Simon Magus Part 4

[Footnote 5: Claudius was the fourth of the Caesars, and reigned from A.D. 41-54.]

[Footnote 6: Lit., stood on a roof; an Eastern metaphor.]

[Footnote 7: The technical term for this transmigration, used by Pythagoreans and others, is [Greek: metangismos], the pouring of water from one vessel ([Greek: angos]) into another.]

[Footnote 8: This famous lyric poet, whose name was Tisias, and honorific t.i.tle 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 cla.s.sical writers. The most familiar quotation is the Horatian (_Ep._ xvii. 42-44):

Infamis Helenae Castor offensus vicem Fraterque magni Castoris victi prece.

Adempta vati redidere lumina.

[Footnote 9: That is to say, the heretics.]

[Footnote 10: In a preceding part of the book against the "Magicians."]

[Footnote 11: _Deuteronomy_, iv. 24.]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 13: I put the few direct quotations we have from Simon in italics.]

[Footnote 14: _Isaiah_, v. 7.]

[Footnote 15: _I Peter_, i. 24.]

[Footnote 16: Empedocles of Agrigentum, in Sicily, flourished about B.C.

444.]

[Footnote 17: [Greek: phronaesis], consciousness?]

[Footnote 18: Syzygies.]

[Footnote 19: _Isaiah_, i. 2.]

[Footnote 20: _I Corinth._, xi. 32.]

[Footnote 21: [Greek: to maeketi ginomenon.]]

[Footnote 22: See _Jeremiah_, i. 5.]

[Footnote 23: _Genesis_, ii, 10.]

[Footnote 24: Veins and arteries are said not to have been distinguished by ancient physiologists.]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 26: This is omitted by Miller in the first Oxford edition.]

[Footnote 27: _Odyssey_, x. 304, _seqq._]

[Footnote 28: [Greek: logos].]

[Footnote 29: Cf. _Isaiah_, ii. 4.]

[Footnote 30: Cf. _Luke_, iii. 9.]

[Footnote 31: Or adorning.]

[Footnote 32: _Genesis_, iii. 24.]

[Footnote 33: [Greek: logos]; also reason.]

[Footnote 34: [Greek: antistoichountes]; used in Xenophon (_Ana._ v. 4, 12) of two bands of dancers facing each other in rows or pairs.]

[Footnote 35: He who has stood, stands and will stand.]

[Footnote 36: Thought.]

[Footnote 37: The Middle Distance.]

[Footnote 38: There is a lacuna in the text here.]

[Footnote 39: [Greek: dia taes idias epignoseos.]]

[Footnote 40: Undergo the pa.s.sion.]

[Footnote 41: [Greek: paredrous] C.W. King calls these "a.s.sessors."

(_The Gnostics and their Remains_, p. 70.)]

[Footnote 42: This is presumably meant for a grim patristic joke.]

[Footnote 43: A medicinal drug used by the ancients, especially as a specific against madness.]

[Footnote 44: The conducting of souls to or from the invisible world.]

[Footnote 45: [Greek: prounikos: prouneikos] is one who bears burdens, a carrier; in a bad sense it means lewd.]

[Footnote 46: Or the conception (of the mind).]

[Footnote 47: Cf. 1 _Thess_., v. 8.]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 49: [Greek: plaeroma]]

[Footnote 50: Scripture.]

[Footnote 51: _Matth._, v. 17.]