Refutation of All Heresies 6.20.3

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: Simon had himself buried alive, promising to rise on the third day, and never rose.

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Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 258

τη, ὑπὸ πλάτανον καθεζόμενος ἐδίδασκε. Καὶ δὴ λοιπὸν ἐγγὺς τοῦ ἐλέγχεσθαι γινόμενος διὰ τὸ ἐγχρονίζειν, ἔφη, ὅτι εἰ χωσθείη ζῶν, ἀναστήσεται τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ. Καὶ δὴ τάφρον κελεύσας ὀρυγῆναι ὑπὸ τῶν μαθητῶν ἐκέλευσε χωσθῆναι. Οἱ μὲν οὖν τὸ προσταχθὲν ἐποίησαν, ὁ δὲ ἀπέμεινεν ἕως νῦν· οὐ γὰρ ἦν ὁ Χριστός.

English · Claude translation

…, he taught sitting under a plane tree. And at last, when he was close to being exposed because of the length of time, he said that if he were buried alive he would rise on the third day. And indeed he ordered a trench to be dug by his disciples and ordered himself to be buried in it. They did what was commanded, but he has remained there until now; for he was not the Christ.

About this passage

Source
Duncker–Schneidewin, 258 · 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

Notes

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (wrong accent in the digital text): Οἱ μὲν οὗν → Οἱ μὲν οὖν.

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.20.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/20/3/).

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Plain text
Hippolytus, Haer. 6.20.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/20/3/).

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