Alternative Religion/ Library

NOTES:

{1} Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, art. "Acts of the Apostles."

{2} Ibid.

{3} Lit. powers.

{4}The Romans.

{5} Claudius was the fourth of the Cæsars, and reigned from A.D. 41-54.

{6} Lit., stood on a roof; an Eastern metaphor. {7} The technical term for this transmigration, used by Pythagoreans and others, is μεταγγισμος, the pouring of water from one vessel (αγγος) into another. {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 Helenæ Castor offensus vicem
Fraterque magni Castoris victi prece.
Adempta vati redidere lumina.

{9} That is to say, the heretics. {10} In a preceding part of the book against the "Magicians." {11} Deuteronomy, iv. 24.

{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.

{13} I put the few direct quotations we have from Simon in italics.

{14} Isaiah, v. 7.

{15} I Peter, i. 24.

{16} Empedocles of Agrigentum, in Sicily, flourished about B.C. 444.

{17} φρονησις, consciousness?

{18} Syzygies.

{19} Isaiah, i. 2.

{20} I Corinth., xi. 32.

{21} το μηκετι γινομενον.

{22} See Jeremiah, i. 5.

{23} Genesis, ii, 10.

{24} Veins and arteries are said not to have been distinguished by ancient physiologists.

{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.

{26} This is omitted by Miller in the first Oxford edition.

{27} Odyssey, x. 304, seqq.

{28} λογος.

{29} Cf. Isaiah, ii. 4.

{30} Cf. Luke, iii. 9.

{31}Or adorning.

{32} Genesis, iii. 24.

{33} λογος; also reason.

{34} αντιστοιχοντες; used in Xenophon (Ana. v. 4, 12) of two bands of dancers facing each other in rows or pairs.

{35} He who has stood, stands and will stand.

{36} Thought.

{37} The Middle Distance.

{38} There is a lacuna in the text here.

{39} δια της ιδιας επιγνωσεως.

{40} Undergo the passion.

{41} παρεδρους C.W. King calls these "Assessors." (The Gnostics and their Remains, p. 70.)

{42} This is presumably meant for a grim patristic joke.

{43} A medicinal drug used by the ancients, especially as a specific against madness.

{44} The conducting of souls to or from the invisible world.

{45} προυνικος: προυνεικς is one who bears burdens, a carrier; in a bad sense it means lewd.

{46} Or the conception (of the mind).

{47} Cf. 1 Thess., v. 8.

{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.

{49} πληρωμα

{50} Scripture.

{51} Matth., v. 17.

{52} John, v. 46, 47.

{53} Matth., xix. 10-12.

{54} Matth., xix. 6.

{55} αρχη the same word is translated "dominion" when applied to the aeons of Simon.

{56} Genesis, i. 1.

{57} Matth., xi. 25.

{58} "The all-evil Daemon, the avenger of men," of the Prologue.

{59} Mythologies.

{60} "Rootage," rather, to coin a word. ριζωμα must be distinguished from ριζα, a root, the word used a few sentences later.

{61} Dictionary of Christian Biography (Ed. Smith and Wace), art. "Clementine Literature," I. 575.

{62} Dictionary of Sects, Heresies, etc. (Ed. Blunt), art. "Ebionites."

{63} The two accounts are combined in the following digest, and in the references H. stands for the Homiles and R. for the Recognitions.

{64} Some twenty-three miles.

{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 Hær., 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."

{66} κατα τον της συζυγιας λογον.

{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.

{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).

{69}An elemental.

{70} πατηρ εν απορρητοις.

{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 Nicæa there is talk of a chariot of fire, or a car that he had constructed.

{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" (Σιμωνος αντιρρητικοι λογοι). 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. Labbæus et Gabr. Cossartius, S.J., Florentiæ, 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.

{73} A.D. 54-68.

{74} Art. "Simon Magus," Vol. IV. p. 686.

{75} Bolland, Acta SS. May iii. 9.

{76} vi. 12.

{77} Orat. xxi. 9

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