Chapter V: Part III: The Theosophy of Simon (1)

In treating of eschatology and the beginning of things the human mind is ever beset with the same difficulties, and no matter how grand may be the effort of the intellect to transcend itself, the finite must ever fail to comprehend the infinite. How much less then can words define that which even the whole phenomenal universe fails to express! The change from the One to the Many is not to be described. How the All-Deity becomes the primal Trinity, is the eternal problem set for man's solution. No system of religion or philosophy has ever explained this inexplicable mystery, for it cannot be understood by the embodied Soul, whose vision and comprehension are dulled by the grossness of its physical envelope. Even the illuminated Soul that quits its prison house, to bathe in the light of infinitude, can only recollect flashes of the Vision Glorious once it returns again to earth.

And this is also the teaching of Simon when he says:

I say there are many gods, but one God of all these gods,
incomprehensible and unknown to all, ... a Power of immeasurable
and ineffable Light, whose greatness is held to be
incomprehensible, a Tower which the maker of the world does not
know.

This is a fundamental dogma of the Gnôsis in all climes and in all ages. The demiurgic deity is not the All-Deity, for there is an infinite succession of universes, each having its particular deity, its Brahmâ, to use the Hindû term, but this Brahmâ is not THAT which is Para-Brahman, that which is beyond Brahmâ.

This view of the Simonian Gnôsis has been magnificently anticipated in the _Rig Veda_ (x. 129) which reads in the fine translation of Colebrooke as follows:

That, whence all this great creation came,
Whether Its will created or was mute,
The Most High Seer that is in highest Heaven,
He knows it--or perchance even He knows not.

In treating of emanation, evolution, creation or whatever other term may be given to the process of manifestation, therefore, the teachers deal only with one particular universe; the Unmanifested Root, and Universal Cause of all Universes lying behind, in potentiality ([Greek: dynamis]), in Incomprehensible Silence ([Greek: sigae akatalaeptos]). For on the "Tongue of the Ineffable" are many "Words" ([Greek: logoi]), each Universe having its own Logos.

Thus then Simon speaks of the Logos of this Universe and calls it Fire ([Greek: pyr]). This is the Universal Principle or Beginning ([Greek: ton holon archae]), or Universal Rootage ([Greek: rizoma ton holon]). But this Fire is not the fire of earth; it is Divine Light and Life and Mind, the Perfect Intellectual ([Greek: to teleion noeron]). It is the One Power, "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." It is That, "which has neither beginning nor end, existing in oneness." "Producing itself by itself, it manifested to itself its own Thought ([Greek: epinoia])."

It is quite true that this symbology of Fire is not original with Simon, but there is also no reason to suppose that the Samaritan teacher plagiarized from Heracleitus when we know that the major part of antiquity regarded fire and the sun as the most fitting symbols of Deity. Of the manifested elements, fire was the most potent, and therefore the most fitting symbol that could be selected in manifested nature.

But what was the Fire of Heracleitus, the Obscure ([Greek: ho skoteinos]), as Cicero, with the rest of the ancients, called him, because of his difficult style? What was the Universal Principle of the "weeping philosopher," the pessimist who valued so little the estimation of the vulgar ([Greek: ochloloidoros])? It certainly was no common "fire," certainly no puerile concept to be brushed away by the mere hurling of an epithet.

Heracleitus of Ephesus (_flor. c._ 503 B.C.) was a sincerely religious man in the highest sense of the word, a reformer who strongly opposed the degenerate polytheism and idolatry of his age; he insisted on the impermanence of the phenomenal universe, of human affairs, beliefs and opinions, and declared the One Eternal Reality; teaching that the Self of man was a portion of the Divine Intelligence. The object of his enquiry was Wisdom, and he reproached his vain-glorious countrymen of the city of Diana with the words: "Your _knowledge_ of many things does not give you _wisdom_."

In his philosophy of nature he declared the One Thing to be Fire, but Fire of a mystical nature, "self-kindled and self-extinguished," the vital quickening power of the universe. It was that Universal Life, by participation in which all things have their being, and apart from which they are unsubstantial and unreal. This is the "Tree of Life" spoken of by Simon.

In this Ocean of Fire or Life--in every point or atom of it--is inherent a longing to manifest itself in various forms, thus giving rise to the perpetual flux and change of the phenomenal world. This Divine Desire, this "love for everything that lives and breathes," is found in many systems, and especially in the Vedic and Phoenician Cosmogony. In the _Rig Veda_ (x. 129), it is that Kâma or Desire "which first arose in It (the Unknown Deity)," elsewhere identified with Agni or Fire. In the fragments of Phoenician Cosmogony, recovered from Sanchuniathon, it is called Pothos ([Greek: pothos]) and Erôs ([Greek: eros]).

In its pure state, the Living and Rational Fire of Heracleitus resides in the highest conceivable Heaven, whence it descends stage by stage, gradually losing the velocity of its motion and vitality, until it finally reaches the Earth-stage, having previously passed through that of "Water." Thence it returns to its parent source.

In this eternal flux, the only repose was to be found in the harmony that occasionally resulted from one portion of the Fire in its descent meeting another in its ascent. All this took place under Law and Order, and the Soul of man being a portion of the Fire in its pure state, and therefore an exile here on Earth, could only be at rest by cultivating as the highest good, contentment ([Greek: euarestaesis]), or acquiescence to the Law.

The author of the _Philosophumena_ professes to give us some additional information on this philosopher who "bewailed all things, condemning the ignorance of all that lives, and of all men, in pity for the life of mortals," but the obscure philosopher does not lend himself very easily to the controversial purposes of the patristic writer. Heracleitus called the Universal Principle ([Greek: ton hapanton archae]) Intellectual Fire ([Greek: pur noeron]), and said that the sphere surrounding us and reaching to the Moon was filled with evil, but beyond the Moon-sphere it was purer.[97]

The sentences that the author quotes from Heracleitus in Book IX, are not only obscure enough in themselves, but are also rendered all the more obscure by the polemical treatment they are subjected to by the patristic writer. Heracleitus makes the ALL inclusive of all Being and Non-Being, all pairs of opposites, "differentiation and non-differentiation, the generable and ingenerable, mortal and immortal, the Logos and Aeon, and the Father and Son," which he calls the "Just God." This ALL is the "Sadasat-Tatparam yat" of the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, inclusive of Being (Sat), Non-Being (Asat), and That Which transcends them (Tatparam yat).[98]

This Logos plays an important part in the system of the Ephesian sage, who says that they who give ear to the Logos (the Word or Supreme Reason) know that "All is One" ([Greek: hen panta eidenai]). Such an admission he calls, "Reflex Harmony" ([Greek: palintropos harmoniae]), like unto the Supernal Harmony, which he calls Hidden or Occult, and declares its superiority to the Manifested Harmony. The ignorance and misery of men arise from their not acting according to this Harmony, that is to say, according to (Divine) Nature ([Greek: kata phusin]).

He also declares that the Aeon, the Emanative Deity, is as a child playing at creation, an idea found in both the Hindû and Hermetic Scriptures. In the former the Universe is said to be the sport (Lîlâ) of Vishnu, who is spoken of in one of his incarnations as Lîlâvatâra, descending on earth for his own pleasure, when as Krishna he assumed the shape of man as a pretence (a purely Docetic doctrine), hence called Lîlâ-mânusha-vigraha; while in the latter we learn from a magic papyrus that Thoth (the God of Wisdom) created the world by bursting into "seven peals of laughter." This, of course, typifies the Bliss of the Deity in Emanation or Creation, caused by that Divine Love and Compassion for all that lives and breathes, which is the well-spring of the Supreme Cause of the Universe.

Diving into the Mystery of Being, Heracleitus showed how a thing could be good or evil, and evil or good, at one and the same time, as for instance sea water which preserved and nourished fishes but destroyed men. So also, speaking in his usual paradoxical manner, which can only be understood by a full comprehension of the dual nature of man,--the real divine entity, and the passing and ever-changing manifestation, which so many take for the whole man--he says:

The immortals are mortal, and the mortals immortal, the former
living the death of the latter, and the latter dying the life of
the former.[99]

Thus all externals are transitory, for "no one has ever been twice on the same stream, for different waters are constantly flowing down," and therefore in following externals we shall err, for nothing is efficient and forcible except through Harmony, and its subjection to the Divine Fire, the central principle of Life.

Such was the Fire of the distinguished Ephesian, and of like nature was the Fire of Simon with its three primordial hypostases, Incorruptible Form ([Greek: aphthartos morphae]), Universal Mind ([Greek: nous ton holon]), and Great Thought ([Greek: epinoia megalae]), synthesized as the Universal Logos, He who has stood, stands and will stand ([Greek: ho estos, stas, staesomenos]).

But before passing on to the aeonology of Simon, a short delay, to enquire more fully into the notions of the Initiated among the ancients as to the nature of Mystic Fire, will not be without advantage.

If Simon was a Samaritan and learned in the esoteric interpretation of scripture, he could not have failed to be acquainted with the Kabalah, perhaps even with the now lost Chaldaean _Book of Numbers_. Among the books of the Kabalah, the _Zohar_, or "Book of Splendour," speaks of the mysterious "Hidden Light," that which Simon calls the Hidden Fire ([Greek: to krupton]), and tells us of the "Mystery of the Three Parts of the Fire, which are One" as follows:

Began Rabbi Sim-on and said: Two verses are written, "That YHVH thy
Elohim is a devouring fire, a zealous Ail (El)" (_Deut._, iv. 24);
again it is written, "But you that cleave unto YHVH your Elohim,
are alive, every one of you, this day" (_Deut._, iv. 4). On this
verse "That YHVH thy Elohim is a consuming fire," this we said to
the companions; That it is a fire which devours fire, and it is a
fire which devours itself and consumes itself, because it is a fire
which is more mighty than fire, and it has been so confirmed. But,
Come, See! Whoever desires to know the wisdom of the Holy Unity
should look in that flame arising from a burning coal or a lighted
lamp. This flame comes out only when united with another thing.
Come, See! In the flame which goes up are two lights: one light is
a bright white and one light is united with a dark or blue; the
white light is that which is above and ascends in a straight path,
and that below is that dark or blue light, and this light below is
the throne to the white light and that white light rests upon it,
and they unite one to the other so that they are one. And this dark
light, or blue colour, which is below, is the precious throne to
the white. And this is the mystery of the blue. And this blue dark
throne unites itself with another thing to light that from below,
and this awakes it to unite with the upper white light, and this
blue or dark, sometimes changes its colour, but that white above
never changes its colour, it is always white; but that blue changes
to these different colours, sometimes to blue or black and
sometimes to a red colour, and this unites itself to two sides. It
unites to the above, to that white upper light, and unites itself
below to the thing which is under it, which is the burning matter,
and this burns and consumes always from the matter below. And this
devours that matter below, which connects with it and upon which
the blue light rests, therefore this eats up all which connects
with it from below, because it is the nature of it, that it devour
and consume everything which depends on it and is dead matter, and
therefore it eats up everything which connects with it below, and
this white light which rests upon it never consumes itself and
never changes its light, and therefore said Moses; "That YHVH thy
Elohim is a consuming fire." Surely He consumes. It devours and
consumes every thing which rests under it; and on this he said:
"YHVH is thy Elohim" not "our Elohim," because Moses has been in
that white light, Above, which neither devours nor consumes. Come,
See! It is not His Will to light that blue light that should unite
with that white light, only for Israël; because they cleave or
connect under Him. And, Come, See! Although the nature of that dark
or blue light is, that it shall consume every thing which joins
with it below, still Israël cleaves on Him, Below, ... and although
you cleave in Him nevertheless you exist, because it is written:
"You are all alive this day." And on this white light rests above a
Hidden Light which is stronger. Here is the above mystery of that
flame which comes out from it, and in it is the Wisdom of the
Above.[100]

And if Chaldaea gave the impulse which enshrined the workings of the Cosmos in such graphic symbology as the above, we are not surprised to read in the Chaldaean Oracles ([Greek: logia]),[101] ascribed to Zoroaster, that "all things are generated from One Fire."[102] And this Fire in its first energizing was intellectual; the first "Creation" was of Mind and not of Works:

For the Fire Beyond, the first, did not shut up its power ([Greek:
dunamis]) into Matter ([Greek: hulae]) by Works, but by Mind, for
the fashioner of the Fiery Cosmos is the Mind of Mind.[103]

A striking similarity with the Simonian system, indeed, rendered all the closer by the Oracle which speaks of that:

Which first leaped forth from Mind, enveloping Fire with Fire,
binding them together that it might interblend the
mother-vortices,[104] while retaining the flower of its own
Fire.[105]

This "flower" of Fire and the vorticle idea is further explained by the Oracle which says:

Thence a trailing whirlwind, the flower of shadowy Fire, leaping
into the wombs (or hollows) of worlds. For thence it is that all
things begin to stretch below their wondrous rays.[106]

Compare this with the teaching of Simon that the "fruit" of the Tree is placed in the Store-house and not cast into the Fire.

In his aeonology, Simon, like other Gnostic teachers, begins with the Word, the Logos, which springs up from the Depths of the Unknown--Invisible, Incomprehensible Silence. It is true that he does not so name the Great Power, He who has stood, stands and will stand; but that which comes forth from Silence is Speech, and the idea is the same whatever the terminology employed may be. Setting aside the Hermetic teachings and those of the later Gnôsis, we find this idea of the Great Silence referred to several times in the fragments of the Chaldaean Oracles. It is called "God-nourished Silence" ([Greek: sigae theothremmon]), according to whose divine decrees the Mind that energizes before all energies, abides in the Paternal Depth.[107] Again:

This unswerving Deity is called the Silent One by the gods, and is
said to consent (lit. sing together) with the Mind, and to be known
by the Souls through Mind alone.[108]

Elsewhere the Oracles demonstrate this Power which is prior to the highest Heaven as "Mystic Silence."[109]

The Word, then, issuing from Silence is first a Monad, then a Duad, a Triad and a Hebdomad. For no sooner has differentiation commenced in it, and it passes from the state of Oneness ([Greek: monotaes]), than the Duadic and Triadic state immediately supervene, arising, so to say, simultaneously in the mind, for the mind cannot rest on Duality, but is forced by a law of its nature to rest only on the joint emanation of the Two. Thus the first natural resting point is the Trinity. The next is the Hebdomad or Septenary, according to the mathematical formula 2^{n}-1, the sum of _n_ things taken 1, 2, 3 ... _n_, at a time. The Trinity being manifested, _n_ here =3; and 2^{3}-1 = 7.

Thus Simon has six Roots and the Seventh Power, seven in all, as the type of the Aeons in the Plerôma. These all proceed from the Fire. In like manner also the Cabeiric deities of Samothrace and Phoenicia were Fire-gods, born of the Fire. Nonnus tells us they were sons of the mysterious Hephaestus (Vulcan),[110] and Eusebius, in his quotations from Sanchuniathon, that they were _seven_ in number.[111] The Vedic Agni (Ignis) also, the God of Fire, is called "Seven-tongued" (Sapta-jihva) and "Seven-flamed" (Sapta-jvâla).[112]

In the _Hibbert Lectures_ of 1887, Prof. A.H. Sayce gives the following Hymn of Ancient Babylonia to the Fire-god, from _The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia_ (iv. 15):

1. The (bed) of the earth they took for their border, but the god
appeared not,

2. from the foundations of the earth he appeared not to make
hostility;

3. (to) the heaven below they extended (their path), and to the
heaven that is unseen they climbed afar.

4. In the Star(s) of Heaven was not their ministry; in Mazzaroth
(the Zodiacal signs) was their office.

5. The Fire-god, the first-born supreme, into heaven they pursued
and no father did he know.

6. O Fire-god, supreme on high, the first-born, the mighty, supreme
enjoiner of the commands of Anu!

7. The Fire-god enthrones with himself the friend that he loves.

8. He reveals the enmity of those seven.

9. On the work he ponders in his dwelling-place.

10. O Fire-god, how were those seven begotten, how were they
nurtured?

11. Those seven in the mountain of the sunset were born;

12. those seven in the mountain of the sunrise grew up.

13. In the hollows of the earth they have their dwelling;

14. on the high places of the earth their names are proclaimed.

15. As for them, in heaven and earth they have no dwelling, hidden
is their name.

16. Among the sentient gods they are not known.

17. Their name in heaven and earth exists not.

18. Those seven from the mountain of the sunset gallop forth;

19. those seven in the mountain of the sunrise are bound to rest.

20. In the hollows of the earth they set the foot.

21. On the high places of the earth they lift the neck.

22. They by nought are known; in heaven and in earth is no
knowledge of them.[113]

Though I have no intention of contending that Simon obtained his ideas specifically from Vedic, Chaldaean, Babylonian, Zoroastrian, or Phoenician sources, still the identity of ideas and the probability, almost amounting to conviction for the student, that the Initiated of antiquity all drew from the same sources, shows that there was nothing original in the main features of the Simonian system.

This is also confirmed by the statements in Epiphanius and the _Apostolic Constitutions_ that the Simonians gave "barbarous" or "foreign names" to their Aeons. That is to say, names that were neither Greek nor Hebrew. None of these names are mentioned by the Fathers, and probably the Greek terms given by the author of the _Philosophumena_ and Theodoret are exoteric equivalents of the mystery names. There is abundant evidence, from gems, monuments and fragments, to show that there was a mystery language employed by the Gnostic and other schools. What this language was no scholar has yet been able to tell us, and it is sufficiently evident that the efforts at decipherment are so far abortive. The fullest and most precious examples of these names and of this language are to be found in the papyri brought back by Bruce from Abyssinia at the latter end of the last century.[114]

Jamblichus tells us that the language of the Mysteries was that of ancient Egypt and Assyria, which he calls "sacred nations," as follows:

But, you ask, why among our symbolical terms ([Greek: saemantika])
we prefer barbarous (words) to our respective native (tongues)?
There is also for this a mystic reason. For it was the gods who
taught the sacred nations, such as the Egyptians and Assyrians, the
whole of their sacred dialect, wherefore we think that we ought to
make our own dialects resemble the speech cognate with the gods.
Since also the first mode of speech in antiquity was of such a
nature, and especially since they who learnt the first names
concerning the gods, mingled them with their own tongue--as being
suited to such (names) and conformable to them--and handed them
down to us, we therefore keep unchanged the rule of this immemorial
tradition to our own times. For of all things that are suited to
the gods the most akin is manifestly that which is eternal and
immutable.[115]

The existence of this sacred tongue perhaps accounts for the constant distinction made by Homer between the language of the gods and that of men.[116] Diodorus Siculus also asserts that the Samothracians used a very ancient and peculiar dialect in their sacred rites.[117]

These "barbarous names" were regarded as of the greatest efficacy and sanctity, and it was unlawful to change them. As the Chaldaean Logia say:

Change not the barbarous names, for in all the nations are there
names given by the gods, possessing unspeakable power in the
Mysteries.[118]

And the scholiast[119] adds that they should not be translated into Greek.

It is, therefore, most probable that Simon used the one, three, five, and seven syllabled or vowelled names, and that the Greek terms were substitutes that completely veiled the esoteric meaning from the uninitiated.

The names of the seven Aeons, as given by the author of the _Philosophumena_, are as follows: The Image from the Incorruptible Form, alone ordering all things ([Greek: eikon ex aphthartou morphaes kosmousa monae panta]), also called The Spirit moving on the Waters ([Greek: to pneuma to epipheroumenon epano tou hudatos]) and The Seventh Power ([Greek: hae ebdomae dunamis]); Mind ([Greek: nous]) and Thought ([Greek: epinoia]), also called Heaven ([Greek: ouranos]) and Earth ([Greek: gae]); Voice ([Greek: phonae]) and Name ([Greek: onoma]),[120] also called Sun ([Greek: haelios]) and Moon ([Greek: selaenae]); Reason ([Greek: logismos]) and Reflection ([Greek: enthumaesis]), also called Air ([Greek: aaer]) and Water ([Greek: hudor]).

The first three of these are sufficiently explained in the fragment of Simon's _Great Revelation_, preserved in the _Philosophumena_, and become entirely comprehensible to the student of the Kabalah who is learned in the emanations of the Sephirothal Tree. Mind and Thought are evidently Chokmah and Binah, and the three and seven Sephiroth are to be clearly recognized in the scheme of the Simonian System which is to follow.

Of the two lower Syzygies, or Lower Quaternary of the Aeons, we have no details from the Fathers. We may, however, see some reason for the exoteric names--Voice and Name, Reason and Reflection--from the following considerations:

(1) We should bear in mind what has already been said about the Logos, Speech and Divine Names. (2) In the Septenary the Quaternary represents the Manifested and the Triad the Concealed Side of the Fire. (3) The fundamental characteristics of the manifested universe with the Hindûs and Buddhists are Name (Nâma) and Form (Rûpa). (4) Simon says that the Great Power was not called Father until Thought (in manifestation becoming Voice) _named_ ([Greek: onomasai]) him Father. (5) Reason and Reflection are evidently the two lowest aspects, principles, or characteristics, of the _divine_ Mind of man. These are included in the lower mind, or Internal Organ (Antah-karana), by the Vedântin philosophers of India and called Buddhi and Manas, being respectively the mental faculties used in the certainty of judgment and the doubt of enquiry.

This Quaternary, among a host of other things, typifies the four lower planes, elements, principles, aspects, etc., of the Universe, with their Hierarchies of Angels, Archangels, Rulers, etc., each synthesized by a Lord who is supreme in his own domain. Seeing, however, that the outermost physical plane is so vast that it transcends the power of conception of even the greatest intellect, it is useless for us to speculate on the interplay of cosmic forces and the mysterious interaction of Spheres of Being that transcend all normal human consciousness. It is only on the lowest and outermost plane that the lower Quaternary symbolizes the four Cardinal Points. The Michael (Sun), Gabriel (Moon), Uriel (Venus), and Raphael (Mercury) of the Kabalah, the four Beasts, the Wheels of Ezekiel, were living, divine, and intelligent Entities pertaining to the inner nature of man and the universe for the Initiated.

It is to be presumed that the Simonians had distinct teachings on this point, as is evidenced by the title of their lost work, _The Book of the Four Angles and Points of the World_. The Four Angles were probably connected with the four ducts or Streams of the "River going forth from Eden to water the Garden." These Streams have their analogy on all planes, and cosmically are of the same nature as the Âkâsha-Gangâ--the Ganges in the Akâshic Ocean of Space--and the rest of the Rivers in the Paurânic writings of the Hindûs.

But before going further it will be as well to have a Diagram or Scheme of the Simonian Aeonology, for presumably the School of Simon had such a Scheme, as we know the Ophites had from the work of Origen, _Contra Celsum_.

[121]

Of course no Diagram is anything more than a symbolical mnemonic, so to say; in itself it is entirely insufficient and only permits a glance at one aspect, or face, of the world-process. It is a step in a ladder merely, useful only for mounting and to be left aside when once a higher rung is reached. Thus it is that the whole of the elements of Euclid were merely an introduction to the comprehension of the "Platonic Solids," which must also, in their turn, be discarded when the within or essence of things has to be dealt with and not the without or appearance, no matter how "typical" that appearance may be.

Sufficient has already been said of the Universal Principle, of the Universal Root and of the Boundless Power--the Parabrahman (That Which transcends Brahmâ), Mûla-Prakriti (Root-Nature), and Supreme Îshvara, or the Unmanifested Eternal Logos, of the Vedântic Philosophers. The next stage is the potential unmanifested type of the Trinity, the Three in One and One in Three, the Potentialities of Vishnu, Brahmâ, and Shiva, the Preservative, Emanative, and Regenerative Powers--the Supreme Logos, Universal Ideation and Potential Wisdom, called by Simon the Incorruptible Form, Universal Mind and Great Thought. This Incorruptible Form is the Paradigm of all Forms, called Vishva Rûpam or All-Form and the Param Rûpam or Supreme Form, in the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_[122] spoken also of as the Param Nidhânam or Supreme Treasure-house,[123] which Simon also calls the Treasure-house [Greek: thaesauros] and Store-house [Greek: apothaekae], an idea found in many systems, and most elaborately in that of the _Pistis-Sophia_.

Between this Divine World, the Unmanifested Triple Aeon, and the World of Men is the Middle Distance--the Waters of Space differentiated by the Image or Reflection of the Triple Logos (D) brooding upon them. As there are three Worlds, the Divine, Middle, and Lower, which have been well named by the Valentinians the Pneumatic (or Spiritual), Psychic (or Soul-World), and Hylic (or Material), so in the Middle Distance we have three planes or degrees, or even seven. This Middle Distance contains the Invisible Spheres between the Physical World and the Divine. To it the Initiated and Illuminati, the Spiritual Teachers of all ages, have devoted much exposition and explanation. It is divine and infernal at one and the same time, for as the higher parts--to use a phrase that is clumsy and misleading, but which cannot be avoided--are pure and spiritual, so the lower parts are corrupted and tainted. The law of analogy, imaging and reflection, hold good in every department of emanative nature, and though pure and spiritual ideas come to men from this realm of the Middle Distance, it also receives back from man the impressions of his impure thoughts and desires, so that its lower parts are fouler even than the physical world, for man's secret thoughts and passions are fouler than the deeds he performs. Thus there is a Heaven and Hell in the Middle Distance, a Pneumatic and Hylic state.

The Lord of this Middle World is One in his own Aeon, but in reality a reflection of the triple radiance from the Unmanifested Logos. This Lord is the Manifested Logos, the Spirit moving on the Waters. Therefore all its emanations or creations are triple. The triple Light above and the triple Darkness below, force and matter, or spirit and matter, both owing their being and apparent opposition to the Mind, "alone ordering all things."

The Diagram to be more comprehensible should be so arranged, mentally, that each of the higher spheres is found within or interpenetrating the lower. Thus, from this point of view, the centre is a more important position than above or below. External to all is the Physical Universe, made by the Hylic Angels, that is to say those emanated by Thought, Epinoia, as representing Primeval Mother Earth, or Matter; not the Earth we know, but the Adamic Earth of the Philosophers, the Potencies of Matter, which Eugenius Philalethes assures us, on his honour, no man has ever seen. This Earth is, in one sense, the Protyle for which the most advanced of our modern Chemists are searching as the One Mother Element.

The idea of the Spirit of God moving on the Waters is a very beautiful one, and we find it worked out in much detail in the Hindû scriptures. For instance, in the _Vishnu Purâna_,[124] we find a description of the emanation of the present Universe by the Supreme Spirit, at the beginning of the present Kalpa or Aeon, an infinity of Kalpas and Universes stretching behind. This he creates endowed with the Quality of Goodness, or the Pneumatic Potency. For the three Qualities (or Gunas) of Nature (Prakriti) are the Pneumatic, Psychic and Hylic Potencies of the Waters of Simon.

At the close of the past (or Pâdma) Kalpa, the divine Brahmâ,
endowed with the quality of goodness, awoke from his night of
sleep, and beheld the universe void. He, the supreme Nârâyana, the
incomprehensible, the sovereign of all creatures, invested with the
form of Brahmâ, the god without beginning, the creator of all
things; of whom, with respect to his name Nârâyana, the god who has
the form of Brahmâ, the imperishable origin[125] of the world, this
verse is repeated: "The waters are called Nârâ, because they were
the offspring of Nara (the supreme spirit); and, as, in them, his
first (Ayana)[126] progress (in the character of Brahmâ) took
place, he is thence named Nârâyana (he whose place of moving was
the waters)."

Sir Wm. Jones translates this well-known verse of Manu[127] as follows:

The waters are called Nârâh, because they were the production of
Nara, or the spirit of God; and, since they were his first Ayana,
or place of motion, he thence is named Nârâyana or moving on the
waters.

Substantially the same statement is made in the _Linga, Vâyu_, and _Mârkandeya Purânas_, and the _Bhâgavata_ explains it more fully as follows:

Purusha (the Spirit) having divided the egg (the ideal universe in
germ), on his issuing forth in the beginning, desiring a place of
motion (Ayanam) for himself, pure he created the waters pure.

In the _Vishnu Purâna_, again, Brahmâ, speaking to the Celestials, says:

I, Mahâdeva (Shiva), and you all are but Nârâyana.[128]

The beautiful symbol of the Divine Spirit moving and brooding over the Primordial Waters of Space--Waters which as differentiation proceeds become more and more turbid--is too graphic to require further explanation. It is too hallowed by age and sanctified by the consent of humanity to meet with less than our highest admiration.

Dissertation on our Diagram could be pursued to almost any length, but sufficient has already been said to show the points of correspondence between the ideas ascribed to Simon and universal Theosophy.

Let us now enquire into the part played by Epinoia, the Divine Thought, in the cosmic process, reserving the part played by her in the human drama to when we come to treat of the soteriology of Simon. We have evidently here a version of the great Sophia-mythus, which plays so important a part in all Gnostic systems. On the one hand the energizings of the mother-side of Divine Nature, on the other the history of the evolution of the Divine Monad, shut into all forms throughout the elemental spheres, throughout the lower kingdoms, up to the man stage.

The mystery of Sophia-Epinoia is great indeed, insoluble in its origins; for how does that which is Divine descend below and create Powers which imprison their parent? It is the mystery of the universe and of man, insoluble for all but the Logos itself, by whose self-sacrifice Sophia, the Soul, is finally freed from her bonds.

Epinoia is a Power of many names. She is called the Mother, or All-Mother, Mother of the Living or Shining Mother, the Celestial Eve; the Power Above; the Holy Spirit, for the Spiritus in some systems is a feminine power (in a symbolical sense, of course), pre-eminently in the _Codex Nazaraeus_, the scripture of the Mandaïtes. Again she is called She of the Left-hand, as opposed to the Christos, He of the Right-hand; the Man-woman; Prouneikos; Matrix; Paradise; Eden; Achamôth; the Virgin; Barbelo; Daughter of Light; Merciful Mother; Consort of the Masculine One; Revelant of the Perfect Mysteries; Perfect Mercy; Revelant of the Mysteries of the Whole Magnitude; Hidden Mother; She who knows the Mysteries of the Elect; the Holy Dove, who has given birth to the two Twins; Ennoia; and by many another name varying according to the terminology of the different systems, but ever preserving the root idea of the World-Soul in the Macrocosm and the Soul in Man.

Within every form, aye, even apparently the meanest, is Epinoia confined; for everything within is innate with Life; every form contains a spark of the Divine Fire, essentially of the same nature as the All; for in the Roots, and also in all things--since all is built on their type--is "the whole of the Boundless Power together _in potentiality_, but not _in actuality_."

The reason given for this imprisonment of Sophia in most of the systems is that she endeavoured to create without her Syzygy, the Father or Nous, wishing to imitate alone the self-generating power of the Supreme. Thus through ignorance she involved herself in suffering, from which she was freed by repentance and experience. What explanation of this supreme mystery was publicly ventured on by Simon we cannot know, for the patristic accounts are confused and contradictory.

Irenaeus tells us that:

She was the first Conception (Epinoia) of his Mind, the Mother of
All, by whom in the beginning he conceived in his Mind, the making
of the Angels and Archangels.

This Epinoia, leaping forth from _him_ (the Boundless Power), 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
the world was made. And after she had generated them, she was
detained by them through envy, for they did not wish to be thought
the progeny of another. As for himself he was entirely unknown by
them; and it was his Thought (Epinoia) that was made prisoner by
the Powers and Angels that had 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.

Tertullian's account differs by the important addition that the "design of the Father was prevented"; how or why he does not say.

She was his first Suggestion whereby he 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, etc.

The _Philosophumena_ say nothing on this point, except that Epinoia "throws all the Powers in the World into confusion through her unsurpassable Beauty."

Philaster renders confusion worse confounded, by writing:

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
(Intellectus) who descended into the world for the salvation of
men.

Epiphanius further complicates the problem as follows:

This Power (Prunîcus and Holy Spirit) descending from Above changed
its form.... And through the Power from Above ... 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.

Theodoret briefly follows Irenaeus.

In these contradictory accounts we have a great confusion between the rôles played by Nous and Epinoia, the Father and Thought, the Spirit and Spiritual Soul. Then again how did the Lower Regions come into existence, for Epinoia to descend to them? This lacuna is filled by the fuller information of the _Philosophumena_ which shows us the scheme of self-emanation out or down into matter by similitude, thus confining the problem of "evil" to space and time, and not raising it into an eternal principle. Naturally it is not to be supposed that the origin of "evil" is solvable for man in his present state, therefore whether it was according to the design or contrary to the design of the Father, will ever depend upon the point of view from which we severally regard the problem.

Law, Justice, and Compassion are not incompatible terms to one whose heart is set firm on spiritual things; and the view that evil is not a thing in itself, but exists only because of human ignorance, is one that must commend itself to the truly religious and philosophical mind. Thus evil is not a fixed quantity in itself, it depends on the internal attitude each man holds with regard to externals as to whether they are evil or no.

For instance, it is not evil for an animal or savage to kill, for the light of the higher law is not yet flaming brightly in their hearts. That only is evil if we do what is displeasing to the Self. This may perhaps throw some light on the Simonian dogma of action by accident (_ex accidenti_), or institution ([Greek: thesei]), as opposed to action according to nature (_naturaliter_ or [Greek: phusei])--evidently the same idea as the teaching of Heracleitus to act according to nature ([Greek: kata phusin]) which he explains as according to the Unmanifested Harmony which we can hear by straining our ears to catch that still small voice within, the Voice of the Silence, the Logos or Self. Simon presumably refers to this in the phrase "the things which sound within" ([Greek: ta enaecha]), an idea remarkably confirmed by Psellus,[129] who quotes the following Logion:

When thou seest a most holy, formless Fire shining and bounding
throughout the depths of the whole Cosmos, give ear to the Voice of
the Fire.

This brings us to a consideration of the teachings of Simon with regard to the Lesser World, the Microcosm, Man, and to the scheme of his soteriology. Evidently Simon taught the ancient, immemorial doctrine that the Microcosm Man was the Mirror and Potentiality of the Cosmos, the Macrocosm, as we have already seen above. Whatever was true of the emanation of the Universe, was also true of Man, whatever was true of the Macrocosmic Aeons was true of the Microcosmic Aeons in Man, which are potentially the same as those of the Cosmos, and will develop into the power and grandeur of the latter, if they can find suitable expression, or a fit vehicle. This view will explain the reason of the ancients for saying that we could only perceive that of which we have a germ already within us. Thus it is that Empedocles taught:

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

And if the potentiality of all resided in every man, the teaching on this point most forcibly has been, _Qui se cognoscit, in se omnia cognoscit_--He who knows himself, knows all in himself--as Q. Fabius Pictor tells us. And, therefore, the essential of moral and spiritual training in ancient times was the attainment of Self-Knowledge--that is to say, the attainment of the certitude that there is a divine nature within every man, which is of infinite capacity to absorb universal Wisdom; that, in brief, Man was _essentially_ one with Deity.

With Simon, as with the Hermetic philosophers of ancient Egypt, all things were interrelated by correspondence, analogy, and similitude. "As above, so below," is the teaching on the Smaragdine Table of Hermes. Therefore, whatever happened to the divine Epinoia, the Supreme Mother, among the Aeons, happened also to the human Spiritual Soul or Monadic Essence, in its evolution through all stages of manifestation. This Soul is shut into all forms and bodies, successively up to the stage of man.

From one point of view this teaching has been conclusively proved by Modern Science. The evolution of the external form has been traced throughout all the kingdoms and is no longer in question. The ancient teachers of evolution, though less exact in detail, were more accurate in fact, in postulating a "something within" which alone could make the external evolution of form of any intelligible purpose. The Spiritual Soul--the Life, Consciousness, Spirit, Intelligence, whatever we may choose to call it--was formless in itself, but ever assuming new forms by a process called metempsychosis, metasomatosis, metangismos, etc., which in the human stage becomes reïncarnation, the rebirth or Punarjanman of the Hindûs.

So much has been written on metempsychosis and reïncarnation of late that it is hardly necessary to dwell on a now so familiar idea. In its widest sense the whole process of nature is subject to this mode of existence, and in its more restricted sense it is the path of pilgrimage of the Soul in the desert of Matter. In treating of a philosophical conception, which has already been completely established as far as its "visible side" is concerned by the researches of Modern Science in the field of evolution, it is a waste of time to obscure the main issue by a rehashing of the superstitious belief that the human Soul might pass back to the brute. It may be that this superstition arose from the consideration that the body and lower vestures of the Soul were shed off and gradually absorbed by the lower creation in the alchemical processes of nature. This was the fate of the "Purgations" of the Soul, but the Soul itself when once it had passed from bodies of the lower kingdoms, to bodies in the man-stage, could not retrogress beyond the limits of that human kingdom.

By a glance at the Diagram, and regarding it from the microcosmic point of view, it is easy to see that the inner nature of man is more complex than the elementary trichotomy of Body, Soul, and Spirit, might lead us to suppose. Each plane of Being, for which the Soul has its own appropriate Vesture, is generated from an "indivisible point," as Simon called it, a zero-point, to use a term of modern Chemistry; six of which are shown in the Diagram, and each plane of Being is bounded by such zero-points, for they are points like that of the Circle whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere.

To pass on to the soteriology of Simon. The general concept of this presents no difficulty to the student of Eastern Religions. The idea that the great teachers are Avatâras, incarnations, or descents, of the Supreme Being, appearing on earth to aid mankind, is simple enough to comprehend in itself, and would be open to little objection, were it not for the theological dogmas and mythological legends that are wont to be so busily woven round the lives of such teachers. In the present age it is hardly necessary for us, with the experience of the past before our eyes, to raise dissension as to whether such a manifestation is entirely divine, or entirely human, or perfectly human and divine at one and the same time, or neither or all of these.

Eastern philosophy, regarding not only the external phenomenal world as ever-changing and impermanent, but also all appearance or manifestation--no matter how subjective it may be to us now--as not the one Truth in itself, which it claims alone to be without change, it is easy to see the reason why the Gnostic Philosophers for the most part held to Doceticism--that is to say that the body of a Saviour was not the Saviour himself, but an appearance. The heat of polemical controversy may have led to exaggerated views on both sides, but the philosophical mind will not be distressed at the thought that the body is an appearance or mask of the real man, and that it forms no part of his eternal possession. None the less the body is real to us here, for we all have bodies of a like nature, and appearances are real to appearances. Yet this does not invalidate the further consideration that there are other bodies, vestures, or vehicles of consciousness, besides the gross physical "coat of skin," for the use of the spiritual man, each being an "appearance" in comparison to the higher vehicle, which is in its turn an "appearance" to that which is more subtle and less material or substantial than itself.

Thus, in the descent from the Divine World, the Soul transforms itself, or clothes itself in forms, or bodies, or vestures, which it weaves out of its own substance, like to the Powers of the Worlds it passes through, for every Soul has a different vehicle of consciousness for every World or Plane.

But the doctrine of the Soter, or Saviour, does not apply until the Christ-stage or consummation is reached. Following the idea of rebirth, there is a spiritual life cycle, or life-thread, on which the various earth-lives are strung, as beads on a necklace, each successive life being purer and nobler, as the Soul gains control of matter, or the driver control of the chariot and steeds that speed him through the experiences of life. As the end of this great cycle approaches, an earthly vehicle is evolved that can show forth the divine spirit in all the fulness possible to this world or phase of evolution.

Now as the problem can be viewed from either the internal or external point of view, we have the mystery of the Soul depicted both from the side of the involution of spirit into matter and of the evolution of matter into spirit. If, on the one hand, we insist too strongly on one view, we shall only have a one-sided conception of the process; if, on the other, we neglect one factor, we shall never solve the at present unknown quantity of the equation. Thus the Soul is represented as the "lost sheep" struggling in the meshes of the net of matter, passing from body to body, and the Spirit is represented as descending, transforming itself through the spheres, in order to finally rescue its Syzygy from the bonds that are about her.

The Soul aspires to the Spirit and the Spirit takes thought for the Soul; as the Simonians expressed it:

The male (Heaven, i.e., the Nous or Christ, or Spiritual Soul)
looks down from above and takes thought for its co-partner (or
Syzygy); while the Earth (i.e., the Epinoia or Jesus, or Human
Soul) from below receives from the Heaven the intellectual (in the
spiritual and philosophical sense, of course) fruits that come down
to it and are cognate with the Earth (i.e., of the same nature
essentially as Epinoia, who is essentially one with Nous).

When this mystery is represented dramatically, so to say, and personified, these two aspects of the Soul are depicted as two persons. Thus we have Simon and Helen, his favourite disciple, Krishna and Arjuna, etc. In the Canonical Gospels the favourite disciple is said to be John, and the women-disciples are placed well in the background. In the Gnostic Gospels, however, the women-disciples are not so ostracized, and the view taken by these early communities of philosophical and mystical Christians throws much light on that wonderful history of the Magdalene that has so touched the heart of Christendom. For instance, in the _Pistis-Sophia_, the chief of all the disciples, the most spiritual and intuitive, is Mary Magdalene. This is not without significance when we remember the love of the Christ for Mary "out of whom he had cast _seven_ devils."

The allegory is a striking one, and perfectly comprehensible to the student of comparative religion. As there are seven Aeons in the Spiritual World, seven principles or aspects of the Spiritual Soul, so here on Earth, by analogy, there are seven lower aspects, or impure reflections. As there are seven Cardinal Virtues, the Prajnâ-Pâramitâs, or Perfections of Wisdom, of the Buddhists, so there are seven Cardinal Vices, and these must be cast out by the spiritual will, before the repentant Mary, or Human Soul, can be purified.

This is the mystery of the Helen, the "lost sheep." Then follows the mystical marriage of the Lamb, the union of the Human and Spiritual Soul in man, referred to so often in the Gospels and other mystical scriptures.

Naturally the language used is symbolical, and has naught to do with sex, in any sense. Woe unto him or her who takes these allegories of the Soul as literal histories, for nothing but sorrow will follow such materialization of divine mysteries. If Simon or his followers fell into this error, they worked their own downfall, under the Great Law, as surely do all who forge such bonds of matter for their own enslavement.

But with condemnation we have nothing to do; they alone who are without sin have the _right_ to cast stones at the Magdalenes of this world; and they who are truly without sin use their purity to cleanse their fellows, and do not sully it with the stains of self-righteous condemnation. We, ordinary men and women of the age, are all "lost sheep," human souls struggling in ignorance; shall we then stone our fellows because their theology has a different nomenclature to our own? For man was the same in the past as he is to-day. The Human Soul has ever the same hopes and fears, loves and hates, passions and aspirations, no matter how the mere form of their expression differs. That which is important is the attitude we hold to the forms with which we are surrounded. To-day the form of our belief is changed; the fashion of our dress is scientific and not allegorical, but are we any nearer the realization that it is a dress and no more, and not the real expression of the true man within?