deluding many, partly by the art of Thrasymedes, in the way we have explained above,[10] and partly corrupting them by means of daemons, he endeavoured to deify himself—­a sorcerer fellow and full of insanity, whom the apostles confuted in the Acts.  Far more prudent and modest was the aim of Apsethus, the Libyan, who tried to get himself thought a god in Libya.  And as the story of Apsethus is not very dissimilar to the ambition of the foolish Simon, it will not be unseemly to repeat it, for it is quite in keeping with Simon’s endeavour.

8.  Apsethus, the Libyan, wanted to become a god.  But in spite of the greatest exertions he failed to realize his longing, and so he desired that at any rate people should think that he had become one; and, indeed, for a considerable time he really did get people to think that such was the case.  For the foolish Libyans sacrificed to him as to some divine power, thinking that they were placing their confidence in a voice that came down from heaven.

Well, he collected a large number of parrots and put them all into a cage.  For there are a great many parrots in Libya and they mimic the human voice very distinctly.  So he kept the birds for some time and taught them to say, “Apsethus is a god.”  And when, after a long time, the birds were trained and could speak the sentence which he considered would make him be thought to be a god, he opened the cage and let the parrots go in every direction.  And the voice of the birds as they flew about went out into all Libya, and their words reached as far as the Greek settlements.  And thus the Libyans, astonished at the voice of the birds, and having no idea of the trick which had been played them by Apsethus, considered him to be a god.

But one of the Greeks, correctly surmising the contrivance of the supposed god, not only confuted him by means of the self-same parrots, but also caused the total destruction of this boastful and vulgar fellow.  For the Greek caught a number of the parrots and re-taught them to say “Apsethus caged us and made us say, ’Apsethus is a god.’” And when the Libyans heard the recantation of the parrots, they all assembled together of one accord and burnt Apsethus alive.

9.  And in the same way we must regard Simon, the magician, more readily comparing him with the Libyan fellow’s thus becoming a god.  And if the comparison is a correct one, and the fate which the magician suffered was somewhat similar to that of Apsethus, let us endeavour to re-teach the parrots of Simon, that he was not Christ, who has stood, stands and will stand, but a man, the child of a woman, begotten of seed, from blood and carnal desire, like other men.  And that this is the case, we shall easily demonstrate as our narrative proceeds.

Now Simon in his paraphrasing of the Law of Moses speaks with artful misunderstanding.  For when Moses says “God is a fire burning and