heathen writings sufficed for the knowledge of all things.[15.26] His broad eclecticism embraced all revelations, and sought to combine them into one sole and universal system of accepted truths. His plan was essentially quite similar to that of Valentinus, and to the doctrines in regard to the Divine Persons which are found in the fourth Gospel, in Philo, and in the Targums.[15.27] The "Metatronos,"[15.28] which the Jews placed at the side of the Deity, and almost in his bosom, strongly resembles "The Great Power." In Samaritan theology we find a Great Angel, who presides over other angels, and we find also a variety of manifestations or "Divine Virtues," analogous to those of the Kabala.[15.29] It appears certain, then, that Simon of Gitto was a theosophist of the type of Philo and the Kabalists. Perhaps he may have come near to Christianity, but certainly he did not attach himself to it in any defined way. Whether he actually borrowed anything from the disciples of Jesus, is difficult to decide. If "The Great Exposition" is the expression of his ideas in any degree, it must be admitted that upon several points he is in advance of the Christian ideas, and that upon others he adopts them with much fulness.[15.30] He seems to have attempted an eclecticism similar to that which Mahomet afterwards adopted, and to have based his religious action upon the preliminary belief in the divine mission of John and of Jesus.[15.31] He professed to bear a mystic relation to them. He asserted, it is said, that it was he himself who appeared to the Samaritans as the Father, to the Jews by the visible crucifixion of the Son, and to the Gentiles by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.[15.32] He also, it would seem, prepared the way for the doctrine of the "Docetæ." He claimed to have suffered in Judea in the person of Jesus, but that his suffering was only apparent.[15.33] These pretensions to Divinity and claims of adoration have probably been exaggerated by the Christians, who have in every way sought to cover him with odium. The doctrine of "the Great Exposition" is that of nearly all the Gnostic writings; and if Simon really professed that doctrine, it is with good reason that the Fathers charged him with being the founder of Gnosticism.[15.34] It is our belief that the "Exposition" has only a relative authenticity; that it is to the doctrine of Simon very nearly what the fourth Gospel is to the ideas of Jesus; and that it dates from the earlier years of the second century, the epoch when the theosophic notions of the Logos acquired a definite ascendency. These notions, of which we shall find the germ in the Christian Church about the year 60,[15.35] may, however, have been known to Simon, whose career was probably prolonged until the close of the century.