Refutation of All Heresies 6.19.4

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: Simon claimed to have come to redeem Helen; Hippolytus says he bought a woman he loved and invented the myth to excuse it.

Greek text · Duncker–Schneidewin, 254

Ἐπὶ γὰρ τὴν ταύτης πρώτην ζήτησιν ἔφη παραγεγονέναι, ὅπως ῥύσηται αὐτὴν τῶν δεσμῶν, ἣν λυτρωσάμενος ἅμα ἑαυτῷ περιῆγε, φάσκων τοῦτο εἶναι τὸ ἀπολωλὸς πρόβατον, ἑαυτὸν δὲ λέγων τὴν ὑπὲρ πάντα δύναμιν εἶναι. Ὁ δὲ ψυδρὸς ἐρασθεὶς τοῦ γυναίου τούτου, Ἑλένης καλουμένης, ὠνησάμενος εἶχε, καὶ τοὺς μαθητὰς αἰδούμενος τοῦτον τὸν μῦθον ἔπλασεν.

English · Claude translation

For he said that he had come first of all to seek her, in order to rescue her from her bonds; and having redeemed her he took her about with him, saying that she was the lost sheep and saying that he himself was the power above all. But the liar, having fallen in love with this woman, called Helen, bought her and kept her, and out of shame before his disciples he fabricated this myth.

About this passage

Source

Duncker–Schneidewin, 254 · 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

Luke 15:4–6 · allusion, medium confidence

Topics

Heresy

Cite this passage

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.19.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/19/4/).

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

Plain text

Hippolytus, Haer. 6.19.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/hippolytus-refutatio/6/19/4/).