and entirely misunderstood, by his orthodox opponents, whoever they were, in the first place, and also, in the second place, by those who have ignorantly and without enquiry copied from them.  But my chief reason is that the present revival of theosophical enquiry throws a flood of light on Simon’s teachings, whenever we can get anything approaching a first-hand statement of them, and shows that it was identical in its fundamentals with the Esoteric Philosophy of all the great religions of the world.

In this enquiry, I shall have to be slightly wearisome to some of my readers, for instead of giving a selection or even a paraphraze of the notices on Simon which we have from authenticated patristic sources, I shall furnish verbatim translations, and present a digest only of the unauthenticated legends.  The growth of the Simonian legend must unfold itself before the reader in its native form as it comes from the pens of those who have constructed it.  Repetitions will, therefore, be unavoidable in the marshalling of authorities, but they will be shown to be not without interest in the subsequent treatment of the subject, and at any rate we shall at least be on the sure ground of having before us all that has been said on the matter by the Church fathers.  Having cited these authorities, I shall attempt to submit them to a critical examination, and so eliminate all accretions, hearsay and controversial opinions, and thus sift out what reliable residue is possible.  Finally, my task will be to show that Simon taught a system of Theosophy, which instead of deserving our condemnation should rather excite our admiration, and that, instead of being a common impostor and impious perverter of public morality, his method was in many respects of the same nature as the methods of the theosophical movement of to-day, and deserves the study and consideration of all students of Theosophy.

This essay will, therefore, be divided into the following parts: 

I.—­Sources of Information.

II.—­A Review of Authorities.

III.—­The Theosophy of Simon.

PART I.

Sources of information.

Our sources of information fall under three heads:  I. The Simon of the New Testament; ii.  The Simon of the Fathers; iii.  The Simon of the Legends.

I.—­The Simon of the New Testament.

Acts (viii. 9-24); author and date unknown; commonly supposed to be “by the author of the third gospel, traditionally known as Luke";[1] not quoted prior to A.D. 177;[2] earliest Ms. not older than the sixth century, though some contend for the third.

II.—­The Simon of the Fathers.

i.  Justinus Martyr (Apologia, I. 26, 56; Apologia, ii. 15; Dialogus cum Tryphone, 120); probable date of First Apology A.D. 141; neither the date of the birth nor death of Justin is known; Ms. fourteenth century.