or's favour by his magic power.
He pretends to permit his head to be cut off, and by the power of
glamour appears to be decapitated, while the executioner really cuts off
the head of a ram.

The last act of the drama is the erection of a wooden tower in the
Campus Martius, and Simon is to ascend to heaven in a chariot of fire.
But, through the prayers of Peter, the two daemons who were carrying him
aloft let go their hold and so Simon perishes miserably.

Dr. Salmon connects this with the story, told by Suetonius[76] and Dio
Chrysostom,[77] that Nero caused a wooden theatre to be erected in the
Campus, and that a gymnast who tried to play the part of Icarus fell so
near the emperor as to bespatter him with blood.

So much for these motley stories; here and there instructive, but mostly
absurd. I shall now endeavour to sift out the rubbish from this
patristic and legendary heap, and perhaps we shall find more of value
than at present appears.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_, art. "Acts of the
Apostles."]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 3: Lit. powers.]

[Footnote 4: The Romans.]

[Footnote 5: Claudius was the fourth of the Caesars, and reigned from
A.D. 41-54.]

[Footnote 6: Lit., stood on a roof; an Eastern metaphor.]

[Footnote 7: The technical term for this transmigration, used by
Pythagoreans and others, is [Greek: metangismos], the pouring of water
from one vessel ([Greek: angos]) into another.]

[Footnote 8: This famous lyric poet, whose name was Tisias, and
honorific title Stesichorus, was born about the middle of the seventh
century B.C., in Sicily. The story of his being deprived of sight by
Castor and Pollux for defaming their sister Helen is mentioned by many
classical writers. The most familiar quotation is the Horatian (_Ep._
xvii. 42-44):

Infamis Helenae Castor offensus vicem
Fraterque magni Castoris victi prece.
Adempta vati redidere lumina.

[Footnote 9: That is to say, the heretics.]

[Footnote 10: In a preceding part of the book against the "Magicians."]

[Footnote 11: _Deuteronomy_, iv. 24.]

[Footnote 12: Heracleitus of Ephesus flourished about the end of the
sixth century B.C. He was named the obscure from the difficulty of his
writings.]

[Footnote 13: I put the few direct quotations we have from Simon in
italics.]

[Footnote 14: _Isaiah_, v. 7.]

[Footnote 15: _I Peter_, i. 24.]

[Footnote 16: Empedocles of Agrigentum, in S