Simon Magus Part 7

[Footnote 90: Tom. xxiii, "Dictionnaire des Apocryphes," Vol. II., Index, pp. lxviii, lxix.]

[Footnote 91: _Spicilegium SS. Patrum ut et Haereticorum Saeculorum post Christum natum, I, II et III_; Johannes Ernestus Grabius; Oxoniae, 1714, ed. alt., Vol. I., pp. 305-312.]

[Footnote 92: P. 306.]

[Footnote 93: _Comment. de Paradiso_, c. i., pp. 200, _et seqq._, editionis Antverpiensis, anno 1567, in 8vo.]

[Footnote 94: Grabe is also interesting for a somewhat wild speculation which he quotes from a British Divine (apud Usserium in _Antiquitatibus Eccles. Britannicae_), that the tonsure of the monks was taken from the Simonians. (Grabe, _op. cit._, p, 697.)]

[Footnote 95: In the epistle of St. Ignatius _Ad Trallianos_ (-- 11), Simon is called "the first-born Son of the Devil" ([Greek: prototokon Diabolou huion]); and St. Polycarp seems to refer to Simon in the following pa.s.sage in his Epistle _Ad Philipp._ (-- 7):

"Everyone who shall not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is antichrist, and who shall not confess the martyrdom of the cross, is of the Devil; and he who translates the words of the Lord according to his own desires, and says there is neither resurrection nor judgment, he is _the first-born of Satan_."]

PART III.

THE THEOSOPHY OF SIMON.

In treating of eschatology and the beginning of things the human mind is ever beset with the same difficulties, and no matter how grand may be the effort of the intellect to transcend itself, the finite must ever fail to comprehend the infinite. How much less then can words define that which even the whole phenomenal universe fails to express! The change from the One to the Many is not to be described. How the All-Deity becomes the primal Trinity, is the eternal problem set for man's solution. No system of religion or philosophy has ever explained this inexplicable mystery, for it cannot be understood by the embodied Soul, whose vision and comprehension are dulled by the grossness of its physical envelope. Even the illuminated Soul that quits its prison house, to bathe in the light of infinitude, can only recollect flashes of the Vision Glorious once it returns again to earth.

And this is also the teaching of Simon when he says:

I say there are many G.o.ds, but one G.o.d of all these G.o.ds, incomprehensible and unknown to all, ... a Power of immeasurable and ineffable Light, whose greatness is held to be incomprehensible, a Tower which the maker of the world does not know.

This is a fundamental dogma of the Gnosis in all climes and in all ages.

The demiurgic deity is not the All-Deity, for there is an infinite succession of universes, each having its particular deity, its Brahma, to use the Hindu term, but this Brahma is not THAT which is Para-Brahman, that which is beyond Brahma.

This view of the Simonian Gnosis has been magnificently antic.i.p.ated in the _Rig Veda_ (x. 129) which reads in the fine translation of Colebrooke as follows:

That, whence all this great creation came, Whether Its will created or was mute, The Most High Seer that is in highest Heaven, He knows it--or perchance even He knows not.

In treating of emanation, evolution, creation or whatever other term may be given to the process of manifestation, therefore, the teachers deal only with one particular universe; the Unmanifested Root, and Universal Cause of all Universes lying behind, in potentiality ([Greek: dynamis]), in Incomprehensible Silence ([Greek: sigae akatalaeptos]). For on the "Tongue of the Ineffable" are many "Words" ([Greek: logoi]), each Universe having its own Logos.

Thus then Simon speaks of the Logos of this Universe and calls it Fire ([Greek: pyr]). This is the Universal Principle or Beginning ([Greek: ton holon archae]), or Universal Rootage ([Greek: rizoma ton holon]).

But this Fire is not the fire of earth; it is Divine Light and Life and Mind, the Perfect Intellectual ([Greek: to teleion noeron]). It is the One Power, "generating itself, increasing itself, seeking itself, finding itself, its own mother, its own father, its sister, its spouse: the daughter, son, mother, and father of itself; One, the Universal Root." It is That, "which has neither beginning nor end, existing in oneness." "Producing itself by itself, it manifested to itself its own Thought ([Greek: epinoia])."

It is quite true that this symbology of Fire is not original with Simon, but there is also no reason to suppose that the Samaritan teacher plagiarized from Heracleitus when we know that the major part of antiquity regarded fire and the sun as the most fitting symbols of Deity. Of the manifested elements, fire was the most potent, and therefore the most fitting symbol that could be selected in manifested nature.

But what was the Fire of Heracleitus, the Obscure ([Greek: ho skoteinos]), as Cicero, with the rest of the ancients, called him, because of his difficult style? What was the Universal Principle of the "weeping philosopher," the pessimist who valued so little the estimation of the vulgar ([Greek: ochloloidoros])? It certainly was no common "fire," certainly no puerile concept to be brushed away by the mere hurling of an epithet.

Heracleitus of Ephesus (_flor. c._ 503 B.C.) was a sincerely religious man in the highest sense of the word, a reformer who strongly opposed the degenerate polytheism and idolatry of his age; he insisted on the impermanence of the phenomenal universe, of human affairs, beliefs and opinions, and declared the One Eternal Reality; teaching that the Self of man was a portion of the Divine Intelligence. The object of his enquiry was Wisdom, and he reproached his vain-glorious countrymen of the city of Diana with the words: "Your _knowledge_ of many things does not give you _wisdom_."

In his philosophy of nature he declared the One Thing to be Fire, but Fire of a mystical nature, "self-kindled and self-extinguished," the vital quickening power of the universe. It was that Universal Life, by partic.i.p.ation in which all things have their being, and apart from which they are unsubstantial and unreal. This is the "Tree of Life" spoken of by Simon.

In this Ocean of Fire or Life--in every point or atom of it--is inherent a longing to manifest itself in various forms, thus giving rise to the perpetual flux and change of the phenomenal world. This Divine Desire, this "love for everything that lives and breathes," is found in many systems, and especially in the Vedic and Phoenician Cosmogony. In the _Rig Veda_ (x. 129), it is that Kama or Desire "which first arose in It (the Unknown Deity)," elsewhere identified with Agni or Fire. In the fragments of Phoenician Cosmogony, recovered from Sanchuniathon, it is called Pothos ([Greek: pothos]) and Eros ([Greek: eros]).

In its pure state, the Living and Rational Fire of Heracleitus resides in the highest conceivable Heaven, whence it descends stage by stage, gradually losing the velocity of its motion and vitality, until it finally reaches the Earth-stage, having previously pa.s.sed through that of "Water." Thence it returns to its parent source.

In this eternal flux, the only repose was to be found in the harmony that occasionally resulted from one portion of the Fire in its descent meeting another in its ascent. All this took place under Law and Order, and the Soul of man being a portion of the Fire in its pure state, and therefore an exile here on Earth, could only be at rest by cultivating as the highest good, contentment ([Greek: euarestaesis]), or acquiescence to the Law.

The author of the _Philosophumena_ professes to give us some additional information on this philosopher who "bewailed all things, condemning the ignorance of all that lives, and of all men, in pity for the life of mortals," but the obscure philosopher does not lend himself very easily to the controversial purposes of the patristic writer. Heracleitus called the Universal Principle ([Greek: ton hapanton archae]) Intellectual Fire ([Greek: pur noeron]), and said that the sphere surrounding us and reaching to the Moon was filled with evil, but beyond the Moon-sphere it was purer.[97]

The sentences that the author quotes from Heracleitus in Book IX, are not only obscure enough in themselves, but are also rendered all the more obscure by the polemical treatment they are subjected to by the patristic writer. Heracleitus makes the ALL inclusive of all Being and Non-Being, all pairs of opposites, "differentiation and non-differentiation, the generable and ingenerable, mortal and immortal, the Logos and Aeon, and the Father and Son," which he calls the "Just G.o.d." This ALL is the "Sadasat-Tatparam yat" of the _Bhagavad Gita_, inclusive of Being (Sat), Non-Being (Asat), and That Which transcends them (Tatparam yat).[98]

This Logos plays an important part in the system of the Ephesian sage, who says that they who give ear to the Logos (the Word or Supreme Reason) know that "All is One" ([Greek: hen panta eidenai]). Such an admission he calls, "Reflex Harmony" ([Greek: palintropos harmoniae]), like unto the Supernal Harmony, which he calls Hidden or Occult, and declares its superiority to the Manifested Harmony. The ignorance and misery of men arise from their not acting according to this Harmony, that is to say, according to (Divine) Nature ([Greek: kata phusin]).

He also declares that the Aeon, the Emanative Deity, is as a child playing at creation, an idea found in both the Hindu and Hermetic Scriptures. In the former the Universe is said to be the sport (Lila) of Vishnu, who is spoken of in one of his incarnations as Lilavatara, descending on earth for his own pleasure, when as Krishna he a.s.sumed the shape of man as a pretence (a purely Docetic doctrine), hence called Lila-ma.n.u.sha-vigraha; while in the latter we learn from a magic papyrus that Thoth (the G.o.d of Wisdom) created the world by bursting into "seven peals of laughter." This, of course, typifies the Bliss of the Deity in Emanation or Creation, caused by that Divine Love and Compa.s.sion for all that lives and breathes, which is the well-spring of the Supreme Cause of the Universe.

Diving into the Mystery of Being, Heracleitus showed how a thing could be good or evil, and evil or good, at one and the same time, as for instance sea water which preserved and nourished fishes but destroyed men. So also, speaking in his usual paradoxical manner, which can only be understood by a full comprehension of the dual nature of man,--the real divine ent.i.ty, and the pa.s.sing and ever-changing manifestation, which so many take for the whole man--he says:

The immortals are mortal, and the mortals immortal, the former living the death of the latter, and the latter dying the life of the former.[99]

Thus all externals are transitory, for "no one has ever been twice on the same stream, for different waters are constantly flowing down," and therefore in following externals we shall err, for nothing is efficient and forcible except through Harmony, and its subjection to the Divine Fire, the central principle of Life.

Such was the Fire of the distinguished Ephesian, and of like nature was the Fire of Simon with its three primordial hypostases, Incorruptible Form ([Greek: aphthartos morphae]), Universal Mind ([Greek: nous ton holon]), and Great Thought ([Greek: epinoia megalae]), synthesized as the Universal Logos, He who has stood, stands and will stand ([Greek: ho estos, stas, staesomenos]).

But before pa.s.sing on to the aeonology of Simon, a short delay, to enquire more fully into the notions of the Initiated among the ancients as to the nature of Mystic Fire, will not be without advantage.

If Simon was a Samaritan and learned in the esoteric interpretation of scripture, he could not have failed to be acquainted with the Kabalah, perhaps even with the now lost Chaldaean _Book of Numbers_. Among the books of the Kabalah, the _Zohar_, or "Book of Splendour," speaks of the mysterious "Hidden Light," that which Simon calls the Hidden Fire ([Greek: to krupton]), and tells us of the "Mystery of the Three Parts of the Fire, which are One" as follows:

Began Rabbi Sim-on and said: Two verses are written, "That YHVH thy Elohim is a devouring fire, a zealous Ail (El)" (_Deut._, iv. 24); again it is written, "But you that cleave unto YHVH your Elohim, are alive, every one of you, this day" (_Deut._, iv. 4). On this verse "That YHVH thy Elohim is a consuming fire," this we said to the companions; That it is a fire which devours fire, and it is a fire which devours itself and consumes itself, because it is a fire which is more mighty than fire, and it has been so confirmed. But, Come, See! Whoever desires to know the wisdom of the Holy Unity should look in that flame arising from a burning coal or a lighted lamp. This flame comes out only when united with another thing.

Come, See! In the flame which goes up are two lights: one light is a bright white and one light is united with a dark or blue; the white light is that which is above and ascends in a straight path, and that below is that dark or blue light, and this light below is the throne to the white light and that white light rests upon it, and they unite one to the other so that they are one. And this dark light, or blue colour, which is below, is the precious throne to the white. And this is the mystery of the blue. And this blue dark throne unites itself with another thing to light that from below, and this awakes it to unite with the upper white light, and this blue or dark, sometimes changes its colour, but that white above never changes its colour, it is always white; but that blue changes to these different colours, sometimes to blue or black and sometimes to a red colour, and this unites itself to two sides. It unites to the above, to that white upper light, and unites itself below to the thing which is under it, which is the burning matter, and this burns and consumes always from the matter below. And this devours that matter below, which connects with it and upon which the blue light rests, therefore this eats up all which connects with it from below, because it is the nature of it, that it devour and consume everything which depends on it and is dead matter, and therefore it eats up everything which connects with it below, and this white light which rests upon it never consumes itself and never changes its light, and therefore said Moses; "That YHVH thy Elohim is a consuming fire." Surely He consumes. It devours and consumes every thing which rests under it; and on this he said: "YHVH is thy Elohim" not "our Elohim," because Moses has been in that white light, Above, which neither devours nor consumes. Come, See! It is not His Will to light that blue light that should unite with that white light, only for Israel; because they cleave or connect under Him. And, Come, See! Although the nature of that dark or blue light is, that it shall consume every thing which joins with it below, still Israel cleaves on Him, Below, ... and although you cleave in Him nevertheless you exist, because it is written: "You are all alive this day." And on this white light rests above a Hidden Light which is stronger. Here is the above mystery of that flame which comes out from it, and in it is the Wisdom of the Above.[100]

And if Chaldaea gave the impulse which enshrined the workings of the Cosmos in such graphic symbology as the above, we are not surprised to read in the Chaldaean Oracles ([Greek: logia]),[101] ascribed to Zoroaster, that "all things are generated from One Fire."[102] And this Fire in its first energizing was intellectual; the first "Creation" was of Mind and not of Works:

For the Fire Beyond, the first, did not shut up its power ([Greek: dunamis]) into Matter ([Greek: hulae]) by Works, but by Mind, for the fas.h.i.+oner of the Fiery Cosmos is the Mind of Mind.[103]

A striking similarity with the Simonian system, indeed, rendered all the closer by the Oracle which speaks of that:

Which first leaped forth from Mind, enveloping Fire with Fire, binding them together that it might interblend the mother-vortices,[104] while retaining the flower of its own Fire.[105]

This "flower" of Fire and the vorticle idea is further explained by the Oracle which says:

Thence a trailing whirlwind, the flower of shadowy Fire, leaping into the wombs (or hollows) of worlds. For thence it is that all things begin to stretch below their wondrous rays.[106]

Compare this with the teaching of Simon that the "fruit" of the Tree is placed in the Store-house and not cast into the Fire.

In his aeonology, Simon, like other Gnostic teachers, begins with the Word, the Logos, which springs up from the Depths of the Unknown--Invisible, Incomprehensible Silence. It is true that he does not so name the Great Power, He who has stood, stands and will stand; but that which comes forth from Silence is Speech, and the idea is the same whatever the terminology employed may be. Setting aside the Hermetic teachings and those of the later Gnosis, we find this idea of the Great Silence referred to several times in the fragments of the Chaldaean Oracles. It is called "G.o.d-nourished Silence" ([Greek: sigae theothremmon]), according to whose divine decrees the Mind that energizes before all energies, abides in the Paternal Depth.[107] Again:

This unswerving Deity is called the Silent One by the G.o.ds, and is said to consent (lit. sing together) with the Mind, and to be known by the Souls through Mind alone.[108]

Elsewhere the Oracles demonstrate this Power which is prior to the highest Heaven as "Mystic Silence."[109]

The Word, then, issuing from Silence is first a Monad, then a Duad, a Triad and a Hebdomad. For no sooner has differentiation commenced in it, and it pa.s.ses from the state of Oneness ([Greek: monotaes]), than the Duadic and Triadic state immediately supervene, arising, so to say, simultaneously in the mind, for the mind cannot rest on Duality, but is forced by a law of its nature to rest only on the joint emanation of the Two. Thus the first natural resting point is the Trinity. The next is the Hebdomad or Septenary, according to the mathematical formula 2^{n}-1, the sum of _n_ things taken 1, 2, 3 ... _n_, at a time. The Trinity being manifested, _n_ here =3; and 2^{3}-1 = 7.