Simon Magus: An Essay on the Founder of Simonianism Based on the Ancient Sources With a Re-Evaluation of His Philosophy and TeachingsMead, G. R. S. (George Robert Stow)
Religion
Simon Magus: An Essay on the Founder of Simonianism Based on the Ancient Sources With a Re-Evaluation of His Philosophy and Teachings
Mead, G. R. S. (George Robert Stow)
Simon, Magus, active 1st century
This Epinoia, leaping forth from _him_ (the Boundless Power), and
knowing what was the will of her Father, descended to the Lower
Regions and generated the Angels and Powers, by whom also he said
the world was made. And after she had generated them, she was
detained by them through envy, for they did not wish to be thought
the progeny of another. As for himself he was entirely unknown by
them; and it was his Thought (Epinoia) that was made prisoner by
the Powers and Angels that had been emanated by her. And she
suffered every kind of indignity at their hands to prevent her
reäscending to her Father, even to being imprisoned in the human
body and transmigrating into other female bodies, as from one
vessel into another.
Tertullian's account differs by the important addition that the "design
of the Father was prevented"; how or why he does not say.
She was his first Suggestion whereby he suggested the making of the
Angels and Archangels; that she sharing in this design had sprung
forth from the Father, and leaped down into the Lower Regions; and
that there, the design of the Father being prevented, she had
brought forth Angelic Powers ignorant of the Father, the artificer
of this world (?); by these she was detained, not according to his
intention, lest when she had gone they should be thought to be the
progeny of another, etc.
The _Philosophumena_ say nothing on this point, except that Epinoia
"throws all the Powers in the World into confusion through her
unsurpassable Beauty."
Philaster renders confusion worse confounded, by writing:
And he also dared to say that the World had been made by Angels,
and the Angels again had been made by certain endowed with
perception from Heaven, and that they (the Angels) had deceived the
human race.
He asserted, moreover, that there was a certain other Thought
(Intellectus) who descended into the world for the salvation of
men.
Epiphanius further complicates the problem as follows:
This Power (Prunîcus and Holy Spirit) descending from Above changed
its form.... And through the Power from Above ... displaying her
beauty, she drove them to frenzy, and on this account was she sent
for the despoiling of the Rulers who brought the World into being;
and the Angels themselves went to war on her account; and while she
experienced nothing, they set to work to mutually slaughter each
other on account of the desire which she infused into them for
herself.
Theodoret briefly follows Irenaeus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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