Chapter II: Part I: Sources of Information (1)

Our sources of information fall under three heads: I. The Simon of the _New Testament_; II. The Simon of the Fathers; III. The Simon of the Legends.

I.--_The Simon of the New Testament._

_Acts_ (viii. 9-24); author and date unknown; commonly supposed to be "by the author of the third gospel, traditionally known as Luke";[1] not quoted prior to A.D. 177;[2] earliest MS. not older than the sixth century, though some contend for the third.

II.--_The Simon of the Fathers._

i. Justinus Martyr (_Apologia_, I. 26, 56; _Apologia_, II. 15; _Dialogus cum Tryphone_, 120); probable date of First Apology A.D. 141; neither the date of the birth nor death of Justin is known; MS. fourteenth century.

ii. Irenaeus (_Contra Haereses_, I. xxiii. 1-4); chief literary activity last decennium of the second century; MSS. probably sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries; date of birth and death unknown, for the former any time from A.D. 97-147 suggested, for latter 202-3.

iii. Clemens Alexandrinus (_Stromateis_, ii. 11; vii. 17); greatest literary activity A.D. 190-203; born 150-160, date of death unknown; oldest MS. eleventh century.

iv. Tertullianus (_De Praescriptionibus adversus Haereticos_, 46, generally attributed to a Pseudo-Tertullian); c. A.D. 199; (_De Anima_, 34, 36); c. A.D. 208-9; born 150-160, died 220-240.

v. [Hippolytus (?)] (_Philosophumena_, vi. 7-20); date unknown, probably last decade of second to third of third century; author unknown and only conjecturally Hippolytus; MS. fourteenth century.

vi. Origenes (_Contra Celsum_, i. 57; v. 62; vi. 11); born A.D. 185-6, died 254-5; MS. fourteenth century.

vii. Philastrius (_De Haeresibus_); date of birth unknown, died probably A.D. 387.

viii. Epiphanius (_Contra Haereses_, ii. 1-6); born A.D. 310-20, died 404; MS. eleventh century.

ix. Hieronymus (_Commentarium in Evangelicum Matthaei_, IV. xxiv. 5); written A.D. 387.

x. Theodoretus (_Hereticarum Fabularum Compendium_, i. 1); born towards the end of the fourth century, died A.D. 453-58; MS. eleventh century.

III.--_The Simon of the Legends._

A. The so-called Clementine literature.

i. _Recognitiones_, 2. _Homiliae_, of which the Greek originals are lost, and the Latin translation of Rufinus (born c.A.D. 345, died 410) alone remains to us. The originals are placed by conjecture somewhere about the beginning of the third century; MS. eleventh century.

B. A mediaeval account; (_Constitutiones Sanctorum Apostolorum_, VI. vii, viii, xvi); these were never heard of prior to 1546, when a Venetian, Carolus Capellus, printed an epitomized translation of them from an MS. found in Crete. They are hopelessly apocryphal.

* * * * *

I.--_The Simon of the New Testament._

_Acts_ (viii. 9-24). Text: _The Greek Testament_ (with the readings adopted by the revisers of the authorized version); Oxford, 1881.

Now a certain fellow by name Simon had been previously in the city
practising magic and driving the people of Samaria out of their
wits, saying that he was some great one; to whom all from small to
great gave heed, saying: "This man is the Power of God which is
called Great." And they gave heed to him, owing to his having
driven them out of their wits for a long time by his magic arts.
But when they believed on Philip preaching about the Kingdom of God
and the Name of Jesus Christ, they began to be baptized, both men
and women. And Simon himself also believed, and after being
baptized remained constantly with Philip; and was driven out of
_his_ wits on seeing the signs and great wonders[3] that took
place.

And the apostles in Jerusalem hearing that Samaria had received the
Word of God, sent Peter and John to them. And they went down and
prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For as
yet it had not fallen upon any of them, but they had only been
baptized unto the Name of the Lord Jesus.

Then they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy
Spirit. And when Simon saw that the Holy Spirit was given by the
laying on of the hands of the apostles, he offered them money,
saying: "Give unto me also this power, in order that on whomsoever
I lay my hands he may receive the Holy Spirit."

But Peter said unto him: "Thy silver perish with thee, in that thou
didst think that the gift of God is possessed with money. There is
not for thee part or lot in this Word, for thy heart is not right
before God. Therefore turn from this evil of thine, and pray the
Lord, if by chance the thought of thy heart shall be forgiven thee.
For I see that thou art in the gall of bitterness and the bond of
iniquity."

And Simon answered and said: "Pray ye on my behalf to the Lord,
that none of the things that ye have said may come upon me."

II.--_The Simon of the Fathers._

i. Justinus Martyr (_Apologia_, I. 26). Text: _Corpus Apologetarum Christianorum Saeculi Secundi_ (edidit Io. Car. Th. Eques de Otto); Jenae, 1876 (ed. tert.).

And thirdly, that even after the ascension of the Christ into
heaven the daemons cast before themselves (as a shield) certain men
who said that they were gods, who were not only not expelled by
you,[4] but even thought worthy of honours; a certain Samaritan,
Simon, who came from a village called Gitta; who in the reign of
Claudius Caesar[5] wrought magic wonders by the art of the daemons
who possessed him, and was considered a god in your imperial city
of Rome, and as a god was honoured with a statue by you, which
statue was erected in the river Tiber, between the two bridges,
with the following inscription in Roman: "Simoni Deo Sancto." And
nearly all the Samaritans, but few among the rest of the nations,
confess him to be the first god and worship him. And they speak of
a certain Helen, who went round with him at that time, and who had
formerly prostituted herself,[6] but was made by him his first
Thought.

ii. Irenaeus (_Contra Haereses_, I. xxiii. 1-4). Text: _Opera_ (edidit Adolphus Stieren); Lipsiae, 1848.

1. Simon was a Samaritan, the notorious magician of whom Luke the
disciple and adherent of the apostles says: "But there was a fellow
by name Simon, who had previously practised the art of magic in
their state, and led away the people of the Samaritans, saying that
he was some great one, to whom they all listened, from the small to
the great, saying: 'He is the Power of God, which is called Great.'
Now they gave heed to him because he had driven them out of their
wits by his magical phenomena." This Simon, therefore, pretended to
be a believer, thinking that the apostles also wrought their cures
by magic and not by the power of God; and supposing that their
filling with the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands those who
believed in God, through that Christ Jesus who was being preached
by them--that this was effected by some superior magical knowledge,
and offering money to the apostles, so that he also might obtain
the power of giving the Holy Spirit to whomsoever he would, he
received this answer from Peter: "Thy money perish with thee, since
thou hast thought that the gift of God is obtained possession of
with money; for thee there is neither part nor lot in this Word,
for thy heart is not right before God. For I see thou art in the
gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity."

And since the magician still refused to believe in God, he
ambitiously strove to contend against the apostles, so that he also
might be thought of great renown, by extending his investigations
into universal magic still farther, so that he struck many aghast;
so much so that he is said to have been honoured with a statue for
his magic knowledge by Claudius Caesar.

He, therefore, was glorified by many as a god; and he taught that
it was he himself who, forsooth, appeared among the Jews as the
Son, while in Samaria he descended as the Father, and in the rest
of the nations he came as the Holy Spirit. That he was the highest
power, to wit, the Father over all, and that he allowed himself to
be called by whatever name men pleased.

2. Now the sect of the Samaritan Simon, from whom all the heresies
took their origin, was composed of the following materials.

He took round with him a certain Helen, a hired prostitute from the
Phoenician city Tyre, after he had purchased her freedom, saying
that she was the first conception (or Thought) of his Mind, the
Mother of All, by whom in the beginning he conceived in his Mind
the making of the Angels and Archangels. That this Thought, leaping
forth from him, and knowing what was the will of her Father,
descended to the lower regions and generated the Angels and Powers,
by whom also he said this world was made. And after she had
generated them, she was detained by them through envy, for they did
not wish to be thought to be the progeny of any other. As for
himself, he was entirely unknown by them; and it was his Thought
that was made prisoner by the Powers and Angels that has been
emanated by her. And she suffered every kind of indignity at their
hands, to prevent her reäscending to her Father, even to being
imprisoned in the human body and transmigrating into other female
bodies, as from one vessel into another.[7] She also was in that
Helen, on whose account the Trojan War arose; wherefore also
Stesichorus[8] was deprived of his sight when he spake evil of her
in his poems; and that afterwards when he repented and wrote what
is called a recantation, in which he sang her praises, he recovered
his sight. So she, transmigrating from body to body, and thereby
also continually undergoing indignity, last of all even stood for
hire in a brothel; and she was the "lost sheep."

3. Wherefore also he himself had come, to take her away for the
first time, and free her from her bonds, and also to guarantee
salvation to men by his "knowledge." For as the Angels were
mismanaging the world, since each of them desired the sovereignty,
he had come to set matters right; and that he had descended,
transforming himself and being made like to the Powers and
Principalities and Angels; so that he appeared to men as a man,
although he was not a man; and was thought to have suffered in
Judaea, although he did not really suffer. The Prophets moreover had
spoken their prophecies under the inspiration of the Angels who
made the world; wherefore those who believed on him and his Helen
paid no further attention to them, and followed their own pleasure
as though free; for men were saved by his grace, and not by
righteous works. For righteous actions are not according to nature,
but from accident, in the manner that the Angels who made the world
have laid it down, by such precepts enslaving men. Wherefore also
he gave new promises that the world should be dissolved and that
they who were his should be freed from the rule of those who made
the world.

4. Wherefore their initiated priests live immorally. And everyone
of them practises magic arts to the best of his ability. They use
exorcisms and incantations. Love philtres also and spells and what
are called "familiars" and "dream-senders," and the rest of the
curious arts are assiduously cultivated by them. They have also an
image of Simon made in the likeness of Jupiter, and of Helen in
that of Minerva; and they worship the (statues); and they have a
designation from their most impiously minded founder, being called
Simonians, from whom the Gnôsis, falsely so-called, derives its
origins, as one can learn from their own assertions.

iii. Clemens Alexandrinus (_Stromateis_, ii. 11; vii. 17). Text: _Opera_ (edidit G. Dindorfius); Oxoniae, 1869.

In the first passage the Simonian use of the term, "He who stood," is confirmed, in the latter we are told that a branch of the Simonians was called Entychitae.

iv. Tertullianus, or Pseudo-Tertullianus (_De Praescriptionibus_, 46). Text: _Liber de Praes_., etc. (edidit H. Hurter, S.J.); Oeniponti, 1870. Tertullianus (_De Anima_, 34, 36). Text: _Bibliothec. Patr. Eccles. Select._ (curavit Dr. Guil. Bruno Linder), Fasc. iv; Lipsiae, 1859.

In the _Praescriptions_ the passage is very short, the briefest notice possible, under the heading, "Anonymi Catalogus Heresum." The notice in the _De Anima_ runs as follows:

For Simon the Samaritan also, the purveyor of the Holy Spirit, in
the _Acts of the Apostles_, after he had been condemned by himself,
together with his money, to perdition, shed vain tears and betook
himself to assaulting the truth, as though for the gratification of
vengeance. Supported by the powers of his art, for the purpose of
his illusions through some power or other, he purchased with the
same money a Tyrian woman Helen from a place of public pleasure, a
fit commodity instead of the Holy Spirit. And he pretended that he
was the highest Father, and that she was his first suggestion
whereby he had suggested the making of the Angels and Archangels;
that she sharing in this design had sprung forth from the Father,
and leaped down into the lower regions; and that there, the design
of the Father being prevented, she had brought forth Angelic Powers
ignorant of the Father, the artificer of this world; by these she
was detained, not according to his intention, lest when she had
gone they should be thought to be the progeny of another. And
therefore being made subject to every kind of contumely, so that by
her depreciation she might not choose to depart, she had sunk to as
low as the human form, as though she had had to be restrained by
chains of flesh, and then for many ages being turned about through
a succession of female conditions, she became also that Helen who
proved so fatal to Priam, and after to the eyes of Stesichorus, for
she had caused his blindness on account of the insult of his poem,
and afterwards had removed it because of her pleasure at his
praise. And thus transmigrating from body to body, in the extreme
of dishonour she had stood, ticketed for hire, a Helen viler [than
her predecessor]. She was, therefore, the "lost sheep," to whom the
highest Father, Simon, you know, had descended. And after she was
recovered and brought back, I know not whether on his shoulders or
knees, he afterwards had respect to the salvation of men, as it
were by the liberation of those who had to be freed from these
Angelic Powers, for the purpose of deceiving whom he transformed
himself, and pretended that he was a man to men only, playing the
part of the Son in Judaea, and that of the Father in Samaria.

v. [Hippolytus (?)] _(Philosophumena_, vi. 7-20). Text: _Refutatio Omnium Haeresium_ (ediderunt Lud. Duncker et F.G. Schneidewin); Gottingae, 1859.

7. I shall, therefore, set forth the system of Simon of Gittha, a
village of Samaria, and shall show that it is from him that those
who followed[9] him got their inspiration, and that the
speculations they venture upon have been of a like nature, though
their terminology is different.

This Simon was skilled in magic, and deluding many, partly by the
art of Thrasymedes, in the way we have explained above,[10] and
partly corrupting them by means of daemons, he endeavoured to deify
himself--a sorcerer fellow and full of insanity, whom the apostles
confuted in the _Acts_. Far more prudent and modest was the aim of
Apsethus, the Libyan, who tried to get himself thought a god in
Libya. And as the story of Apsethus is not very dissimilar to the
ambition of the foolish Simon, it will not be unseemly to repeat
it, for it is quite in keeping with Simon's endeavour.

8. Apsethus, the Libyan, wanted to become a god. But in spite of
the greatest exertions he failed to realize his longing, and so he
desired that at any rate people should _think_ that he had become
one; and, indeed, for a considerable time he really did get people
to think that such was the case. For the foolish Libyans sacrificed
to him as to some divine power, thinking that they were placing
their confidence in a voice that came down from heaven.

Well, he collected a large number of parrots and put them all into
a cage. For there are a great many parrots in Libya and they mimic
the human voice very distinctly. So he kept the birds for some time
and taught them to say, "Apsethus is a god." And when, after a long
time, the birds were trained and could speak the sentence which he
considered would make him be thought to be a god, he opened the
cage and let the parrots go in every direction. And the voice of
the birds as they flew about went out into all Libya, and their
words reached as far as the Greek settlements. And thus the
Libyans, astonished at the voice of the birds, and having no idea
of the trick which had been played them by Apsethus, considered him
to be a god.

But one of the Greeks, correctly surmising the contrivance of the
supposed god, not only confuted him by means of the self-same
parrots, but also caused the total destruction of this boastful and
vulgar fellow. For the Greek caught a number of the parrots and
re-taught them to say "Apsethus caged us and made us say, 'Apsethus
is a god.'" And when the Libyans heard the recantation of the
parrots, they all assembled together of one accord and burnt
Apsethus alive.

9. And in the same way we must regard Simon, the magician, more
readily comparing him with the Libyan fellow's thus becoming a god.
And if the comparison is a correct one, and the fate which the
magician suffered was somewhat similar to that of Apsethus, let us
endeavour to _re-teach the parrots of Simon_, that he was not
Christ, who has stood, stands and will stand, but a man, the child
of a woman, begotten of seed, from blood and carnal desire, like
other men. And that this is the case, we shall easily demonstrate
as our narrative proceeds.

Now Simon in his paraphrasing of the Law of Moses speaks with
artful misunderstanding. For when Moses says "God is a fire burning
and destroying,"[11] taking in an incorrect sense what Moses said,
he declares that Fire is the Universal Principle, not understanding
what was said, viz., not that "God is fire," but "a fire burning
and destroying." And thus he not only tears to pieces the Law of
Moses, but also plunders from Heracleitus the obscure.[12] And
Simon states that the Universal Principle is Boundless Power, as
follows:

"_This is the writing of the revelation of Voice and Name from
Thought, the Great Power, the Boundless. Wherefore shall it be
sealed, hidden, concealed, laid in the Dwelling of which the
Universal Root is the foundation_."[13]

And he says that man here below, born of blood, is the Dwelling,
and that the Boundless Power dwells in him, which he says is the
Universal Root. And, according to Simon, the Boundless Power, Fire,
is not a simple thing, as the majority who say that the four
elements are simple have considered fire also to be simple, but
that the Fire has a twofold nature; and of this twofold nature he
calls the one side the concealed and the other the manifested,
(stating) that the concealed (parts) of the Fire are hidden in the
manifested, and the manifested produced by the concealed.

This is what Aristotle calls "in potentiality" and "in actuality,"
and Plato the "intelligible" and "sensible."

And the manifested side of the Fire has all things in itself which
a man can perceive of things visible, or which he unconsciously
fails to perceive. Whereas the concealed side is everything which
one can conceive as intelligible, even though it escape sensation,
or which a man fails to conceive.

And generally we may say, of all things that are, both sensible
and intelligible, which he designates concealed and manifested, the
Fire, which is above the heavens, is the treasure-house, as it were
a great Tree, like that seen by Nabuchodonosor in vision, from
which all flesh is nourished. And he considers the manifested side
of the Fire to be the trunk, branches, leaves, and the bark
surrounding it on the outside. All these parts of the great Tree,
he says, are set on fire from the all-devouring flame of the Fire
and destroyed. But the fruit of the Tree, if its imaging has been
perfected and it takes the shape of itself, is placed in the
storehouse, and not cast into the Fire. For the fruit, he says, is
produced to be placed in the storehouse, but the husk to be
committed to the Fire; that is to say, the trunk, which is
generated not for its own sake but for that of the fruit.

10. And this he says is what is written in the scripture: "For the
vineyard of the Lord Sabaôth is the house of Israel, and a man of
Judah a well-beloved shoot."[14] And if a man of Judah is a
well-beloved shoot, it is shown, he says, that a tree is nothing
else than a man. But concerning its sundering and dispersion, he
says, the scripture has sufficiently spoken, and what has been said
is sufficient for the instruction of those whose imaging has been
perfected, viz.: "All flesh is grass, and every glory of the flesh
as the flower of grass. The grass is dried up and the flower
thereof falleth, but the speech of the Lord endureth for the
eternity (aeon)."[15] Now the Speech of the Lord, he says, is the
Speech engendered in the mouth and the Word (Logos), for elsewhere
there is no place of production.

11. To be brief, therefore, the Fire, according to Simon, being of
such a nature--both all things that are visible and invisible, and
in like manner, those that sound within and those that sound aloud,
those which can be numbered and those which are numbered--in the
_Great Revelation_ he calls it the Perfect Intellectual, as (being)
everything that can be thought of an infinite number of times, in
an infinite number of ways, both as to speech, thought and action,
just as Empedocles[16] says:

"By earth earth we perceive; by water, water; by aether [divine],
aether; fire by destructive fire; by friendship, friendship; and
strife by bitter strife."

12. For, he says, he considered that all the parts of the Fire,
both visible and invisible, possessed perception[17] and a portion
of intelligence. The generable cosmos, therefore, was generated
from the ingenerable Fire. And it commenced to be generated, he
says, in the following way. The first six Roots of the Principle of
generation which the generated (_sc._, cosmos) took, were from that
Fire. And the Roots, he says, were generated from the Fire in
pairs,[18] and he calls these Roots Mind and Thought, Voice and
Name, Reason and Reflection, and in these six Roots there was the
whole of the Boundless Power together, in potentiality, but not in
actuality. And this Boundless Power he says is He who has stood,
stands and will stand; who, if his imaging is perfected while in
the six Powers, will be, in essence, power, greatness and
completeness, one and the same with the ingenerable and Boundless
Power, and not one single whit inferior to that ingenerable,
unchangeable and Boundless Power. But if it remain in potentiality
only, and its imaging is not perfected, then it disappears and
perishes, he says, just as the potentiality of grammar or geometry
in a man's mind. For potentiality when it has obtained art becomes
the light of generated things, but if it does not do so an absence
of art and darkness ensues, exactly as if it had not existed at
all; and on the death of the man it perishes with him.

13. Of these six Powers and the seventh which is beyond the six, he
calls the first pair Mind and Thought, heaven and earth; and the
male (heaven) looks down from above and takes thought for its
co-partner, while the earth from below receives from the heaven the
intellectual fruits that come down to it and are cognate with the
earth. Wherefore, he says, the Word ofttimes steadfastly
contemplating the things which have been generated from Mind and
Thought, that is from heaven and earth, says: "Hear, O heaven, and
give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath said: I have generated sons
and raised them up, but they have set me aside."[19]

And he who says this, he says, is the seventh Power, He who has
stood, stands and will stand, for He is the cause of those good
things which Moses praised and said they were very good. And (the
second pair is) Voice and Name, sun and moon. And (the third)
Reason and Reflection, air and water. And in all of these was
blended and mingled the Great Power, the Boundless, He who has
stood, as I have said.

14. And when Moses says: "(It is) in six days that God made the
heaven and the earth, and on the seventh he rested from all his
works," Simon arranges it differently and thus makes himself into a
god. When, therefore, they (the Simonians) say, that there are
three days before the generation of the sun and moon, they mean
esoterically Mind and Thought--that is to say heaven and earth--and
the seventh Power, the Boundless. For these three Powers were
generated before all the others. And when they say "he hath
generated me before all the Aeons," the words, he says, are used
concerning the seventh Power. Now this seventh Power which was the
first Power subsisting in the Boundless Power, which was generated
before all the Aeons, this, he says, was the seventh Power, about
which Moses says: "And the spirit of God moved over the water,"
that is to say, he says, the spirit which hath all things in
itself, the Image of the Boundless Power, concerning which Simon
says: "_The Image from, the incorruptible Form, alone ordering all
things._" For the Power which moves above the water, he says, is
generated from an imperishable Form, and alone orders all things.

Now the constitution of the world being with them after this or a
similar fashion, God, he says, fashioned man by taking soil from
the earth. And he made him not single but double, according to the
image and likeness. And the Image is the spirit moving above the
water, which, if its imaging is not perfected, perishes together
with the world, seeing that it remains only in potentiality and
does not become in actuality. And this is the meaning of the
Scripture, he says: "Lest we be condemned together with the
world."[20] But if its imaging should be perfected and it should be
generated from an "indivisible point," as it is written in his
_Revelation_, the small shall become great. And this great shall
continue for the boundless and changeless eternity (_aeon_), in as
much as it is no longer in the process of becoming.[21]

How and in what manner, then, he asks, does God fashion man? In the
Garden (Paradise), he thinks. We must consider the womb a Garden,
he says, and that this is the "cave," the Scripture tells us when
it says: "I am he who fashioned thee in thy mother's womb,"[22] for
he would have it written in this way. In speaking of the Garden, he
says, Moses allegorically referred to the womb, if we are to
believe the Word.

And, if God fashions man in his mother's womb, that is to say in
the Garden, as I have already said, the womb must be taken for the
Garden, and Eden for the region (surrounding the womb), and the
"river going forth from Eden to water the Garden,"[23] for the
navel. This navel, he says, is divided into four channels, for on
either side of the navel two air-ducts are stretched to convey the
breath, and two veins[24] to convey blood. But when, he says, the
navel going forth from the region of Eden is attached to the foetus
in the epigastric regions, that which is commonly called by
everyone the navel[25] ... and the two veins by which the blood
flows and is carried from the Edenic region through what are called
the gates of the liver, which nourish the foetus. And the
air-ducts, which we said were channels for breath, embracing the
bladder on either side in the region of the pelvis, are united at
the great duct which is called the dorsal aorta. And thus the
breath passing through the side doors towards the heart produces
the movement of the embryo. For as long as the babe is being
fashioned in the Garden, it neither takes nourishment through the
mouth, nor breathes through the nostrils. For seeing that it is
surrounded by the waters (of the womb), death would instantly
supervene, if it took a breath; for it would draw after it the
waters and so perish. But the whole (of the foetus) is wrapped up
in an envelope, called the amnion, and is nourished through the
navel and receives the essence of the breath through the dorsal
duct, as I have said.

15. The river, therefore, he says, which goes out of Eden, is
divided into four channels, four ducts, that is to say; into four
senses of the foetus: sight, (hearing),[26] smelling, taste and
touch. For these are the only senses the child has while it is
being formed in the Garden.

This, he says, is the law which Moses laid down, and in accordance
with this very law each of his books was written, as the titles
show. The first book is _Genesis_, and the title of the book, he
says, is sufficient for a knowledge of the whole matter. For this
_Genesis_, he says, is sight, which is one division of the river.
For the world is perceived by sight.

The title of the second book is _Exodus_. For it was necessary for
that which is born to travel through the Red Sea, and pass towards
the Desert--by Red the blood is meant, he says--and taste the
bitter water. For the "bitter," he says, is the water beyond the
Red Sea, inasmuch as it is the path of knowledge of painful and
bitter things which we travel along in life. But when it is changed
by Moses, that is to say by the Word, that bitter (water) becomes
sweet. And that this is so, all may hear publicly by repeating
after the poets:

"In root it was black, but like milk was the flower. Moly the Gods
call it. For mortals to dig it up is difficult; but Gods can do all
things."[27]

16. Sufficient, he says, is what is said by the Gentiles for a
knowledge of the whole matter, for those who have ears for hearing.
For he who tasted this fruit, he says, was not only not changed
into a beast by Circe, but using the virtue of the fruit, reshaped
those who had been already changed into beasts, into their former
proper shape, and re-struck and recalled their type. For the true
man and one beloved by that sorceress is discovered by this
milk-white divine fruit, he says.

In like manner _Leviticus_, the third book, is smelling or
respiration. For the whole of that book treats of sacrifices and
offerings. And wherever there is a sacrifice, there arises the
smell of the scent from the sacrifice owing to the incense,
concerning which sweet smell the sense of smell is the test.

_Numbers_, the fourth book, signifies taste, wherein speech (or the
Word) energizes. And it is so called through uttering all things in
numerical order.

_Deuteronomy_, again, he says, is so entitled in reference to the
sense of touch of the child which is formed. For just as the touch
by contact synthesizes and confirms the sensations of the other
senses, proving objects to be either hard, warm, or adhesive, so
also the fifth book of the Law is the synthesis of the four books
which precede it.

All ingenerables, therefore, he says, are in us in potentiality but
not in actuality, like the science of grammar or geometry. And if
they meet with befitting utterance[28] and instruction, and the
"bitter" is turned into the "sweet"--that is to say, spears into
reaping hooks and swords into ploughshares[29]--the Fire will not
have born to it husks and stocks, but perfect fruit, perfected in
its imaging, as I said above, equal and similar to the ingenerable
and Boundless Power. "For now," says he, "the axe is nigh to the
roots of the tree: every tree," he says, "that bringeth not forth
good fruit, is cut down and cast into the fire."[30]

17. And so, according to Simon, that blessed and imperishable
(principle) concealed in everything, is in potentiality, but not in
actuality, which indeed is He who has stood, stands and will stand;
who has stood above in the ingenerable Power, who stands below in
the stream of the waters, generated in an image, who shall stand
above, by the side of the blessed and Boundless Power, if the
imaging be perfected. For three, he says, are they that stand, and
without there being three standing Aeons, there would be no setting
in order[31] of the generable which, according to them, moves on
the water, and which is fashioned according to the similitude into
a perfect celestial, becoming in no whit inferior to the
ingenerable Power, and this is the meaning of their saying: "_Thou
and I, the one thing; before me, thou; that after thee, I._"

This, he says, is the one Power, separated into the above and
below, generating itself, increasing itself, seeking itself,
finding itself, its own mother, its own father, its sister, its
spouse; the daughter, son, mother, and father of itself; One, the
Universal Root.

And that, as he says, the beginning of the generation of things
which are generated is from Fire, he understands somewhat in this
fashion. Of all things of which there is generation, the beginning
of the desire for their generation is from Fire. For, indeed, the
desire of mutable generation is called "being on fire." And though
Fire is one, yet has it two modes of mutation. For in the man, he
says, the blood, being hot and yellow--like fire when it takes
form--is turned into seed, whereas in the woman the same blood (is
changed) into milk. And this change in the male becomes the faculty
of generating, while that in the female (becomes) nourishment for
the child. This, he says, is "the flaming sword that is turned
about to keep the way of the tree of life."[32] For the blood is
turned into seed and milk; and this Power becomes mother and
father, father of those that are born, and mother of those that are
nourished, standing in want of nothing, sufficient unto itself. And
the tree of life, he says, is guarded by the fiery sword which is
turned about, (which tree), as we have said, (is) the seventh Power
which proceeds from itself, contains all (in itself), and is stored
in the six Powers. For were the flaming sword not turned about,
that fair tree would be destroyed and perish; but if it is turned
into seed and milk, that which is stored in them in potentiality,
having obtained a fitting utterance,[33] and an appointed place in
which the utterance may be developed, starting as it were from the
smallest spark, it will increase to all perfection, and expand, and
be an infinite power, unchangeable, equal and similar to the
unchangeable Aeon, which is no more generated for the boundless
eternity.

18. Conformably, therefore, to this reasoning, for the foolish,
Simon was a god, like that Libyan Apsethus; (a god) subject to
generation and suffering, so long as he remained in potentiality,
but freed from the bonds of suffering and birth, as soon as his
imaging forth was accomplished, and attaining perfection he passed
forth from the first two Powers, to wit heaven and earth. For Simon
speaks distinctly concerning this in his _Revelation_ as follows:

"_To you, therefore, I say what I say, and write what I write. And
the writing is this._

"_Of the universal Aeons there are two shoots, without beginning or
end, springing from one Root, which is the Power invisible,
inapprehensible Silence. Of these shoots one is manifested from
above, which is the Great Power, the Universal Mind ordering all
things, male, and the other, (is manifested) from below, the Great
Thought, female, producing all things_.

"_Hence pairing with each other_,[34] _they unite and manifest the
Middle Distance, incomprehensible Air, without beginning or end. In
this is the Father who sustains all things, and nourishes those
things which have a beginning and end._

"_This is He who has stood, stands and will stand, a male-female
power like the preëxisting Boundless Power, which has neither
beginning nor end, existing in oneness. For it is from this that
the Thought in the oneness proceeded and became two._

"_So he_[35] _was one; for having her_[36] _in himself, he was
alone, not however first, although preëxisting, but being
manifested from himself to himself, he became second. Nor was he
called Father before (Thought) called him Father._

"_As, therefore, producing himself by himself, he manifested to
himself his own Thought, so also the Thought that was manifested
did not make the Father, but contemplating him hid him--that is to
say the Power--in herself, and is male-female, Power and Thought._

"_Hence they pair with each other being one, for there is no
difference between Power and Thought. From the things above is
discovered Power, and from those below Thought._

"_In the same manner also that which was manifested from them_[37]
_although being one is yet found as two, the male-female having the
female in itself. Thus Mind is in Thought--things inseparable from
one another--which although being one are yet found as two._"

19. So then Simon by such inventions got what interpretation he
pleased, not only out of the writings of Moses, but also out of
those of the (pagan) poets, by falsifying them. For he gives an
allegorical interpretation of the wooden horse, and Helen with the
torch, and a number of other things, which he metamorphoses and
weaves into fictions concerning himself and his Thought.

And he said that the latter was the "lost sheep," who again and
again abiding in women throws the Powers in the world into
confusion, on account of her unsurpassable beauty; on account of
which the Trojan War came to pass through her. For this Thought
took up its abode in the Helen that was born just at that time, and
thus when all the Powers laid claim to her, there arose faction and
war among those nations to whom she was manifested.

It was thus, forsooth, that Stesichorus was deprived of sight when
he abused her in his verses; and afterwards when he repented and
wrote the recantation in which he sung her praises he recovered his
sight.

And subsequently, when her body was changed by the Angels and lower
Powers--which also, he says, made the world--she lived in a brothel
in Tyre, a city of Phoenicia, where he found her on his arrival.
For he professes that he had come there for the purpose of finding
her for the first time, that he might deliver her from bondage. And
after he had purchased her freedom he took her about with him,
pretending that she was the "lost sheep," and that he himself was
the Power which is over all. Whereas the impostor having fallen in
love with this strumpet, called Helen, purchased and kept her, and
being ashamed to have it known by his disciples, invented this
story.

And those who copy the vagabond magician Simon do like acts, and
pretend that intercourse should be promiscuous, saying: "All soil
is soil, and it matters not where a man sows, so long as he does
sow." Nay, they pride themselves on promiscuous intercourse, saying
that this is the "perfect love," citing the text, "the holy shall
be sanctified by the ... of the holy."[38] And they profess that
they are not in the power of that which is usually considered evil,
for they are redeemed. For by purchasing the freedom of Helen, he
(Simon) thus offered salvation to men by knowledge peculiar to
himself.[39]

For he said that, as the Angels were misgoverning the world owing
to their love of power, he had come to set things right, being
metamorphosed and made like unto the Dominions, Principalities and
Angels, so that he was manifested as a man although he was not
really a man, and that he seemed to suffer[40] in Judaea, although
he did not really undergo it, but that he was manifested to the
Jews as the Son, in Samaria as the Father, and among the other
nations as the Holy Ghost, and that he permitted himself to be
called by whatever name men pleased to call him. And that it was by
the Angels, who made the world, that the Prophets were inspired to
utter their prophecies. Wherefore they who believe on Simon and
Helen pay no attention to the latter even to this day, but do
everything they like, as being free, for they contend that they are
saved through his (Simon's) grace.

For (they assert that) there is no cause for punishment if a man
does ill, for evil is not in nature but in institution. For, he
says, the Angels who made the world, instituted what they wished,
thinking by such words to enslave all who listened to them. Whereas
the dissolution of the world, they (the Simonians) say, is for the
ransoming of their own people.

20. And (Simon's) disciples perform magical ceremonies and (use)
incantations, and philtres and spells, and they also send what are
called "dream-sending" daemons for disturbing whom they will. They
also train what are called "familiars,"[41] and have a statue of
Simon in the form of Zeus, and one of Helen in the form of Athena,
which they worship, calling the former Lord and the latter Lady.
And if any among them on seeing the images, calls them by the name
of Simon or Helen, he is cast out as one ignorant of the mysteries.

While this Simon was leading many astray by his magic rites in
Samaria, he was confuted by the apostles. And being cursed, as it
is written in the _Acts_, in dissatisfaction took to these schemes.
And at last he travelled to Rome and again fell in with the
apostles, and Peter had many encounters with him for he continued
leading numbers astray by his magic. And towards the end of his
career going ... he settled under a plane tree and continued his
teachings. And finally running the risk of exposure through the
length of his stay, he said, that if he were buried alive, he would
rise again on the third day. And he did actually order a grave to
be dug by his disciples and told them to bury him. So they carried
out his orders, but he has stopped away[42] until the present day,
for he was not the Christ.

vi. Origenes (_Contra Celsum_, i. 57; v. 62; vi. 11). Text (edidit Carol. Henric. Eduard); Lommatzsch; Berolini, 1846.

i. 57. And Simon also, the Samaritan magician, endeavoured to steal
away certain by his magic. And at that time he succeeded in
deceiving them, but in our own day I do not think it possible to
find thirty Simonians altogether in the inhabited world. And
probably I have said more than they really are. There are a very
few of them round Palestine; but in the rest of the world his name
is nowhere to be found in the sense of the doctrine he wished to
spread broadcast concerning himself. And alongside of the reports
about him, we have the account from the _Acts_. And they who say
these things about him are Christians and their clear witness is
that Simon was nothing divine.

v. 62. Then pouring out a quantity of our names, he (Celsus) says
he knows certain Simonians who are called Heleniani, because they
worship Helen or a teacher Helenus. But Celsus is ignorant that the
Simonians in no way confess that Jesus is the Son of God, but they
say that Simon is the Power of God, telling some marvellous stories
about the fellow, who thought that if he laid claim to like powers
as those which he thought Jesus laid claim to, he also would be as
powerful among men as Jesus is with many.

vi. 11. For the former (Simon) pretended he was the Power of God,
which is called Great, and the latter (Dositheus) that he too was
the Son of God. For nowhere in the world do the Simonians any
longer exist. Moreover by getting many under his influence Simon
took away from his disciples the danger of death, which Christians
were taught was taken away, teaching them that there was no
difference between it and idolatry. And yet in the beginning the
Simonians were not plotted against. For the evil daemon who plots
against the teaching of Jesus, knew that no counsel of his own
would be undone by the disciples of Simon.

vii. Philastrius (_De Haeresibus_, i). Text: _Patres Quarti Ecclesiae Saeculi_ (edidit D.A.B. Caillau); Paris, 1842.

Now after the passion of Christ, our Lord, and his ascension into
heaven, there arose a certain Simon, the magician, a Samaritan by
birth, from a village called Gittha, who having the leisure
necessary for the arts of magic deceived many, saying that he was
some Power of God, above all powers. Whom the Samaritans worship as
the Father, and wickedly extol as the founder of their heresy, and
strive to exalt him with many praises. Who having been baptized by
the blessed apostles, went back from their faith, and disseminated
a wicked and pernicious heresy, saying that he was transformed
supposedly, that is to say like a shadow, and thus he had suffered,
although, he says, he did not suffer.

And he also dared to say that the world had been made by Angels,
and the Angels again had been made by certain endowed with
perception from heaven, and that they (the Angels) had deceived the
human race.

He asserted, moreover, that there was a certain other Thought, who
descended into the world for the salvation of men; he says she was
that Helen whose story is celebrated in the Trojan War by the
vain-glorious poets. And the Powers, he says, led on by desire of
this Helen, stirred up sedition. "For she," he says, "arousing
desire in those Powers, and appearing in the form of a woman, could
not reäscend into heaven, because the Powers which were in heaven
did not permit her to reascend." Moreover, she looked for another
Power, that is to say, the presence of Simon himself, which would
come and free her.

The wooden horse also, which the vain-glorious poets say was in the
Trojan War, he asserted was allegorical, namely, that that
mechanical invention typified the ignorance of all the impious
nations, although it is well known that that Helen, who was with
the magician, was a prostitute from Tyre, and that this same Simon,
the magician, had followed her, and together with her had practised
various magic arts and committed divers crimes.

But after he had fled from the blessed Peter from the city of
Jerusalem, and came to Rome, and contended there with the blessed
apostle before the Emperor Nero, he was routed on every point by
the speech of the blessed apostle, and being smitten by an angel
came by a righteous end in order that the glaring falsity of his
magic might be made known unto all men.

viii. Epiphanius (_Contra Haereses_, ii. 1-6). Text: _Opera_ (edidit G. Dindorfius); Lipsiae, 1859.

1. From the time of Christ to our own day the first heresy was that
of Simon the magician, and though it was not correctly and
distinctly one of the Christian name, yet it worked great havoc by
the corruption it produced among Christians. This Simon was a
sorcerer, and the base of his operations was at Gittha, a city in
Samaria, which still exists as a village. And he deluded the
Samaritan people with magical phenomena, deluding and enticing them
with a bait by saying that he was the Great Power of God and had
come down from above. And he told the Samaritans that he was the
Father, and the Jews that he was the Son, and that in undergoing
the passion he had not really done so, but that it was only in
appearance. And he ingratiated himself with the apostles, was
baptized by Philip with many others, and received the same rite as
the rest. And all except himself awaited the arrival of the great
apostles and by the laying on of their hands received the Holy
Spirit, for Philip, being a deacon, had not the power of laying on
of hands to grant thereby the gift of the Holy Spirit. But Simon,
with wicked heart and erroneous calculations, persisted in his base
and mercenary covetousness, without abandoning in any way his
miserable pursuits, and offered money to Peter, the apostle, for
the power of bestowing the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands,
calculating that he would give little, and that for the little (he
gave), by bestowing the Spirit on many, he would amass a large sum
of money and make a profit.

2. So with his mind in a vile state through the devilish illusions
produced by his magic, and weaving all kinds of images, and being
ever ready of his own villany to show his barbaric and demoniacal
tricks by means of his charms, he came forward publicly and under
the cloak of the name of Christ; and pretending that he was mixing
hellebore[43] with honey, he added a poison for those whom he
hunted into his mischievous illusion, under the cloak of the name
of Christ, and compassed the death of those who believed. And being
lewd in nature and goaded on through shame of his promises, the
vagabond fabricated a corrupt allegory for those whom he had
deceived. For picking up a roving woman, called Helen, who
originated from the city of the Tyrians, he took her about with
him, without letting people know that he was on terms of undue
intimacy with her; and when he was involved in bursting disgrace
because of his mistress, he started a fabulous kind of
psychopompy[44] for his disciples, and saying, forsooth, that he
was the Great Power of God, he ventured to call his prostitute
companion the Holy Spirit, and he says that it was on her account
he descended. "And in each heaven I changed my form," he says, "in
order that I might not be perceived by my Angelic Powers, and
descend to my Thought, which is she who is called Prunîcus[45] and
Holy Spirit, through whom I brought into being the Angels, and the
Angels brought into being the world and men." (He claimed) that
this was the Helen of old, on whose account the Trojans and Greeks
went to war. And he related a myth with regard to these matters,
that this Power descending from above changed its form, and that it
was about this that the poets spake allegorically. And through this
Power from above--which they call Prunîcus, and which is called by
other sects Barbero or Barbelo--displaying her beauty, she drove
them to frenzy, and on this account was she sent for the despoiling
of the Rulers who brought the world into being; and the Angels
themselves went to war on her account; and while she experienced
nothing, they set to work to mutually slaughter each other on
account of the desire which she infused into them for herself. And
constraining her so that she could not reäscend, each had
intercourse with her in every body of womanly and female
constitution--she reïncarnating from female bodies into different
bodies, both of the human kingdom, and of beasts and other
things--in order that by means of their slaying and being slain,
they might bring about a diminution of themselves through the
shedding of blood, and that then she by collecting again the Power
would be enabled to reäscend into heaven.