Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 7.18.6

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: Hippolytus concludes that on Aristotle's terms primary substance is made up of things that do not exist on their own, and so comes from what is not.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 352

Εἰ δὲ οὔτε τὸ ζῷον, ὃ κατὰ πάντων λέγω τῶν καθʼ ἕκαστα ζῴων, οὔτε τὰ συμβεβηκότα, ἃ ἐν πᾶσιν οἷς συμβέβηκεν εὑρίσκεται, δυνατὸν αὐτὰ καθʼ αὑτὰ γενέσθαι, ἐκ τούτων δὲ συμπληροῦται τὰ ἄτομα, ἐκ τῶν οὐκ ὄντων καθέστηκεν ἡ τριχῆ διῃρημένη οὐσία οὐκ ἐξ ἄλλων συνεστῶσα. Πρώτως ἄρα καὶ κυριώτατα καὶ μάλιστα λεγομένη οὐσία εἰ ἐκ τούτων ὑπάρχει, ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων κατὰ τὸν Ἀριστοτέλην ἐστίν.

English · Claude translation

But if neither the animal, which I say of all the particular animals, nor the accidents, which are found in all the things to which they belong, can come to be by themselves, and the individuals are made up of these, then the substance divided threefold has been constituted out of things that are not, and is not composed of anything else. If, therefore, the substance that is called substance first, most properly, and most of all exists out of these, then according to Aristotle it is from things that are not.

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.

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (wrong breathing/accent: οἷς): πᾶσιν οἶς → πᾶσιν οἷς.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 7.18.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/18/6/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 7.18.6 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/7/18/6/).

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