phenomena, deluding and enticing them with a bait by saying that he was the Great Power of God and had come down from above.  And he told the Samaritans that he was the Father, and the Jews that he was the Son, and that in undergoing the passion he had not really done so, but that it was only in appearance.  And he ingratiated himself with the apostles, was baptized by Philip with many others, and received the same rite as the rest.  And all except himself awaited the arrival of the great apostles and by the laying on of their hands received the Holy Spirit, for Philip, being a deacon, had not the power of laying on of hands to grant thereby the gift of the Holy Spirit.  But Simon, with wicked heart and erroneous calculations, persisted in his base and mercenary covetousness, without abandoning in any way his miserable pursuits, and offered money to Peter, the apostle, for the power of bestowing the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands, calculating that he would give little, and that for the little (he gave), by bestowing the Spirit on many, he would amass a large sum of money and make a profit.

2.  So with his mind in a vile state through the devilish illusions produced by his magic, and weaving all kinds of images, and being ever ready of his own villany to show his barbaric and demoniacal tricks by means of his charms, he came forward publicly and under the cloak of the name of Christ; and pretending that he was mixing hellebore[43] with honey, he added a poison for those whom he hunted into his mischievous illusion, under the cloak of the name of Christ, and compassed the death of those who believed.  And being lewd in nature and goaded on through shame of his promises, the vagabond fabricated a corrupt allegory for those whom he had deceived.  For picking up a roving woman, called Helen, who originated from the city of the Tyrians, he took her about with him, without letting people know that he was on terms of undue intimacy with her; and when he was involved in bursting disgrace because of his mistress, he started a fabulous kind of psychopompy[44] for his disciples, and saying, forsooth, that he was the Great Power of God, he ventured to call his prostitute companion the Holy Spirit, and he says that it was on her account he descended.  “And in each heaven I changed my form,” he says, “in order that I might not be perceived by my Angelic Powers, and descend to my Thought, which is she who is called Prunicus[45] and Holy Spirit, through whom I brought into being the Angels, and the Angels brought into being the world and men.” (He claimed) that this was the Helen of old, on whose account the Trojans and Greeks went to war.  And he related a myth with regard to these matters, that this Power descending from above changed its form, and that it was about this that the poets spake allegorically.  And through this Power from above—­which they call Prunicus, and which is called by other sects Barbero or Barbelo—­displaying