Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9.10
Heraclitus assigns equal value to what is seen and what is unseen, treating the visible and the invisible as a single, agreed-upon reality. He claims that an invisible harmony surpasses the visible, and that he prefers the organs of perception—sight, hearing, learning—rather than the unseen. Consequently, he refuses to call darkness and light, or evil and good, truly different; they are one and the same. He rebukes Hesiod for distinguishing day and night, insisting that day and night are one. He quotes a saying: "Hesiod is the teacher of most; they suppose he knows most, yet he did not recognize that day and night are one." The same identity holds for good and evil. Doctors cut, burn, and torment the sick in every way, then complain that they receive no worthy fee, even though they produce both cures and diseases. Straight and crooked are also identical. The carder’s path is straight and crooked—the spindle’s rotation in the workshop moves upward in a circle—yet it remains one and the same. Up and down are one and the same; the road upward and downward is a single road. The impure and the pure are one, as are the drinkable and the undrinkable. The sea is the purest and the most impure water: potable and life-giving for fish, but undrinkable and deadly for humans. In accord with this, he declares that the immortal is mortal and the mortal immortal: "Immortals are mortals, mortals are immortals, living the death of the others and dying the life of the others." He also affirms a resurrection of this visible flesh in which we were born, and names God as its cause, saying, "When he is present, to rise again and become guardians of the risen and the dead." He further teaches a judgment of the world and everything in it by fire: "The thunderbolt—that is, the eternal fire—guides all things." This fire is wise and governs the whole; he calls it providence and fullness—providence is the ordering, fullness the conflagration—for when fire comes, it will judge and seize all things. In this chapter he lays out his own whole mind and, at the same time, the mind of the Noetian heresy; in a few words I have shown that its adherents are disciples not of Christ but of Heraclitus. For Heraclitus says the world’s creator becomes his own maker: "God is day, night, winter, summer, war, peace, fullness, hunger—all opposites; this is the mind. It alters as when incense is blended with incense, and is named according to each one’s pleasure." It is plain to everyone that the senseless successors and champions of the Noetian heresy, even if they deny being Heraclitus’ hearers, openly confess the very same doctrines. They say there is one and the same God, creator and father of all, who chose to be invisible to the righteous from the beginning: when not seen, he is invisible; when seen, visible; when unwilling to be contained, he is uncontainable; when contained, containable. By the same logic he is both uncontrollable and controllable, unbegotten and begotten, immortal and mortal. How can such people fail to be revealed as Heraclitus’ disciples? Did not the obscure one philosophize by corrupting the same logos? That he also calls the Son the same as the Father is no secret. He explains: "When the Father had not yet been begotten, he was rightly called Father; when he chose to undergo generation, the Son, once born, became his own self, not another." Thus he claims to preserve monarchy: the Father and the Son are one and the same, not one from another, but himself from himself, called Father and Son according to the change of eras, yet a single reality—the one who appeared, was born of a virgin, lived among humans as a human, confessed himself the Son to those who saw him because of that birth, and remained Father to those who received him without hiding. Nailed to the cross, giving his spirit to himself, dying and not dying, rising on the third day, buried in a tomb, pierced by a spear, fixed with nails—this one, Cleomenes and his company declare, is the God and Father of all, importing Heraclitean darkness to the many.
Greek
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. Τοιγαροῦν οὐδὲ σκότος οὐδὲ φῶς, οὐδὲ πονηρὸν οὐδὲ ἀγαθὸν ἕτερόν φησιν εἶναι ὁ Ἡράκλειτος, ἀλλὰ ἓν καὶ τὸ αὐτό. Ἐπιτιμᾷ γοῦν Ἡσιόδῳ, ὅτι ἡμέραν καὶ νύκτα οἶδεν· ἡμέρα γὰρ, φησί, καὶ νύξ ἐστιν ἕν, λέγων ὧδέ πως· Διδάσκαλος δὲ πλείστων Ἡσίοδος· τοῦτον ἐπίστανται πλεῖστα εἰδέναι, ὅστις ἡμέρην καὶ εὐφρόνην οὐκ ἐγίνωσκεν· ἔστι γὰρ ἕν. Καὶ ἀγαθὸν καὶ κακόν· Οἱ γοῦν ἰατροί, φησὶν ὁ Ἡράκλειτος, τέμνοντες, καίοντες, πάντη βασανίζοντες κακῶς τοὺς ἀρρωστοῦντας, ἐπαιτιῶνται μηδὲν ἄξιον μισθὸν λαμβάνειν παρὰ τῶν ἀρρωστούντων, ταῦτα ἐργαζόμενοι τὰ ἀγαθὰ καὶ τὰς νόσους. Καὶ εὐθὺ δέ, φησί, καὶ στρεβλὸν τὸ αὐτό ἐστι. Γναφέων, φησίν, ὁδὸς εὐθεῖα καὶ σκολιή — ἡ τοῦ ὀργάνου τοῦ καλουμένου κοχλίου ἐν τῷ γναφείῳ περιστροφὴ εὐθεῖα καὶ σκολιή· ἄνω γὰρ ὁμοῦ καὶ κύκλῳ περιέρχεται — μία ἐστί, φησί, καὶ ἡ αὐτή. Καὶ τὸ ἄνω καὶ τὸ κάτω ἕν ἐστι καὶ τὸ αὐτό· ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω μίη καὶ ὡυτή. Καὶ τὸ μιαρόν φησι καὶ τὸ καθαρὸν ἓν καὶ ταὐτὸν εἶναι, καὶ τὸ πότιμον καὶ τὸ ἄποτον ἓν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ εἶναι· Θάλασσα, φησίν, ὕδωρ καθαρώτατον καὶ μιαρώτατον, ἰχθῦσι μὲν πότιμον καὶ σωτήριον, ἀνθρώποις δὲ ἄποτον καὶ ὀλέθριον. Λέγει δὲ ὁμολογουμένως τὸ ἀθάνατον εἶναι θνητὸν καὶ τὸ θνητὸν ἀθάνατον διὰ τῶν τοιούτων λόγων· Ἀθάνατοι θνητοί, θνητοὶ ἀθάνατοι, ζῶντες τὸν ἐκείνων θάνατον, τὸν δὲ ἐκείνων βίον τεθνεῶτες. Λέγει δὲ καὶ σαρκὸς ἀνάστασιν ταύτης φανερᾶς ἐν ᾗ γεγενήμεθα, καὶ τὸν θεὸν οἶδε ταύτης τῆς ἀναστάσεως αἴτιον οὕτως λέγων· Ἔνθα δ᾿ ἐόντι ἐπανίστασθαι καὶ φύλακας γίνεσθαι ἐγερτιζόντων καὶ νεκρῶν. Λέγει δὲ καὶ τοῦ κόσμου κρίσιν καὶ πάντων τῶν ἐν αὐτῷ διὰ πυρὸς γίνεσθαι λέγων οὕτως· Τὰ δὲ πάντα οἰακίζει κεραυνός, τουτέστι κατευθύνει· κεραυνὸν τὸ πῦρ λέγων τὸ αἰώνιον. Λέγει δὲ καὶ φρόνιμον τοῦτο εἶναι τὸ πῦρ καὶ τῆς διοικήσεως τῶν ὅλων αἴτιον· καλεῖ δὲ αὐτὸ χρησμοσύνην καὶ κόρον· χρησμοσύνη δέ ἐστιν ἡ διακόσμησις κατ᾿ αὐτόν, ἡ δὲ ἐκπύρωσις κόρος· Πάντα γὰρ, φησί, τὸ πῦρ ἐπελθὸν κρινεῖ καὶ καταλήψεται. Ἐν δὲ τούτῳ τῷ κεφαλαίῳ πάντα ὁμοῦ τὸν ἴδιον νοῦν ἐξέθετο, ἅμα δὲ καὶ τὸν τῆς Νοητοῦ αἱρέσεως, δι᾿ ὀλίγων ἐπέδειξα οὐκ ὄντα Χριστοῦ ἀλλὰ Ἡρακλείτου μαθητήν. Τὸν γὰρ ποιητὸν κόσμον αὐτὸν δημιουργὸν καὶ ποιητὴν ἑαυτοῦ γινόμενον οὕτω λέγει· Ὁ θεὸς ἡμέρη εὐφρόνη, χειμὼν θέρος, πόλεμος εἰρήνη, κόρος λιμός —τἀναντία ἅπαντα· οὗτος ὁ νοῦς· — ἀλλοιοῦται δὲ ὅκωςπερ ὁκόταν συμμιγῇ [θύωμα] θυώμασιν· ὀνομάζεται καθ᾿ ἡδονὴν ἑκάστου. Φανερὸν δὲ πᾶσι τοὺς ἀνοήτους Νοητοῦ διαδόχους καὶ τῆς αἱρέσεως προστάτας, εἰ καὶ Ἡρακλείτου λέγοις ἂν αὐτοὺς μὴ γεγονέναι ἀκροατάς, ἀλλά γε τὰ Νοητῷ δόξαντα αἱρουμένους ἀναφανδὸν ταὐτὰ ὁμολογεῖν. Λέγουσι γὰρ οὕτως· ἕνα καὶ τὸν αὐτὸν θεὸν εἶναι πάντων δημιουργὸν καὶ πατέρα, εὐδοκήσαντα δὲ πεφηνέναι τοῖς ἀρχῆθεν δικαίοις ὄντα ἀόρατον· ὅτε μὲν γὰρ οὐχ ὁρᾶται ἦν ἀόρατος, [ὅτε δὲ ὁρᾶται ὁρατός,] ἀχώρητος δὲ ὅτε μὴ χωρεῖσθαι θέλει, χωρητὸς δὲ ὅτε χωρεῖται· οὕτως κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον ἀκράτητος [καὶ κρατητός,] ἀγέννητος [καὶ γεννητός,] ἀθάνατος καὶ θνητός. Πῶς οὐχ Ἡρακλείτου οἱ τοιοῦτοι δειχθήσονται μαθηταί; μὴ αὐτῇ τῇ λέξει διαφθάσας ἐφιλοσόφησεν ὁ σκοτεινός; Ὅτι δὲ καὶ τὸν αὐτὸν υἱὸν εἶναι λέγει καὶ πατέρα οὐδεὶς ἀγνοεῖ. Λέγει δὲ οὕτως· Ὅτε μὲν οὖν μὴ γεγένητο ὁ πατήρ, δικαίως πατὴρ προσηγόρευτο· ὅτε δὲ ηὐδόκησεν γένεσιν ὑπομεῖναι, γεννηθεὶς ὁ υἱὸς ἐγένετο αὐτὸς ἑαυτοῦ, οὐχ ἑτέρου. Οὕτως γὰρ δοκεῖ μοναρχίαν συνιστᾶν, ἓν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ φάσκων ὑπάρχειν πατέρα καὶ υἱὸν καλούμενον, οὐχ ἕτερον ἐξ ἑτέρου, ἀλλ᾿ αὐτὸν ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ, ὀνόματι μὲν πατέρα καὶ υἱὸν καλούμενον κατὰ χρόνων τροπήν, ἕνα δὲ εἶναι τοῦτον τὸν φανέντα καὶ γένεσιν ἐκ παρθένου ὑπομείναντα καὶ ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἄνθρωπον ἀναστραφέντα, υἱὸν μὲν ἑαυτὸν τοῖς ὁρῶσιν ὁμολογοῦντα διὰ τὴν γενομένην γένεσιν, πατέρα δὲ εἶναι καὶ τοῖς χωροῦσιν μὴ ἀποκρύψαντα. Τοῦτον πάθει ξύλου προσπαγέντα καὶ ἑαυτῷ τὸ πνεῦμα παραδόντα, ἀποθανόντα καὶ μὴ ἀποθανόντα, καὶ ἑαυτὸν τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἀναστήσαντα, τὸν ἐν μνημείῳ ταφέντα καὶ λόγχῃ τρωθέντα καὶ ἥλοις καταπαγέντα, τοῦτον τὸν τῶν ὅλων θεὸν καὶ πατέρα εἶναι λέγει Κλεομένης καὶ ὁ τούτου χορός, Ἡρακλείτειον σκότος ἐπεισάγοντες πολλοῖς.