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)
|                                    |
|                                    |
THE SON.                              THE DEVIL. 
(The Leader of the future cycle.)    (The leader of the present cycle.)
|                                    |
|                                    |
GREAT THINGS.                         LITTLE THINGS. 
(Heaven, light, life, etc.)           (Earth, fire, death, etc.)
|                                    |
|                                    |
ADAM.                                  EVE. 
(Truth.)                              (Error.)
\________________    _______________/
\  /
MAN. 
(The union of Spirit and Body, of Truth and Error.)
________________/  \_______________
/                                   \
INFERIOR MEN.                        SUPERIOR MEN. 
Ishmael.                               Isaac. 
Esau.                                  Jacob. 
Aaron.                                 Moses. 
John the Baptist.                      Jesus. 
Antichrist.                            Christ.
\_____________________________________ ___________________________________/