Refutation of All Heresies 7.15.1

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 divides substance into genus, species, and the individual, which cannot be further divided.

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Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 348

Ἀριστοτέλης μὲν οὖν τὴν οὐσίαν διαιρεῖ τριχῶς. Ἔστι γὰρ αὐτῆς τὸ μέν τι γένος, τὸ δέ τι εἶδος, ὡς ἐκεῖνος λέγει, τὸ δέ τι ἄτομον· ἄτομον δὲ οὐ διὰ σμικρότητα σώματος, ἀλλὰ φύσει τομὴν ἀναδέξασθαι μηδʼ ἥντινα οὖν δυνάμενον.

English · Claude translation

Aristotle, then, divides substance in three ways. For one part of it is genus, another species, as he says, and another the individual; and it is individual (atomon, “uncut”) not because of smallness of body but because by nature it cannot admit any division whatever.

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.
Extrabiblical texts
  • Aristotle (Aristotle (works)) · allusion, medium confidence

Notes

Translation notes

  • οὐσία is rendered “substance” in this summary of Aristotle's categories.

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (wrong accent: οὖν): μὲν οὗν → μὲν οὖν; ἥντινα οὗν → ἥντινα οὖν.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.15.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/15/1/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 7.15.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/15/1/).

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