoning.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 354 · 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
  • Aristotle, De an. 412b5–6 (Aristotle (works)) · quotation, high confidence

Notes

Translation notes

  • Aristotle, On the Soul 2.1 (412a27–b6).

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.19.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/19/6/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 7.19.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/19/6/).

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