Refutation of All Heresies 7.18.4

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: The definition of animal, an ensouled and sentient substance, applies equally to every animal.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 352

Οὐδὲν γὰρ διαφέρει ἵππος ἀνθρώπου ᾗ ζῷον, οὐδὲ βοῦς· ὅρος γὰρ ὁ τοῦ ζῴου τὸ πᾶσιν ἁρμόζειν τοῖς ζῴοις ὁμοίως λεγόμενον. Τί γάρ ἐστι ζῷον; ἂν ὁριζώμεθα, πάντα τὰ ζῷα κοινὸς καταλήψεται ὅρος. Ζῷον γάρ ἐστιν οὐσία ἔμψυχος, αἰσθητική· τοῦτο βοῦς, ἄνθρωπος, ἵππος, τῶν ἄλλων ἕκαστον.

English · Claude translation

For a horse does not differ from a human being insofar as it is an animal, nor does an ox; for the definition of animal is such as to fit all animals alike. For what is an animal? If we define it, a common definition will take in all the animals. For an animal is an ensouled, sentient substance; this is what an ox, a human being, a horse, and each of the others is.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 352 · 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.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.18.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/18/4/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.18.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/18/4/).