Part 3 (1/2)

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 a.s.sociation 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 wors.h.i.+p them as G.o.ds, 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. _Const.i.tutiones_. 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 scholars.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sociated 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 Pleroma 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 pa.s.sed through Simon's body like smoke, and Dositheus, struck with amazement, yielded the leaders.h.i.+p 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, pa.s.s 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, pa.s.s 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 wors.h.i.+p 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. x.x.xii). 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-x.x.x) 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 fas.h.i.+oned him out of the air by certain divine trans.m.u.tations, 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-gla.s.s, 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 trans.m.u.tations, 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 pa.s.sages 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).