Notwithstanding its wealth, beauty and splendor, the society of Antioch was inconceivably corrupt and degraded. All kinds of strange doctrines and unhealthy superstitions were rampant there. Magicians, sorcerers, miracle-workers, impostors, buffoons and courtesans were in high favor with all classes. Life and death were equally disregarded. Races, games, fêtes, debauches, combats, processions, seemed to occupy the whole time of the excitable and licentious populace. Simon Magus, after spending three or four months in Egypt with Helena, came to Antioch and began an extraordinary course of public teachings. It was a rich field for his peculiar genius. He combined philosophy with sorcery, theology with magic. Of his cruel deeds, his infernal plots, his insane ambition the world was ignorant. He was greatly changed. The inspiration of evil had taken demoniac possession of him. He had grown leaner and darker. His eye, always eloquent and powerful, was fierce and restless. He had a singular habit of grasping at his breast, with an expression of suffering on his face, as if a violent pain shot through his heart. He had lost much of that calm, self-possessed, imposing exterior which commanded respect by its apparent strength and dignity. He was louder in his speech, more rapid in his gestures, prouder and more defiant in his attitude. This gained him a larger but more vulgar audience. The magician was on the eve of madness, if not actually mad. It was the age of insanity. It was the age of imposture and false miracles, of convulsion and persecution, of moral and physical turpitude, of direful cruelty and bloodshed, of the wildest fanaticism, of the most revolting excesses, of actual possession by devils. Nothing like it was ever seen before or ever will be again, because all these things were the effects and collateral issues of the spiritual combat between good and evil, between Christ and hell; the throes of the great demons of past ages before their final expulsion from their thrones and the inauguration of a new spiritual power in the world. Such was the state of society at Antioch when Simon Magus appeared in that city and claimed to be an incarnation of the Deity, exercising miraculous power. He seemed to be possessed of boundless wealth. The splendor of his palace, the rare and gorgeous beauty of his equipage, his singular and dazzling dress, the wild grandeur of his manner, the wonderful eloquence of his speech, and the astounding feats of magic which he certainly did perform, all created a bewildering impression on the excitable and unthinking people of the City of Colonnades, as Antioch was called on account of its architectural beauty.