Part 5 (2/2)

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.]

PART II.

A REVIEW OF AUTHORITIES.

The student will at once perceive that though the Simon of the _Acts_ and the Simon of the fathers both retain the two features of the possession of magical power and of collision with Peter, the tone of the narratives is entirely different. Though the apostles are naturally shown as rejecting with indignation the pecuniary offer of the thaumaturge, they display no hate for his personality, whereas the fathers depict him as the vilest of impostors and charlatans and hold him up to universal execration. The incident of Simon's offering money to Peter is admittedly taken by the fathers from this account, and therefore their repet.i.tion in no way corroborates the story. Hence its authenticity rests entirely with the writer of the _Acts_, for Justin, who was a native of Samaria, does not mention it. As the _Acts_ are not quoted from prior to A.D. 177, and their writer is only traditionally claimed to be Luke, we may safely consider ourselves in the domain of legend and not of history.

The same may be said of all the incidents of Simon's career; they pertain to the region of fable and probably owe their creation to the Patristic and Simonian controversies of later ages.

The Simon of Justin gives us the birthplace of Simon as at Gitta, and the rest of the fathers follow suit with variation of the name. Gitta, Gittha, Gittoi, Gitthoi, Gitto, Gitton, Gitteh, so run the variants.

This, however, is a matter of no great importance, and the little burg is said to-day to be called Gittho.[78]

The statement of Justin as to the statue of Simon at Rome with the inscription ”SIMONI DEO SANCTO” has been called in question by every scholar since the discovery in 1574 of a large marble fragment in the island of the Tiber bearing the inscription ”SEMONI SANCO DEO FIDIO,” a Sabine G.o.d. A few, however, think that Justin could not have made so glaring a mistake in writing to the Romans, and that if it were a mistake Irenaeus would not have copied it. The coincidence, however, is too striking to bear any other interpretation than that perhaps some ignorant controversialist had endeavoured to give the legend a historical appearance, and that Justin had lent a too ready ear to him.

It is also to be noticed that Justin tells us that nearly all the Samaritans were Simonians.

We next come to the Simon of Irenaeus which, owing to many similarities, is supposed by scholars to have been taken from Justin's account, if not from the _Apology_, at any rate from Justin's lost work on heresies which he speaks of in the _Apology_. Or it may be that both borrowed from some common source now lost to us.

The story of Helen is here for the first time given. Whether or not there was a Helen we shall probably never know. The ”lost sheep” was a necessity of every Gnostic system, which taught the descent of the soul into matter. By whatever name called, whether Sophia, Acamoth, Prunicus, Barbelo, the glyph of the Magdalene, out of whom seven devils are cast, has yet to be understood, and the mystery of the Christ and the seven aeons, churches or a.s.semblies (_ecclesiae_), in every man will not be without significance to every student of Theosophy. These data are common to all Gnostic aeonology.

If it is argued that Simon was the first inventor of this aeonology, it is astonis.h.i.+ng that his name and that of Helen should not have had some recognition in the succeeding systems. If, on the contrary, it is maintained that he used existing materials for his system, and explained away his improper connection with Helen by an adaptation of the Sophia-mythos, it is difficult to understand how such a palpable absurdity could have gained any credence among such cultured adherents as the Simonians evidently were. In either case the Gnostic tradition is shown to be pre-Christian. Every initiated Gnostic, however, must have known that the mythos referred to the World-Soul in the Cosmos and the Soul in man.

The accounts of the _Acts_ and of Justin and Irenaeus are so confusing that it has been supposed that two Simons are referred to.[79] For if he claimed to be a rencarnation of Jesus, appearing in Jerusalem as the Son, he could not have been contemporary with the apostles. It follows, therefore, that either he made no such claim; or if he made the claim, Justin and Irenaeus had such vague information that they confused him with the Simon of the _Acts_; or that the supposition is not well-founded, and Simon was simply inculcating the esoteric doctrine of the various manifestations or descents of one and the same Christ principle.

The Simon of Tertullian again is clearly taken from Irenaeus, as the critics are agreed. ”Tertullian evidently knows no more than he read in Irenaeus,” says Dr. Salmon.[80]

It is only when we come to the Simon of the _Philosophumena_ that we feel on any safe ground. The prior part of it is especially precious on account of the quotations from _The Great Revelation_ ([Greek: hae megalae apophasis]) which we hear of from no other source. The author of _Philosophumena_, whoever he was, evidently had access to some of the writings of the Simonians, and here at last we have arrived at any thing of real value in our rubbish heap.

It was not until the year 1842 that Minoides Mynas brought to Paris from Mount Athos, on his return from a commission given him by the French Government, a fourteenth-century MS. in a mutilated condition. This was the MS. of our _Philosophumena_ which is supposed to have been the work of Hippolytus. The authors.h.i.+p, however, is still uncertain, as will appear by what will be said about the Simon of Epiphanius and Philaster.

The latter part of the section on Simon in the _Philosophumena_ is not so important, and is undoubtedly taken from Irenaeus or from the anti-heretical treatise of Justin, or from the source from which both these fathers drew. The account of the death of Simon, however, shows that the author was not Hippolytus from whose lost work Epiphanius and Philaster are proved by Lipsius to have taken their accounts.

The Simon of Origen gives us no new information, except as to the small number of the Simonians. But like other data in his controversial writings against the Gnostic philosopher Celsus we can place little reliance on his statement, for Eusebius Pamphyli writing in A.D. 324-5, a century afterwards, speaks of the Simonians as still considerable in numbers.[81]

The Simon of Epiphanius and Philaster leads us to speak of a remarkable feat of scholars.h.i.+p performed by R.A. Lipsius,[82] the learned professor of divinity in the university of Jena. From their accounts he has reconstructed to some extent a lost work of Hippolytus against heresies of which a description was given by Photius. This treatise was founded on certain discourses of Irenaeus. By comparing Philaster, Epiphanius, and the Pseudo-Tertullian, he recovers Hippolytus, and by comparing his restored Hippolytus with Irenaeus he infers a common authority, probably the lost work of Justin Martyr, or, may we suggest, as remarked above, the work from which Justin got his information.[83]

The Simon of Theodoret differs from that of his predecessor only in one or two important details of the aeonology, a fact that has presumably led Matter to suppose that he has introduced some later Gnostic ideas or confused the teachings of the later Simonians with those of Simon.[84]

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