Library Hippolytus Refutation of All Heresies

Chapter 14: Hippo; His Duality of Principles; His Psychology

Hippo, a native of Rhegium, asserted as originating principles, coldness, for instance water, and heat, for instance fire. And that fire, when produced by water, subdued the power of its generator, and formed the world. And the soul, he said, is sometimes brain, but sometimes water; for that also the seed is that which appears to us to arise out of moisture, from which, he says, the soul is produced.

So far, then, we think we have sufficiently adduced (the opinions of) these; wherefore, inasmuch as we have adequately gone in review through the tenets of physical speculators, it seems to remain that we now turn to Socrates and Plato, who gave special preference to moral philosophy.

English translation by J.H. MacMahon, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V (eds. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson; Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886). Public domain. Digital text via New Advent Church Fathers.