s.

The Simon of Origen gives us no new information, except as to the small
number of the Simonians. But like other data in his controversial
writings against the Gnostic philosopher Celsus we can place little
reliance on his statement, for Eusebius Pamphyli writing in A.D. 324-5,
a century afterwards, speaks of the Simonians as still considerable in
numbers.[81]

The Simon of Epiphanius and Philaster leads us to speak of a remarkable
feat of scholarship performed by R.A. Lipsius,[82] the learned professor
of divinity in the university of Jena. From their accounts he has
reconstructed to some extent a lost work of Hippolytus against heresies
of which a description was given by Photius. This treatise was founded
on certain discourses of Irenaeus. By comparing Philaster, Epiphanius,
and the Pseudo-Tertullian, he recovers Hippolytus, and by comparing his
restored Hippolytus with Irenaeus he infers a common authority, probably
the lost work of Justin Martyr, or, may we suggest, as remarked above,
the work from which Justin got his information.[83]

The Simon of Theodoret differs from that of his predecessor only in one
or two important details of the aeonology, a fact that has presumably
led Matter to suppose that he has introduced some later Gnostic ideas
or confused the teachings of the later Simonians with those of
Simon.[84]

The Simon of the legends is so entirely outside any historical
criticism, and the stories gleaned from the _Homilies_ and
_Recognitions_ are so evidently fabrications--most probably added to the
doctrinal narrative at a later date--and so obviously the stock-in-trade
legends of magic, that not a solitary scholar supports their
authenticity. Probably one of the reasons for this is the strong
Ebionism of the narratives, which is by no means palatable to the
orthodox taste. In this connection the following table of the Ebionite
scheme of emanation may be of interest:

GOD.
(The One Being, the Principle of all things.)
______________________________________^___________________________________
/ \
SPIRIT. MATTER.
| The Four elements.
| (This mixture produces)
| |