The Gnostics and Their Remains

"'Deuteronomy,' Simon makes out, is so named in reference to the child that has been formed for Touching. For as the Touch doth by feeling reciprocate and confirm the impressions received by the other senses; proving an object to be either hard, or hot, or slippery--in the like manner the Fifth Book of the Law is a recapitulation of the four preceding Books.

"All things, therefore (continues he), that are not created exist within us in potentiality, not in activity; like the science of grammar, or of geometry, In the case, therefore, where they shall have met with the proper training and instruction, there 'shall the Bitter be turned into Sweet'; that is, 'the spears shall be turned into reaping-hooks, and the swords into ploughshares;' they shall be no longer chaff and sticks born for the fire, but the Perfect Fruit, like and equal, as already said, unto the Unbegotten and Boundless Power. But where the Tree shall stand alone, not bearing fruit, there, because it hath not received form, it shall be destroyed. 'For now (saith he) the axe is nigh unto the root of the tree. Every tree therefore that beareth not good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire.'

p. 66

"According to Simon, therefore, that blessed and inscrutable thing lies hidden, and within every man, but in potentiality alone, not in activity; the which is 'He who standeth, hath stood, and shall stand'; who standeth above in the Unbegotten Power, who hath stood below in the 'River of Waters' when he was begotten in the image, and who shall stand above by the side of the Blessed and Boundless Power, provided that he shall have received form. For there are three that stand, and unless there be the three Æons that stand, 'the Begotten One is not adorned,' meaning Him, who, according to Simon's teaching, moved upon the face of the waters; who hath been re-created after the image, perfect and heavenly; who likewise is in no degree lower than the Unbegotten Power."

"This is a saying amongst the Simonians, 'I and thou are one; thou before me, I after thee.' 'This is the One Power, divided into Above and Below, begetting itself, nourishing itself, seeking after itself, finding itself, being its own mother, its own. father, its own sister, its own consort, its own daughter, son mother, father, inasmuch as it alone is the Root of all things.'