Refutation of All Heresies, Vol. 2

Libyans, hearing the parrots' recantation, assembled with one mind and burned Apsethus.

9. One must consider Simon the magician to be of this same sort, so that we would far sooner compare him to this Libyan man than to Him who is truly God. If the details of the comparison are held to be accurate and the magician possessed such a passion as Apsethus, we will undertake to teach Simon's parrots that the Simon who "stood, stands, and will stand" was not Christ, but a man sprung from seed, born of a woman, begotten from blood and fleshly desire like the rest. We shall easily show, as the story continues, that he knew this to be true. But Simon, stupidly and clumsily garbling the Law of Moses—for when Moses said that God was "a burning and consuming fire" Deuteronomy 4:24—did not receive Moses' saying rightly. He claims that fire is the principle of all things, not having comprehended that God is not Fire itself, but a burning and consuming fire. By doing so, he not only tears the Law of Moses in two, but steals from Heraclitus the Obscure. Simon proclaims that the principle of all things is a "boundless power," speaking thus: "This is the writing of the Announcement of Voice and Name from the Thought of the great power of the Boundless One. Therefore, it will be sealed up, hidden, concealed, and will be in the dwelling-place where the root of all things is founded." He says that the dwelling-place is the same...