I must now say a few words on Simonian literature of which the only geniune specimens we can in any way be certain are the quotations from the Apophasis of Simon in the text of the Philosophumena.

That there was a body of Simonian scriptures is undoubtedly true, as may be seen from the passages we have quoted from the Recognitions, Jerome, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Arabic Preface to the Nicaean Council, and for some time I was in hopes of being able to collect at least some scattered fragments of these works, but they have all unfortunately shared the fate of much else of value that the ignorance and fear of orthodoxy has committed to the flames.  We know at any rate that there was a book called The Four Quarters of the World, just as the four orthodox gospels are dedicated to the signs of the four quarters in the old MSS., and that a collection of sentences or controversial replies of Simon were also held in repute by Simonians and were highly distasteful to their opponents.  Matter[88] and Amelineau[89] speak of a book by the disciples of Simon called De la Predication de S. Paul, but neither from their references nor elsewhere can I find out any further information.  In Migne’s Encyclopedie Theologique,[90] also, a reference is given to M. Miller (Catalogue des Manuscripts Grecs de l’Escurial, p. 112), who is said to mention a Greek MS. on the subject of Simon ("un ecrit en grec relatif a Simon").  But I cannot find this catalogue in the British Museum, nor can I discover any other mention of this MS. in any other author.

At last I thought that I had discovered something of real value in Grabe’s Spicilegium, purporting to be gleanings of fragments from the heretics of the first three centuries A.D.,[91] but the date of the authority is too late to be of much value.  Grabe refers to the unsatisfactory references I have already given and, to show the nature of these books, according to the opinion of the unknown author or authors of the Apostolic Constitutions (Grabe calls him the “collector,” and for some reason best known to himself places him in the fourth century[92]), quotes the following passage from their legendary pages.

“Such were the doings of these people with names of ill-omen slandering the creation and marriage, providence, child-bearing, the Law and the Prophets; setting down foreign names of Angels, 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: