PART I.

SIMON MAGUS

AN ESSAY ON THE FOUNDER OF SIMONIANISM

BASED ON THE ANCIENT SOURCES WITH

A RE-EVALUATION OF HIS PHILOSOPHY AND TEACHINGS.

BY

G.R.S. MEAD

SIMON MAGUS.

INTRODUCTION.

Everybody in Christendom has heard of Simon, the magician, and how

Peter, the apostle, rebuked him, as told in the narrative of the _Acts

of the Apostles_. Many also have heard the legend of how at Rome this

wicked sorcerer endeavoured to fly by aid of the demons, and how Peter

caused him to fall headlong and thus miserably perish. And so most think

that there is an end of the matter, and either cast their mite of pity

or contempt at the memory of Simon, or laugh at the whole matter as the

invention of superstition or the imagination of religious fanaticism,

according as their respective beliefs may be in orthodoxy or

materialism. This for the general. Students of theology and church

history, on the other hand, have had a more difficult task set them in

comparing and arranging the materials they have at their disposal, as

found in the patristic writings and legendary records; and various

theories have been put forward, not the least astonishing being the

supposition that Simon was an alias for Paul, and that the Simon and

Peter in the accounts of the fathers and in the narrative of the legends

were simply concrete symbols to represent the two sides of the Pauline

and Petrine controversies.

The first reason why I have ventured on this present enquiry is that

Simon Magus is invariably mentioned by the heresiologists as the founder

of the first heresy of the commonly-accepted Christian era, and is

believed by them to have been the originator of those systems of

religio-philosophy and theosophy which are now somewhat inaccurately

classed together under the heading of Gnosticism. And though this

assumption of the patristic heresiologists is entirely incorrect, as may

be proved from their own works, it is nevertheless true that Simonianism

is the first system that, as far as our present records go, came into

conflict with what has been regarded as the orthodox stream of

Christianity. A second reason is that I believe that Simon has been

grossly misrepresented, and entirely misunderstood, by his orthodox

opponents, whoever they were, in the first place, and also, in the

second place, by those who have ignorantly and without enquiry copied

from them. But my chief reason is that the present revival of

theosophical enquiry throws a flood of light on Simon's teachings,

whenever we can get anything approaching a first-hand statement of them,

and shows that it was identical in its fundamentals with the Esoteric

Philosophy of all the great religions of the world.

In this enquiry, I shall have to be slightly wearisome to some of my

readers, for instead of giving a selection or even a paraphraze of the

notices on Simon which we have from authenticated patristic sources, I

shall furnish verbatim translations, and present a digest only of the

unauthenticated legends. The growth of the Simonian legend must unfold

itself before the reader in its native form as it comes from the pens of

those who have constructed it. Repetitions will, therefore, be

unavoidable in the marshalling of authorities, but they will be shown to

be not without interest in the subsequent treatment of the subject, and

at any rate we shall at least be on the sure ground of having before us

all that has been said on the matter by the Church fathers. Having cited

these authorities, I shall attempt to submit them to a critical

examination, and so eliminate all accretions, hearsay and controversial

opinions, and thus sift out what reliable residue is possible. Finally,

my task will be to show that Simon taught a system of Theosophy, which

instead of deserving our condemnation should rather excite our

admiration, and that, instead of being a common impostor and impious

perverter of public morality, his method was in many respects of the

same nature as the methods of the theosophical movement of to-day, and

deserves the study and consideration of all students of Theosophy.

This essay will, therefore, be divided into the following parts:

I.--Sources of Information.

II.--A Review of Authorities.

III.--The Theosophy of Simon.

PART I.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

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.

3. And she it was at that time who was possessed by the Greeks and

Trojans; and that both in the night of time before the world

existed, and after its existence, by the invisible Powers she had

wrought things of a like nature. "And she it is who is now with me,

and on her account have I descended. And she was looking for my

coming. For she is the Thought,[46] called Helen in Homer." And it

was on this account that Homer was compelled to portray her as

standing on a tower, and by means of a torch revealing to the

Greeks the plot of the Phrygians. And by the torch, he delineated,

as I said, the manifestation of the light from above. On which

account also the wooden horse in Homer was devised, which the

Greeks think was made for a distinct purpose, whereas the sorcerer

maintained that this is the ignorance of the Gentiles, and that

like as the Phrygians when they dragged it along in ignorance drew

on their own destruction, so also the Gentiles, that is to say

people who are "without my wisdom," through ignorance, draw ruin on

themselves. Moreover the impostor said that Athena again was

identical with what they called Thought, making use forsooth of the

words of the holy apostle Paul--changing the truth into his own

lie--to wit: "Put on the breastplate of faith and the helmet of

salvation, and the greaves and sword and buckler";[47] and that all

this was in the mimes of Philistion,[48] the rogue!--words uttered

by the apostle with firm reasoning and faith of holy conversation,

and the power of the divine and heavenly word--turning them further

into a joke and nothing more. For what does he say? That he

(Philistion) arranged all these things in a mysterious manner into

types of Athena. Wherefore again, in making known the woman with

him whom he had taken from Tyre and who had the same name as Helen

of old, he spoke as I have told you above, calling her by all those

names, Thought, and Athena, and Helen and the rest. "And on her

account," he says, "I descended. And this is the 'lost sheep'

written of in the Gospel." Moreover, he left to his followers an

image, his own presumably, and they worship it under the form of

Zeus; and he left another in like manner of Helen in the guise of

Athena, and his dupes worship them.

4. And he enjoined mysteries of obscenity and--to set it forth more

seriously--of the sheddings of bodies, _emissionum virorom,

feminarum menstruorum_, and that they should be gathered up for

mysteries in a most filthy collection; that these were the

mysteries of life, and of the most perfect Gnôsis--a practice which

anyone who has understanding from God would most naturally consider

to be most filthy conduct and death rather than life. And he

supposes names for the Dominions and Principalities, and says there

are different heavens, and sets forth Powers for each firmament and

heaven, and tricks them out with barbarous names, and says that no

man can be saved in any other fashion than by learning this

mystagogy, and how to offer such sacrifices to the Universal Father

through these Dominions and Principalities. And he says that this

world (aeon) was constructed defectively by Dominions and

Principalities of evil. And he considers that corruption and

destruction are of the flesh alone, but that there is a

purification of souls and that, only if they are established in

initiation by means of his misleading Gnôsis. This is the beginning

of the so-called Gnostics. And he pretended that the Law was not of

God, but of the left-hand Power, and that the Prophets were not

from the Good God but from this or the other Power. And he lays it

down for each of them as he pleases: the Law was of one, David of

another, Isaiah of another, Ezekiel again of another, and ascribes

each of the Prophets to some one Dominion. And all of them were

from the left-hand Power and outside the Perfection,[49] and every

one that believed in the _Old Testament_ was subject to death.

5. But this doctrine is overturned by the truth itself. For if he

were the Great Power of God, and the harlot with him the Holy

Spirit, as he himself says, let him say what is the name of the

Power or in what word[50] he discovered the epithet for the woman

and nothing for himself at all. And how and at what time is he

found at Rome successively paying back his debt, when in the midst

of the city of the Romans the miserable fellow fell down and died?

And in what scripture did Peter prove to him that he had neither

lot nor share in the heritage of the fear of God? And could the

world not have its existence in the Good God, when all the good

were chosen by him? And how could it be a left-hand Power which

spake in the Law and Prophets, when it has preached the coming of

the Christ, the Good God, and forbids mean things? And how could

there not be one divine nature and the same spirit of the _New_ and

_Old Testament_, when the Lord said: "I am not come to destroy the

Law, but to fulfil it"?[51] And that He might show that the Law was

declared through Him and was given through Moses, and that the

grace of the Gospel has been preached through himself and his

carnal presence, He said to the Jews: "If ye believe Moses, ye

should also believe me; for he wrote about me."[52] There are many

other arguments also to oppose to the contention of the sorcerer.

For how will obscene things give life, if it were not a conception

of daemons? When the Lord himself answers in the Gospel to those

who say unto him: "If such is the case of the man and the woman, it

is not good to marry." But He said unto them: "All do not hold

this; for there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the

sake of the kingdom of the heavens."[53] And He showed that

natural abstinence from union is the gift of the kingdom of the

heavens; and again in another place He says with respect to

righteous marriage--which Simon of his own accord basely corrupting

treats according to his own desires--"Whom God has joined together

let no man put asunder."[54]

6. And how unaware is again the vagabond that he confutes himself

by his own babbling, not knowing what he gives out? For after

saying that the Angels were produced by him through his Thought, he

goes on to say that he changed his form in every heaven, to escape

their notice in his descent. Consequently he avoided them through

fear. And how did the babbler fear the Angels whom he had himself

made? And how will not the dissemination of his error be found by

the intelligent to be instantly refuted by everyone, when the

scripture says: "In the beginning[55] God made the heaven and the

earth"?[56] And in unison with this word, the Lord in the Gospel

says, as though to his own Father: "O Father, Lord of heaven and

earth."[57] If, therefore, the maker of heaven and earth is

naturally God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, all that the

slanderer Simon says is vain; to wit, the defective production of

the world by the Angels, and all the rest he has babbled about in

addition to his world of Daemons, and he has deceived those who

have been led away by him.

ix. Hieronymus (In _Matthaeum_, IV. xxiv. 5). Text: _S. Eusebii

Hieronymi Comment._; Migne _Patrol. Grec._, VII. col. 176.

Of whom there is one Simon, a Samaritan, whom we read of in the

_Acts of the Apostles_, who said he was some Great Power. And among

the rest of the things written in his volumes, he proclaimed as

follows:

"I am the Word of God; I am the glorious one, I the Paraclete, the

Almighty, I the whole of God."

x. Theodoretus _(Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium_, I. i.). Text: _Opera

Omnia_ (ex recensione Jacobi Simondi, denuo edidit Joann. Ludov.

Schulze); Halae, 1769.

Now Simon, the Samaritan magician, was the first minister of his

(the Daemon's)[58] evil practices who arose. Who, making his base

of operations from Gittha, which is a village of Samaria, and

having rushed to the height of sorcery, at first persuaded many,

by the wonder-working he wrought, to attend his school, and call

him some divine Power. But afterwards seeing the apostles

accomplishing wonder-workings that were really true and divine, and

bestowing on those who came to them the grace of the Spirit,

thinking himself also worthy to receive equal power from them, when

great Peter detected his villainous intention, and bade him heal

the incurable wounds of his mind with the drugs of repentance, he

immediately returned to his former evil-doing, and leaving Samaria,

since it had received the seeds of salvation, ran off to those who

had not yet been tilled by the apostles, in order that, having

deceived with his magic arts those who were easy to capture, and

having enslaved them in the bonds of their own legendary lore,[59]

he might make the teachings of the apostles difficult to be

believed.

But the divine grace armed great Peter against the fellow's

madness. For following after him, he dispelled his abominable

teaching like mist and darkness, and showed forth the rays of the

light of truth. But for all that the thrice wretched fellow, in

spite of his public exposure, did not cease from his working

against the truth, until he came to Rome, in the reign of Claudius

Caesar. And he so astonished the Romans with his sorceries that he

was honoured with a brazen pillar. But on the arrival of the divine

Peter, he stripped him naked of his wings of deception, and

finally, having challenged him to a contest in wonder-working, and

having shown the difference between the divine grace and sorcery,

in the presence of the assembled Romans, caused him to fall

headlong from a great height by his prayers and captured the

eye-witnesses of the wonder for salvation.

This (Simon) gave birth to a legend somewhat as follows. He started

with supposing some Boundless Power; and he called this the

Universal Root.[60] And he said that this was Fire, which had a

twofold energy, the manifested and the concealed. The world

moreover was generable, and had been generated from the manifested

energy of the Fire. And first from it (the manifested energy) were

emanated three pairs, which he also called Roots. And the first

(pair) he called Mind and Thought, and the second, Voice and

Intelligence, and the third, Reason and Reflection. Whereas he

called himself the Boundless Power, and (said) that he had appeared

to the Jews as the Son, and to the Samaritans he had descended as

the Father, and among the rest of the nations he had gone up and

down as the Holy Spirit.

And having made a certain harlot, who was called Helen, live with

him, he pretended that she was his first Thought, and called her

the Universal Mother, (saying) that through her he had made both

the Angels and Archangels; and that the world was fabricated by the

Angels. Then the Angels in envy cast her down among them, for they

did not wish, he says, to be called fabrications. For which cause,

forsooth, they induced her into many female bodies and into that of

the famous Helen, through whom the Trojan War arose.

It was on her account also, he said, that he himself had descended,

to free her from the chains they had laid upon her, and to offer to

men salvation through a system of knowledge peculiar to himself.

And that in his descent he had undergone transformation, so as not

to be known to the Angels that manage the establishment of the

world. And that he had appeared in Judaea as a man, although he was

not a man, and that he had suffered, though not at all suffering,

and that the Prophets were the ministers of the Angels. And he

admonished those that believed on him not to pay attention to them,

and not to tremble at the threats of the Law, but, as being free,

to do whatever they would. For it was not by good actions, but by

grace they would gain salvation.

For which cause, indeed, those of his association ventured on every

kind of licentiousness, and practised every kind of magic,

fabricating love philtres and spells, and all the other arts of

sorcery, as though in pursuit of divine mysteries. And having

prepared his (Simon's) statue in the form of Zeus, and Helen's in

the likeness of Athena, they burn incense and pour out libations

before them, and worship them as gods, calling themselves

Simonians.

III.--_The Simon of the Legends_.

The so-called Clementine Literature:

A. _Recognitiones_. Text: Rufino Aquilei Presb. Interprete (curante E.G.

Gersdorf); Lipsiae, 1838.

_Homiliae_. Text: _Bibliotheca Patrum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum

Selecta_, Vol. I. (edidit Albertus Schwegler); Tubingensis, Stuttgartiae,

1847.

B. _Constitutiones_. Text: _SS. Patrum qui Temporibus Apostolicis

Floruerunt Opera_ (edidit J.B. Cotelerius); Amsteladami, 1724.

A. The priority of the two varying accounts, in the _Homilies_ and

_Recognitiones_, of the same story is in much dispute, but this is a

question of no importance in the present enquiry. The latest scholarship

is of the opinion that "the Clementines are unmistakably a production of

the sect of the Ebionites."[61] The Ebionites are described as:

A sect of heretics developed from among the Judaizing Christians of

apostolic times late in the first or early in the second century.

They accepted Christianity only as a reformed Judaism, and believed

in our Blessed Lord only as a mere natural man spiritually

perfected by exact observance of the Mosaic law.[62]

Summary.[63] Clement, the hero of the legendary narrative, arrives at

Caesarea Stratonis in Judaea, on the eve of a great controversy between

Simon and the apostle Peter, and attaches himself to the latter as his

disciple (H. II. xv; R.I. lxxvii). The history of Simon is told to

Clement, in the presence of Peter, by Aquila and Nicetas--the adopted

sons of a convert--who had associated with Simon.

Simon was the son of Antonius and Rachael, a Samaritan of Gittha, a

village six schoeni[64] from the city of Caesarea (H.I. xxii), called a

village of the Gettones (R. II. vii). It was at Alexandria that Simon

perfected his studies in magic, being an adherent of John, a

Hemero-baptist,[65] through whom he came to deal with religious

doctrines.

John was the forerunner of Jesus, according to the method of combination

or coupling.[66] Whereas Jesus had twelve disciples, as the Sun, John,

the Moon, had thirty, the number of days in a lunation, or more

correctly twenty-nine and a half, one of his disciples being a woman

called Helen, and a woman being reckoned as half a man in the perfect

number of the Triacontad, or Plerôma of the Aeons (H.I. xxiii; R. II.

viii). In the _Recognitions_ the name of Helen is given as Luna in the

Latin translation of Rufinus.[67]

Of all John's disciples, Simon was the favourite, but on the death of

his master, he was absent in Alexandria, and so Dositheus,[68] a

co-disciple, was chosen head of the school.

Simon, on his return, acquiesced in the choice, but his superior

knowledge could not long remain under a bushel. One day Dositheus,

becoming enraged, struck at Simon with his staff; but the staff passed

through Simon's body like smoke, and Dositheus, struck with amazement,

yielded the leadership to Simon and became his disciple, and shortly

afterwards died (H.I. xxiv; R. II. xiii).

Aquila and Nicetas then go on to tell how Simon had confessed to them

privately his love for Luna (R. II. viii), and narrate the magic

achievements possessed by Simon, of which they have had proof with their

own eyes. Simon can dig through mountains, pass through rocks as if they

were merely clay, cast himself from a lofty mountain and be borne gently

to earth, can break his chains when in prison, and cause the doors to

open of their own accord, animate statues and make the eye-witness think

them men, make trees grow suddenly, pass through fire unhurt, change his

face or become double-faced, or turn into a sheep or goat or serpent,

make a beard grow upon a boy's chin, fly in the air, become gold, make

and unmake kings, have divine worship and honours paid him, order a

sickle to go and reap of itself and it reaps ten times as much as an

ordinary sickle (R. II. xi).

To this list of wonders the _Homilies_ add making stones into loaves,

melting iron, the production of images of all kinds at a banquet; in his

own house dishes are brought of themselves to him (H.I. xxxii). He makes

spectres appear in the market place; when he walks out statues move, and

shadows go before him which he says are souls of the dead (H. IV. iv).

On one occasion Aquila says he was present when Luna was seen looking

out of all the windows of a tower on all sides at once (R. II. xi).

The most peculiar incident, however, is the use Simon is said to have

made of the soul of a dead boy, by which he did many of his wonders. The

incident is found in both accounts, but more fully in the _Homilies_ (I.

xxv-xxx) than in the _Recognitions_ (II. xiii-xv), for which reason the

text of the former is followed.

Simon did not stop at murder, as he confessed to Nicetas and Aquila "as

a friend to friends." In fact he separated the soul of a boy from his

body to act as a confederate in his phenomena. And this is the magical

_modus operandi_. "He delineates the boy on a statue which he keeps

consecrated in the inner part of the house where he sleeps, and he says

that after he has fashioned him out of the air by certain divine

transmutations, and has sketched his form, he returns him again to the

air."

Simon explains the theory of this practice as follows:

"First of all the spirit of the man having been turned into the nature

of heat draws in and absorbs, like a cupping-glass, the surrounding air;

next he turns the air which comes within the envelope of spirit into

water. And the air in it not being able to escape owing to the confining

force of the spirit, he changed it into the nature of blood, and the

blood solidifying made flesh; and so when the flesh is solidified he

exhibited a man made of air and not of earth. And thus having persuaded

himself of his ability to make a new man of air, he reversed the

transmutations, he said, and returned him to the air."

When the converts thought that this was the soul of the person, Simon

laughed and said, that in the phenomena it was not the soul, "but some

daemon[69] who pretended to be the soul that took possession of people."

The coming controversy with Simon is then explained by Peter to Clement

to rest on certain passages of scripture. Peter admits that there are

falsehoods in the scriptures, but says that it would never do to explain

this to the people. These falsehoods have been permitted for certain

righteous reasons (H. III. v).

"For the scriptures declare all manner of things that no one of those

who enquire unthankfully may discover the truth, but (simply) what he

wishes to find" (H. III. x).

In the lengthy explanation which follows, however, on the passages Simon

is going to bring forward, such as the mention of a plurality of gods,

and God's hardening men's hearts, Peter states that in reality all the

passages which speak against God are spurious additions, but this is to

be guarded as an esoteric secret.

Nevertheless in the public controversy which follows, this secret is

made public property, in order to meet Simon's declaration: "I say that

there are many gods, but one God of all these gods, incomprehensible and

unknown to all" (R. II. xxxviii); and again: "My belief is that there is

a Power of immeasurable and ineffable Light, whose greatness is held to

be incomprehensible, a power which the maker of the world even does not

know, nor does Moses the lawgiver, nor your master Jesus" (R. II. xlix).

A point of interest to be noticed is that Peter challenges Simon to

substantiate his statements by quotations either from the scriptures of

the Jews, or from some they had not heard of, or from those of the

Greeks, or from _his own_ scriptures (R. II. xxxviii).

Simon argues that finding the God of the Law imperfect, he concludes

this is not the supreme God. After a wordy harangue of Peter, Simon is

said to have been worsted by Peter's threatening to go to Simon's

bed-chamber and question the soul of the murdered boy. Simon flies to

Tyre (H.) or Tripolis (R.), and Peter determines to pursue him among the

Gentiles.

The two accounts here become exceedingly contradictory and confused.

According to the _Homilies_, Simon flees from Tyre to Tripolis, and

thence further to Syria. The main dispute takes place at Laodicaea on the

unity of God (XVI. i). Simon appeals to the _Old Testament_ to show that

there are many gods (XVI. iv); shows that the scriptures contradict

themselves (XVI. ix); accuses Peter of using magic and teaching

doctrines different to those taught by Christ (XVII. ii-iv); asserts

that Jesus is not consistent with himself (XVII. v); that the maker of

the world is not the highest God (XVIII. i); and declares the Ineffable

Deity (XVIII. iv).[70] Peter of course refutes him (XVIII. xii-xiv), and

Simon retires.

The last incident of interest takes place at Antioch. Simon stirs up the

people against Peter by representing him as an impostor. Friends of

Peter set the authorities on Simon's track, and he has to flee. At

Laodicaea he meets Faustinianus (R.), or Faustus (H.), the father of

Clement, who rebukes him (H. XIX. xxiv); and so he changes the face of

Faustinianus into an exact likeness of his own that he may be taken in

his place (H. XX. xii; R.X. liii). Peter sends the transformed

Faustinianus to Antioch, who, in the guise of Simon, makes a confession

of imposture and testifies to the divine mission of Peter. Peter

accordingly enters Antioch in triumph.

The story of Simon in the _Apostolic Constitutions_ is short and taken

from the _Acts_, and to some extent from the Clementines, finishing up,

however, with the mythical death of Simon at Rome, owing to the prayers

of Peter. Simon is here said to be conducted by daemons and to have

flown ([Greek: hiptato]) upwards. The details of this magical feat are

given variously elsewhere.[71]

The only point of real interest is a vague reference to Simonian

literature (VI. xvi), in a passage which runs as follows:

For we know that the followers of Simon and Cleobius having

composed poisonous books in the name of Christ and his disciples,

carry them about for the deception of you who have loved Christ and

us his servants.[72]

So end the most important of the legends. To these, however, must be

added others of a like nature of which the scene of action is laid at

Rome in the time of Nero.[73] I have not thought it worth while to refer

to the original texts for these utterly apocryphal and unauthenticated

stories, but simply append a very short digest from the excellent

summary of Dr. Salmon, the Regius Professor of Divinity in Dublin

University, as given in Smith and Wace's _Dictionary of Christian

Biography_.[74]

The Greek _Acts of Peter and Paul_ give details of the conflict and

represent both apostles as having taken part in it. Simon and Peter are

each required to raise a dead body to life. Simon, by his magic, makes

the head move, but as soon as he leaves the body it again becomes

lifeless. Peter, however, by his prayers effects a real resurrection.

Both are challenged to divine what the other is planning. Peter prepares

blessed bread, and takes the emperor into the secret. Simon cannot guess

what Peter has been doing, and so raises hell-hounds who rush on Peter,

but the presentation of the blessed bread causes them to vanish.

In the _Acts of Nereus and Achilleus_,[75] another version of the story

is given. Simon had fastened a great dog at his door in order to prevent

Peter entering. Peter by making the sign of the cross renders the dog

tame towards himself, but so furious against his master Simon that the

latter had to leave the city in disgrace.

Simon, however, still retains the emperor's favour by his magic power.

He pretends to permit his head to be cut off, and by the power of

glamour appears to be decapitated, while the executioner really cuts off

the head of a ram.

The last act of the drama is the erection of a wooden tower in the

Campus Martius, and Simon is to ascend to heaven in a chariot of fire.

But, through the prayers of Peter, the two daemons who were carrying him

aloft let go their hold and so Simon perishes miserably.

Dr. Salmon connects this with the story, told by Suetonius[76] and Dio

Chrysostom,[77] that Nero caused a wooden theatre to be erected in the

Campus, and that a gymnast who tried to play the part of Icarus fell so

near the emperor as to bespatter him with blood.

So much for these motley stories; here and there instructive, but mostly

absurd. I shall now endeavour to sift out the rubbish from this

patristic and legendary heap, and perhaps we shall find more of value

than at present appears.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_, art. "Acts of the

Apostles."]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 3: Lit. powers.]

[Footnote 4: The Romans.]

[Footnote 5: Claudius was the fourth of the Caesars, and reigned from

A.D. 41-54.]

[Footnote 6: Lit., stood on a roof; an Eastern metaphor.]

[Footnote 7: The technical term for this transmigration, used by

Pythagoreans and others, is [Greek: metangismos], the pouring of water

from one vessel ([Greek: angos]) into another.]

[Footnote 8: This famous lyric poet, whose name was Tisias, and

honorific title Stesichorus, was born about the middle of the seventh

century B.C., in Sicily. The story of his being deprived of sight by

Castor and Pollux for defaming their sister Helen is mentioned by many

classical writers. The most familiar quotation is the Horatian (_Ep._

xvii. 42-44):

Infamis Helenae Castor offensus vicem

Fraterque magni Castoris victi prece.

Adempta vati redidere lumina.

[Footnote 9: That is to say, the heretics.]

[Footnote 10: In a preceding part of the book against the "Magicians."]

[Footnote 11: _Deuteronomy_, iv. 24.]

[Footnote 12: Heracleitus of Ephesus flourished about the end of the

sixth century B.C. He was named the obscure from the difficulty of his

writings.]

[Footnote 13: I put the few direct quotations we have from Simon in

italics.]

[Footnote 14: _Isaiah_, v. 7.]

[Footnote 15: _I Peter_, i. 24.]

[Footnote 16: Empedocles of Agrigentum, in Sicily, flourished about B.C.

444.]

[Footnote 17: [Greek: phronaesis], consciousness?]

[Footnote 18: Syzygies.]

[Footnote 19: _Isaiah_, i. 2.]

[Footnote 20: _I Corinth._, xi. 32.]

[Footnote 21: [Greek: to maeketi ginomenon.]]

[Footnote 22: See _Jeremiah_, i. 5.]

[Footnote 23: _Genesis_, ii, 10.]

[Footnote 24: Veins and arteries are said not to have been distinguished

by ancient physiologists.]

[Footnote 25: A lacuna unfortunately occurs here in the text. The

missing words probably identified "that which is commonly called by

everyone the navel" with the umbilical cord.]

[Footnote 26: This is omitted by Miller in the first Oxford edition.]

[Footnote 27: _Odyssey_, x. 304, _seqq._]

[Footnote 28: [Greek: logos].]

[Footnote 29: Cf. _Isaiah_, ii. 4.]

[Footnote 30: Cf. _Luke_, iii. 9.]

[Footnote 31: Or adorning.]

[Footnote 32: _Genesis_, iii. 24.]

[Footnote 33: [Greek: logos]; also reason.]

[Footnote 34: [Greek: antistoichountes]; used in Xenophon (_Ana._ v. 4,

12) of two bands of dancers facing each other in rows or pairs.]

[Footnote 35: He who has stood, stands and will stand.]

[Footnote 36: Thought.]

[Footnote 37: The Middle Distance.]

[Footnote 38: There is a lacuna in the text here.]

[Footnote 39: [Greek: dia taes idias epignoseos.]]

[Footnote 40: Undergo the passion.]

[Footnote 41: [Greek: paredrous] C.W. King calls these "Assessors."

(_The Gnostics and their Remains_, p. 70.)]

[Footnote 42: This is presumably meant for a grim patristic joke.]

[Footnote 43: A medicinal drug used by the ancients, especially as a

specific against madness.]

[Footnote 44: The conducting of souls to or from the invisible world.]

[Footnote 45: [Greek: prounikos: prouneikos] is one who bears burdens, a

carrier; in a bad sense it means lewd.]

[Footnote 46: Or the conception (of the mind).]

[Footnote 47: Cf. 1 _Thess_., v. 8.]

[Footnote 48: A famous actor and mime writer who flourished in the time

of Augustus (circa A.D. 7); there are extant some doubtful fragments of

Philistion containing moral sentiments from the comic poets.]

[Footnote 49: [Greek: plaeroma]]

[Footnote 50: Scripture.]

[Footnote 51: _Matth._, v. 17.]

[Footnote 52: _John_, v. 46, 47.]

[Footnote 53: _Matth._, xix. 10-12.]

[Footnote 54: _Matth._, xix. 6.]

[Footnote 55: [Greek _archae_] the same word is translated "dominion"

when applied to the aeons of Simon.]

[Footnote 56: _Genesis_, i. 1.]

[Footnote 57: _Matth._, xi. 25.]

[Footnote 58: "The all-evil Daemon, the avenger of men," of the

Prologue.]

[Footnote 59: Mythologies.]

[Footnote 60: "Rootage," rather, to coin a word. [Greek: rizoma] must be

distinguished from [Greek: riza], a root, the word used a few sentences

later.]

[Footnote 61: _Dictionary of Christian Biography_ (Ed. Smith and Wace),

art. "Clementine Literature," I. 575.]

[Footnote 62: _Dictionary of Sects, Heresies_, etc. (Ed. Blunt), art.

"Ebionites."]

[Footnote 63: The two accounts are combined in the following digest, and

in the references H. stands for the _Homiles_ and R. for the

_Recognitions_.]

[Footnote 64: Some twenty-three miles.]

[Footnote 65: We have little information of the Hemero-baptists, or

Day-baptists. They are said to have been a sect of the Jews and to have

been so called for daily performing certain ceremonial ablutions

(Epiph., _Contra Haer._, I. 17). It is conjectured that they were a sect

of the Pharisees who agreed with the Sadducees in denying the

resurrection. _The Apostolic Constitutions_ (VI. vii) tell us of the

Hemero-baptists, that "unless they wash themselves every day they do not

eat, nor will they use a bed, dish, bowl, cup, or seat, unless they have

purified it with water."]

[Footnote 66: [Greek: kata ton taes suzugias logon.]]

[Footnote 67: This has led to the conjecture that the translation was

made from the false reading Selene instead of Helene, while Bauer has

used it to support his theory that Justin and those who have followed

him confused the Phoenician worship of solar and lunar divinities of

similar names with the worship of Simon and Helen.]

[Footnote 68: This is not to be confused with the Dositheus of Origen,

who claimed to be a Christ, says Matter (_Histoire Critique du

Gnosticisme_, Tom. i. p. 218, n. 1st. ed., 1828).]

[Footnote 69: An elemental.]

[Footnote 70: [Greek: pataer en aporraetois].]

[Footnote 71: Hegesippus (_De Bello Judaico_, iii. 2), Abdias (_Hist._,

i, towards the end), and Maximus Taurinensis (_Patr. VI. Synodi ad Imp.

Constant._, Act. 18), say that Simon flew like Icarus; whereas in

Arnobius (_Contra Gentes_, ii) and the Arabic Preface to Council of

Nicaea there is talk of a chariot of fire, or a car that he had

constructed.]

[Footnote 72: Cotelerius in a note (i. 347, 348) refers the reader to

the passages in the _Recognitions_ and in Jerome's _Commentary on

Matthew_, which I have already quoted. He also says that the author of

the book, _De Divinis Nominibus_ (C. 6), speaks of "the controversial

sentences of Simon" ([Greek: Simonos antirraetikoi logoi]). The author

is the Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and I shall quote later on some

of these sentences, though from a very uncertain source. Cotelerius also

refers to the Arabic Preface to the Nicaean Council. The text referred

to will be found in the Latin translation of Abrahamus Echellensis,

given in Labbé's _Concilia (Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova Collectio_, edd.

Phil. Labbaeus et Gabr. Cossartius, S.J., Florentiae, 1759, Tom. ii, p.

1057, col. 1), and runs as follows:

"Those traitors (the Simonians) fabricated for themselves a gospel,

which they divided into four books, and called it the 'Book of the

Four Angles and Points of the World.' All pursue magic zealously,

and defend it, wearing red and rose-coloured threads round the neck

in sign of a compact and treaty entered into with the devil their

seducer."

As to the books of the followers of Cleobius we have no further

information.]

[Footnote 73: A.D. 54-68.]

[Footnote 74: Art. "Simon Magus," Vol. IV. p. 686.]

[Footnote 75: Bolland, _Acta SS._ May iii. 9.]

[Footnote 76: vi. 12.]

[Footnote 77: _Orat._ xxi. 9.]