Refutation of All Heresies 1.14.6
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: Xenophanes held that the earth periodically sinks into mud, destroying mankind, and begins again.
Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 28
Ταῦτα δέ φησι γενέσθαι, ὅτε πάντα ἐπηλώθησαν πάλαι, τὸν δὲ τύπον ἐν τῷ πηλῷ ξηρανθῆναι, ἀναιρεῖσθαι δὲ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους πάντας, ὅταν ἡ γῆ κατενεχθεῖσα εἰς τὴν θάλασσαν πηλὸς γένηται, εἶτα πάλιν ἄρχεσθαι τῆς γενέσεως, καὶ τοῦτο πᾶσι τοῖς κόσμοις γίνεσθαι καταβολήν.
English · Claude translation
He says these came about when everything was covered with mud long ago, and the imprint dried in the mud; and that all men are destroyed whenever the earth is carried down into the sea and becomes mud, and then generation begins again, and this is the foundation for all the worlds.
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Hippolytus, Haer. 1.14.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/14/6/).
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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 1.14.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/1/14/6/).
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