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| Doctrines of Simon.
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Chapter
XXII.—Doctrines of Simon.
First Aquila began to speak in this wise:
“Listen, O dearest brother, that you may know accurately
everything about this man, whose he is, and what, and whence; and what
the things are which he does, and how and why he does them.931
| 931 [For the
parallel account of Simon, given also by Aquila, see
Recognitions, ii. 7–15.—R.] | This Simon is the son of Antonius
and Rachel, a Samaritan by race, of the village of Gitthæ, which
is six schoeni distant from the city. He having disciplined
himself greatly in Alexandria,932
| 932 The Vatican
ms. adds, “which is in Egypt (or, on the
Nile), in Greek culture.” | and being very
powerful in magic, and being ambitious, wishes to be accounted a
certain supreme power, greater even than the God who created the
world. And sometimes intimating that he is Christ, he styles himself the
Standing One.933
| 933 [Comp.
Recognitions, i. 72—R.] | And this
epithet he employs, as intimating that he shall always stand, and as
not having any cause of corruption so that his body should fall.
And he neither says that the God who created the world is the Supreme,
nor does he believe that the dead will be raised. He rejects
Jerusalem, and substitutes Mount Gerizzim for it. Instead of our
Christ, he proclaims himself. The things of the law he explains
by his own presumption; and he says, indeed, that there is to be a
judgment, but he does not expect it. For if he were persuaded
that he shall be judged by God, he would not dare be impious towards
God Himself. Whence some not knowing that, using religion as a
cloak, he spoils the things of the truth, and faithfully believing the
hope and the judgment which in some way he says are to be, are
ruined.
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