The Gnostics and Their Remains

the embryo. Again, the two tubes which we have spoken of as the channels of the blood, embrace the bladder at each side of the pelvis, and touch the great artery which runs along the same, called the aorta; and thus the breath, passing through the veins into the heart, produces the motion of the embryo. For so long as the child is being formed in 'paradise,' it neither takes nourishment through the mouth, nor breathes through the nostrils; for, placed as it is in the midst of fluid, it would be instant death for it, were it to breathe, inasmuch as it would draw a fluid and be destroyed. Moreover, the child is conceived within an envelope, which is called the aminium; but it receives nourishment through the navel, and takes in the essence of the breath through the dorsal artery above described. The River, therefore, going forth out of Eden, is divided into four heads, namely, Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Touching and Tasting, for these are the only senses that the infant formed in Paradise is possessed of.

"This then, according to Simon, is the law which Moses gave and his Four Books are written in accordance with that law, as their own titles do manifest. For the first book is Genesis; the very title, he affirms, were sufficient for the understanding of the whole matter. For this 'Genesis' is the Sight, into which one section of the River branches off, because the whole outer world is perceived through the sight. Again, the title of the second book is Exodus, which signifies that it was necessary for the thing born to pass through the Red Sea (meaning by 'Red Sea,' the blood), and to enter into the wilderness, and to drink of the bitter water (Marah). Now this 'bitter water' which lies beyond the Red Sea, is the path of knowledge during life, which leads through places toilsome and unpleasant. But after it hath been changed by Moses, that is, by the Word, that same bitter water becometh sweet. And that such is the reality one may learn from everybody who exclaims in the words of the poet:--

"'Black is the root, the flower as white as milk,
Named Moly by the gods, full hard to find
By mortals: but the gods all things can do.'

"Even what is said by the Gentiles is sufficient for the understanding

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of the whole matter unto him that hath ears to hear. He that tasted of the fruit given by Circe * was not only himself not changed into a beast, but by making use of the virtue of the self-same fruit, remodelled, reformed and recalled those already transformed by her into their own proper shape. For the Faithful Man, and the beloved by that sorceress, is found out by means of that divine and milky potion.

"In the like manner Leviticus is the Third Book (or River); which signifies the sense of smell, or the respiration; for the whole of that Book is concerning sacrifices and oblations. But wheresoever there is sacrifice, there also dues a sweet smell of perfume arise up from the sacrifice; concerning which sweet odour the sense of smelling is the approver.

"'Numbers,' the Fourth of the Books, signifies the Taste, for then the speech is active, inasmuch as it is through the Speech that all objects are designated in numerical order.