Apart from Justin's meagre statement that Simon was wor shipped as the supreme God and Helen regarded as the "primary notion" emanating from him, our first satisfactory account of Simonian theology is given by Irenaeus, whose assumption that he is describing Simon's own teaching is erroneous, for he is evidently drawing from a later source in which reflections from contemporary christological speculation are unmistakable. In this system Simon is identified with the supreme God, the Father and most exalted Power from whom, before the creation of the world, a female principle emanated. This principle was his first notion through whom it occurred to him to create angels and archangels. Knowing the Father's mind, she issued from him to execute his will and made the angels and powers who, in turn, fashioned the visible world. These inferior beings were ignorant of the Father's existence but were jealous of their mother and, unwilling to be thought the offspring of another, detained her on the earth and forced her through a series of degrading incarnations. She appears in history as Helen of Troy and later as Simon's companion, Helen of Tyre, whom he came to save and who, in Simonian exegesis, is identical with the lost sheep of the parable. To rescue her and to bring salvation to men the supreme Power became incarnate and descended to earth where the angels were quarrelling for as cendancy. He came in human form, though in fact he was no man, and played the Passion in Judaea, though his sufferings were only apparent. He appears among the Jews as the Son, but also descended in Samaria as the Father and among the Gentiles as the Holy Spirit. The advent of this hitherto unknown god abro gated the precepts of the Prophets whose utterances had been inspired by the angels and designed to enslave man and obscure the truth that salvation comes not through good works but through the grace of Simon and hope in Helen and him.
The interesting features in this otherwise rather commonplace myth are the curiously Sabellian-like Trinitarian doctrine, the Iocetic theory of incarnation, and the doctrine of justification by faith or rather by hope—all of which appear to have been trans ferred bodily from Christianity and adapted to Simon's theology.
The meaning of the Father's appearance in Samaria is obscure, but may refer to the Samaritan temple at Gerizim. It is also im possible to make out the relative importance of Jesus and Simon in the system. The Simonians evidently believed that the same divine principle was incarnate in both, but the reference to the Passion shows that they could not have confused the two historical figures. Further clarity cannot be expected as Irenaeus was not sufficiently interested or well informed to describe the doctrine of salvation in detail.
More remote from the original stock is a system preserved in a document quoted at length by Hippolytus and entitled "the Great Pronouncement" (apophasis megale). Here fragmentary sur vivals of the original Simonian myth serve only to cloak a philo sophic system allied to Stoicism. Elaborate metaphor and fanciful exegesis do much to obscure the meaning and the affinities with other known Simonian systems are very slight. The substitution of an innate saving principle in human nature for a personal saviour is reminiscent of Saturninus, but the underlying ideas are more philosophical and myth serves only as a symbol, not as a naive statement of fact. Still more tenuous is the connection between Irenaeus' account and a system of theology attributed to Simon in the Clementines, but this problem can be satisfac torily treated only after further research on the text and sources of that literature have been made.
Both Irenaeus and Hippolytus inform us of the liturgical prac tices of the Simonians. Apart from magic of various kinds, wor ship was paid to Simon and Helen before statues of Zeus and Athena. It was, however, customary not to mention their names but to use the titles "Lord" and "Mistress" (kyrios, kyria). Any one violating this convention was detected as an outsider and expelled from the mysteries. (R. P. C.)