This Power (Prunicus and Holy Spirit) descending from Above changed its form....  And through the Power from Above ... displaying her beauty, she drove them to frenzy, and on this account was she sent for the despoiling of the Rulers who brought the World into being; and the Angels themselves went to war on her account; and while she experienced nothing, they set to work to mutually slaughter each other on account of the desire which she infused into them for herself.

Theodoret briefly follows Irenaeus.

In these contradictory accounts we have a great confusion between the roles played by Nous and Epinoia, the Father and Thought, the Spirit and Spiritual Soul.  Then again how did the Lower Regions come into existence, for Epinoia to descend to them?  This lacuna is filled by the fuller information of the Philosophumena which shows us the scheme of self-emanation out or down into matter by similitude, thus confining the problem of “evil” to space and time, and not raising it into an eternal principle.  Naturally it is not to be supposed that the origin of “evil” is solvable for man in his present state, therefore whether it was according to the design or contrary to the design of the Father, will ever depend upon the point of view from which we severally regard the problem.

Law, Justice, and Compassion are not incompatible terms to one whose heart is set firm on spiritual things; and the view that evil is not a thing in itself, but exists only because of human ignorance, is one that must commend itself to the truly religious and philosophical mind.  Thus evil is not a fixed quantity in itself, it depends on the internal attitude each man holds with regard to externals as to whether they are evil or no.

For instance, it is not evil for an animal or savage to kill, for the light of the higher law is not yet flaming brightly in their hearts.  That only is evil if we do what is displeasing to the Self.  This may perhaps throw some light on the Simonian dogma of action by accident (ex accidenti), or institution ([Greek:  thesei]), as opposed to action according to nature (naturaliter or [Greek:  phusei])—­evidently the same idea as the teaching of Heracleitus to act according to nature ([Greek:  kata phusin]) which he explains as according to the Unmanifested Harmony which we can hear by straining our ears to catch that still small voice within, the Voice of the Silence, the Logos or Self.  Simon presumably refers to this in the phrase “the things which sound within” ([Greek:  ta enaecha]), an idea remarkably confirmed by Psellus,[129] who quotes the following Logion: 

     When thou seest a most holy, formless Fire shining and bounding
     throughout the depths of the whole Cosmos, give ear to the Voice of
     the Fire.