Refutation of All Heresies 6.7.1

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 of Gitta, a magician refuted by the apostles in Acts, tried to make himself a god, and later sects took their start from him.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 234

Δοκεῖ οὖν καὶ τὰ Σίμωνος τοῦ Γιττηνοῦ, κώμης τῆς Σαμαρείας, νῦν ἐκθέσθαι, παρʼ οὗ καὶ τοὺς ἀκολούθους δείξομεν ἀφορμὰς λαβόντας ἑτέροις ὀνόμασιν ὅμοια τετολμηκέναι. Οὗτος ὁ Σίμων μαγείας ἔμπειρος ὢν καὶ τὰ μὲν παίξας πολλοὺς κατὰ τὴν Θρασυμήδους τέχνην, ᾧ τρόπῳ ἄνωθεν ἐξεθέμεθα, τὰ δὲ καὶ διὰ δαιμόνων κακουργήσας, θεοποιῆσαι ἑαυτὸν ἐπεχείρησεν, ἄνθρωπος γόης καὶ μεστὸς ἀπονοίας, ὃν ἐν ταῖς Πράξεσιν οἱ ἀπόστολοι ἤλεγξαν·

English · Claude translation

It seems good, then, now to set out the doctrines of Simon of Gitta, a village of Samaria, from whom we will show that his followers took their starting points and dared similar things under other names. This Simon, being skilled in magic, both made sport of many by the art of Thrasymedes, in the way we set out above, and also did mischief through demons, and tried to make himself a god: a sorcerer full of madness, whom the apostles refuted in the Acts;

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Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 234 · 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.

Scripture

Acts 8:9–24 · allusion, high confidence

Topics

Heresy

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.7.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/7/1/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.7.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/7/1/).

Refutation of All Heresies 6.7.1

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 234

English · Claude translation

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Notes

Translation notes

Cite this passage