Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 10.7.5

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: Empedocles has four material and two active principles; Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Epicurus derived all from infinitely many.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 500

τῶν πάντων ῥιζώματα πρῶτον ἄκουε, ἐκ τεσσάρων ποιεῖ τὴν γένεσιν· ὅταν δὲ προσθῇ· Νεῖκός τʼ οὐλόμενον δίχα τῶν, ἀτάλαντον ἁπάντη, καὶ φιλίη μετὰ τοῖσιν, ἴση μῆκός τε πλάτος τε, ἓξ παραδίδωσι τὰς τῶν ὅλων ἀρχάς, (??) μὲν ὑλικάς, γῆν, ὕδωρ, πῦρ, ἀέρα, δύο δὲ τὰς δραστηρίους, φιλίαν καὶ νεῖκος. Ἐξ ἀπείρων δὲ ἐδογμάτισαν τὴν τῶν πάντων γένεσιν οἱ περὶ Ἀναξαγόραν τὸν Κλαζομένιον καὶ Δημόκριτον καὶ Ἐπίκουρον καὶ ἄλλοι παμπληθεῖς, ὧν ἐκ μέρους πρότερον ἐμνήσθημεν.

English · Claude translation

roots of all things hear first,” he makes generation from four; but when he adds: “and accursed Strife apart from them, equal in weight everywhere, and Love among them, equal in length and breadth,” he hands down six principles of all things, [four] material, earth, water, fire, air, and two active, Love and Strife. And those around Anaxagoras of Clazomenae and Democritus and Epicurus and very many others, whom we mentioned in part before, taught the generation of all things from infinitely many.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 500 · 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
  • Empedocles, frag. 17.19–20 (Empedocles (fragments)) · quotation, high confidence
  • Democritus (Democritus (fragments)) · allusion, medium confidence
  • Epicurus (Epicurus (sayings and fragments)) · allusion, medium confidence

Notes

Translation notes

  • Empedocles, fragment 17.19–20. A numeral is unreadable in the digital text; “four” is required by the sense.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 10.7.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/7/5/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 10.7.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/7/5/).

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