earth for his own pleasure, when as Krishna he assumed the
shape of man as a pretence (a purely Docetic doctrine), hence called
Lila-manusha-vigraha; while in the latter we learn from a magic papyrus
that Thoth (the God of Wisdom) created the world by bursting into "seven
peals of laughter." This, of course, typifies the Bliss of the Deity in
Emanation or Creation, caused by that Divine Love and Compassion for all
that lives and breathes, which is the well-spring of the Supreme Cause
of the Universe.

Diving into the Mystery of Being, Heracleitus showed how a thing could
be good or evil, and evil or good, at one and the same time, as for
instance sea water which preserved and nourished fishes but destroyed
men. So also, speaking in his usual paradoxical manner, which can only
be understood by a full comprehension of the dual nature of man,--the
real divine entity, and the passing and ever-changing manifestation,
which so many take for the whole man--he says:

The immortals are mortal, and the mortals immortal, the former
living the death of the latter, and the latter dying the life of
the former.[99]

Thus all externals are transitory, for "no one has ever been twice on
the same stream, for different waters are constantly flowing down," and
therefore in following externals we shall err, for nothing is efficient
and forcible except through Harmony, and its subjection to the Divine
Fire, the central principle of Life.

Such was the Fire of the distinguished Ephesian, and of like nature was
the Fire of Simon with its three primordial hypostases, Incorruptible
Form ([Greek: aphthartos morphae]), Universal Mind ([Greek: nous ton
holon]), and Great Thought ([Greek: epinoia megalae]), synthesized as
the Universal Logos, He who has stood, stands and will stand ([Greek: ho
estos, stas, staesomenos]).

But before passing on to the aeonology of Simon, a short delay, to
enquire more fully into the notions of the Initiated among the ancients
as to the nature of Mystic Fire, will not be without advantage.

If Simon was a Samaritan and learned in the esoteric interpretation of
scripture, he could not have failed to be acquainted with the Kabalah,
perhaps even with the now lost Chaldaean _Book of Numbers_. Among the
books of the Kabalah, the _Zohar_, or "Book of Splendour," speaks of the
mysterious "Hidden Light," that which Simon calls the Hidden Fire
([Greek: to krupton]), and tells us of the "Mystery of the Thre