that this statue here erected _Semoni Sanco Deo_, was the same as _Simoni Deo Sancto_, that is, “_to the holy god Simon_;” and as it was always necessary to the introduction of a new god among those at Rome, that the Senate should pass a solemn act and decree to that effect, which should be confirmed by the approbation of the emperor, it would at once occur to his own imaginative mind, or to the inventions of his fabricating informers, that Simon must of course have received such a decree from the senate and Caesar. This necessarily also implied vast renown, and extensive favor with all the Romans, which he must have acquired, to be sure, by his magical tricks, aided by the demoniac powers; and so all the foolish particulars of the story would be made out as fast as wanted. The paltry fable also appended to this by all the Fathers who give the former story, to the effect, that some woman closely connected with him, was worshiped along with him, variously named Helena, Selena and Larentina, has no doubt a similarly baseless origin; but is harder to trace to its beginnings, because it was not connected with an assertion, capable of direct ocular, as well as historical, refutation, as that about Simon’s statue most fortunately was. The second name, _Selena_, given by Irenaeus, is exactly the Greek word for the moon, which was often worshiped under its appropriate name; and this tale may have been caught up from some connection between such a ceremony and the worship of some of the Semones,――all the elegant details of her life and character being invented to suit the fancies of the reverend fathers. The story, that she had followed Simon to Rome from the Phoenician cities, Tyre and Sidon, suggests to my mind at this moment, that there may have been a connection between this and some old story of the importation of a piece of idolatry from that region, so famed for the worship of the “_mooned_ Ashtaroth, Heaven’s queen and mother both.”