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| Fire a Primal Principle, According to Simon.
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Chapter XII.—Fire a Primal Principle, According to
Simon.
According to Simon, therefore, there exists that
which is blessed and incorruptible in a latent condition in every
one—(that is,) potentially, not actually; and that this is He who
stood, stands,636
| 636
In the Recognitions of Clement we have this passage:
“He (Simon) wishes himself to be believed to be an exalted power,
which is above God the Creator, and to be thought to be the Christ, and
to be called the standing one” (Ante-Nicene Library, ed.
Edinburgh, vol. iii. p. 196). | and is to
stand.637
| 637
The expression stans (standing) was used by the
scholastics as applicable to the divine nature. Interpreted in
this manner, the words in the text would be equivalent with
“which was, and is, and is to come” (Rev. i. 8). The Recognitions of
Clement explain the term thus: “He (Simon) uses this
name as implying that he can never be dissolved, asserting that his
flesh is so compacted by the power of his divinity, that it can endure
to eternity. Hence, therefore, he is called the standing
one, as though he cannot fall by any corruption” (Ante-Nicene
Library, vol. iii. p. 196). [To be found in vol. viii. of this
series, with the other apocryphal Clementines.] | He has
stood above in unbegotten power. He stands below, when in the
stream of waters He was begotten in a likeness. He is to stand
above, beside the blessed indefinite power, if He be fashioned into an
image. For, he says, there are three who have stood; and except
there were three Æons who have stood, the unbegotten one is not
adorned. (Now the unbegotten one) is, according to them, wafted
over the water, and is re-made, according to the similitude (of
an eternal nature), a
perfect celestial (being), in no (quality of) intelligence formed
inferior to the unbegotten power: that is what they say—I
and you, one; you, before me; I, that which is after you. This,
he says, is one power divided above (and) below, generating itself,
making itself grow, seeking itself, finding itself, being mother of
itself, father of itself, sister of itself, spouse of itself, daughter
of itself, son of itself, mother, father, a unit, being a root of the
entire circle of existence.
And that, he says, the originating principle of
the generation of things begotten is from fire, he discerns after some
such method as the following. Of all things, (i.e.) of whatsoever
there is a generation, the beginning of the desire of the generation is
from fire. Wherefore the desire after mutable generation is
denominated “to be inflamed.” For when the fire is
one, it admits of two conversions. For, he says, blood in the man
being both warm and yellow, is converted as a figured flame into seed;
but in the woman this same blood is converted into milk. And the
conversion of the male becomes generation, but the conversion of the
female nourishment for the fœtus. This, he says, is
“the flaming sword, which turned to guard the way of the tree of
life.”638
For the
blood is converted into seed and milk, and this power becomes mother
and father—father of those things that are in process of
generation, and the augmentation of those things that are being
nourished; (and this power is) without further want, (and)
self-sufficient. And, he says, the tree of life is guarded, as we
have stated, by the brandished flaming sword. And it is the
seventh power, that which (is produced) from itself, (and) which
contains all (powers, and) which reposes in the six powers. For
if the flaming sword be not brandished, that good tree will be
destroyed, and perish. If, however, these be converted into seed
and milk, the principle that resides in these potentially, and is in
possession of a proper position, in which is evolved a principle of
souls, (such a principle,) beginning, as it were, from a very small
spark, will be altogether magnified, and will increase and become a
power indefinite (and) unalterable, (equal and similar) to an
unalterable age, which no longer passes into the indefinite
age.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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