as indeed they
themselves say, but in reality, of Daemons, who answer back to them from
below."

It is only when Grabe refers to the Simonian _Antirrhetikoi Logoi_,
mentioned by the Pseudo-Dionysius, which he calls "vesani Simonis
Refutatorii Sermones," that we get any new information.

A certain Syrian bishop, Moses Barcephas, writing in the tenth
century,[93] professes to preserve some of these controversial retorts
of Simon, which the pious Grabe--to keep this venom, as he calls it,
apart from the orthodox refutation--has printed in italics. The
following is the translation of these italicized passages:

"God willed that Adam should not eat of that tree; but he did eat; he,
therefore, did not remain as God willed him to remain: it results,
therefore, that the maker of Adam was impotent."

"God willed that Adam should remain in Paradise; but he of his own
disgraceful act fell from thence: therefore the God that made Adam was
impotent, inasmuch as he was unable of his own will to keep him in
Paradise."

"(For) he interdicted (he said) Adam from the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, by tasting which he would have had power to judge between
good and evil, and to avoid this, and follow after that."

"But (said he) had not that maker of Adam forbidden him to eat of that
tree, he would in no way have undergone this judgment and this
punishment; for hence is evil here, in that he (Adam) had done contrary
to the bidding of God, for God had ordered him not to eat, and he had
eaten."

"Through envy (said he) he forbade Adam to taste of the tree of life, so
that, of course, he should not be immortal."

"For what reason on earth (said he) did God curse the serpent? For if
(he cursed him) as the one who caused the harm, why did he not restrain
him from so doing, that is, from seducing Adam? But if (he cursed him)
as one who had brought some advantage, in that he was the cause of
Adam's eating of that good tree, it needs must follow that he was
distinctly unrighteous and envious; lastly, if, although from neither of
these reasons, he still cursed him, he (the maker of Adam) should most
certainly be accused of ignorance and folly."

Now although there seems no reason why the above contentions should not
be considered as in substance the arguments employed by Simon against
his antagonists of the dead-letter, yet the tenth century is too late to
warrant verbal accuracy, unless there may have been some Syrian
translat