Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume V/Hippolytus/The Refutation of All Heresies/Book VII/Part 5

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Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. V, Hippolytus, The Refutation of All Heresies, Book VII
by Hippolytus, translated by John Henry MacMahon

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157474Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. V, Hippolytus, The Refutation of All Heresies, Book VII — Part 5John Henry MacMahonHippolytus

Chapter IV.—Aristotle’s General Idea.

We affirm the existence of animal absolutely, not some animal. And this animal is neither ox, nor horse, nor man, nor god; nor is it significant of any of these at all, but is animal absolutely. From this animal the species of all particular animals derive their subsistence. And this animality, itself the summum genus,^[1] constitutes (the originating principle) for all animals produced in those (particular) species, and (yet is) not (itself any one) of the things generated. For man is an animal deriving the principle (of existence) from that animality, and horse is an animal deriving the principle of existence from that animality. The horse, and ox, and dog, and each of the rest of the animals, derive the principle (of existence) from the absolute animal, while animality itself is not any of these.

Footnotes edit

↑ Compare Porphyry’s Isagoge, c. ii., and Aristotle’s Categ., c. v.

[1] Compare Porphyry’s Isagoge, c. ii., and Aristotle’s Categ., c. v.

[1]