Refutation of All Heresies 10.12.4

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: If not formed, the power perishes like an untaught talent; Simon claimed to be this highest power himself.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 512

ἐὰν δὲ μείνῃ δυνάμει μόνον ἐν ταῖς ἓξ δυνάμεσι καὶ μὴ ἐξεικονισθῇ, ἀφανίζεται, φησί, καὶ ἀπόλλυται οὕτως ὡς ἡ δύναμις ἡ γραμματικὴ ἢ γεωμετρικὴ [ἐν] ἀνθρώπου ψυχῇ ὑπάρξασα μὴ προσλαβοῦσα τεχνίτην τὸν διδάξαντα. Αὑτὸν δὲ εἶναι ὁ Σίμων λέγει τὸν ἑστῶτα στάντα στησόμενον, ὄντα δύναμιν τὴν ὑπὲρ τὰ πάντα. Ταῦτα τοίνυν καὶ ὁ Σίμων.

English · Claude translation

but if it remains only in potential in the six powers and is not fully imaged, it disappears, he says, and perishes, like the power of grammar or geometry existing in a human soul that does not get a craftsman to teach it. And Simon says that he himself is He who stands, stood, and will stand, being the power that is above all things. These, then, are the teachings of Simon too.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 512 · 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.

Topics

Heresy

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 10.12.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/12/4/).

The SBL abbreviation for this work has not been checked yet.

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 10.12.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/10/12/4/).