4.  In the Star(s) of Heaven was not their ministry; in Mazzaroth
     (the Zodiacal signs) was their office.

     5.  The Fire-god, the first-born supreme, into heaven they pursued
     and no father did he know.

     6.  O Fire-god, supreme on high, the first-born, the mighty, supreme
     enjoiner of the commands of Anu!

     7.  The Fire-god enthrones with himself the friend that he loves.

     8.  He reveals the enmity of those seven.

     9.  On the work he ponders in his dwelling-place.

     10.  O Fire-god, how were those seven begotten, how were they
     nurtured?

     11.  Those seven in the mountain of the sunset were born;

     12. those seven in the mountain of the sunrise grew up.

     13.  In the hollows of the earth they have their dwelling;

     14. on the high places of the earth their names are proclaimed.

     15.  As for them, in heaven and earth they have no dwelling, hidden
     is their name.

     16.  Among the sentient gods they are not known.

     17.  Their name in heaven and earth exists not.

     18.  Those seven from the mountain of the sunset gallop forth;

     19. those seven in the mountain of the sunrise are bound to rest.

     20.  In the hollows of the earth they set the foot.

     21.  On the high places of the earth they lift the neck.

     22.  They by nought are known; in heaven and in earth is no
     knowledge of them.[113]

Though I have no intention of contending that Simon obtained his ideas specifically from Vedic, Chaldaean, Babylonian, Zoroastrian, or Phoenician sources, still the identity of ideas and the probability, almost amounting to conviction for the student, that the Initiated of antiquity all drew from the same sources, shows that there was nothing original in the main features of the Simonian system.

This is also confirmed by the statements in Epiphanius and the Apostolic Constitutions that the Simonians gave “barbarous” or “foreign names” to their Aeons.  That is to say, names that were neither Greek nor Hebrew.  None of these names are mentioned by the Fathers, and probably the Greek terms given by the author of the Philosophumena and Theodoret are exoteric equivalents of the mystery names.  There is abundant evidence, from gems, monuments and fragments, to show that there was a mystery language employed by the Gnostic and other schools.  What this language was no scholar has yet been able to tell us, and it is sufficiently evident that the efforts at decipherment are so far abortive.  The fullest and most precious examples of these names and of this language are to be found in the papyri brought back by Bruce from Abyssinia at the latter end of the last century.[114]

Jamblichus tells us that the language of the Mysteries was that of ancient Egypt and Assyria, which he calls “sacred nations,” as follows: