Sophia Scriptura

Refutation of All Heresies 9.10.1

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 Heraclitus treats visible and invisible as one.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 444

Οὕτως Ἡράκλειτος ἐν ἴσῃ μοίρᾳ τίθεται καὶ τιμᾷ τὰ ἐμφανῆ τοῖς ἀφανέσιν, ὡς ἕν τι τὸ ἐμφανὲς καὶ τὸ ἀφανὲς ὁμολογουμένως ὑπάρχον. Ἔστι γὰρ, φησίν, ἁρμονίη ἀφανὴς φανερῆς κρείττων· καί· ὅσων ὄψις, ἀκοή, μάθησις (τουτέστι τὰ ὄργανα), ταῦτα, φησίν, ἐγὼ προτιμέω, οὐ τὰ ἀφανῆ προτιμήσας.

English · Claude translation

Thus Heraclitus places the visible on an equal footing and in equal honor with the invisible, as though the visible and the invisible were admittedly one thing. For there is, he says, “an unseen harmony better than a visible one,” and “whatever things there is sight, hearing, learning of” (that is, the organs), “these,” he says, “I prefer,” not preferring the invisible.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 444 · 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
  • Heraclitus, frag. 54 (Heraclitus (fragments)) · quotation, high confidence
  • Heraclitus, frag. 55 (Heraclitus (fragments)) · quotation, high confidence

Notes

Translation notes

  • Heraclitus, fragments 54 and 55 again.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 9.10.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/10/1/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 9.10.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/9/10/1/).

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