Simon Magus | Page 8

gates of the liver, which nourish the foetus. And the
air-ducts, which we said were channels for breath, embracing the
bladder on either side in the region of the pelvis, are united at the great
duct which is called the dorsal aorta. And thus the breath passing
through the side doors towards the heart produces the movement of the
embryo. For as long as the babe is being fashioned in the Garden, it
neither takes nourishment through the mouth, nor breathes through the
nostrils. For seeing that it is surrounded by the waters (of the womb),
death would instantly supervene, if it took a breath; for it would draw
after it the waters and so perish. But the whole (of the foetus) is
wrapped up in an envelope, called the amnion, and is nourished
through the navel and receives the essence of the breath through the
dorsal duct, as I have said.
15. The river, therefore, he says, which goes out of Eden, is divided
into four channels, four ducts, that is to say; into four senses of the
foetus: sight, (hearing),[26] smelling, taste and touch. For these are the
only senses the child has while it is being formed in the Garden.
This, he says, is the law which Moses laid down, and in accordance
with this very law each of his books was written, as the titles show. The
first book is Genesis, and the title of the book, he says, is sufficient for
a knowledge of the whole matter. For this Genesis, he says, is sight,
which is one division of the river. For the world is perceived by sight.
The title of the second book is Exodus. For it was necessary for that
which is born to travel through the Red Sea, and pass towards the
Desert--by Red the blood is meant, he says--and taste the bitter water.
For the "bitter," he says, is the water beyond the Red Sea, inasmuch as
it is the path of knowledge of painful and bitter things which we travel
along in life. But when it is changed by Moses, that is to say by the
Word, that bitter (water) becomes sweet. And that this is so, all may
hear publicly by repeating after the poets:
"In root it was black, but like milk was the flower. Moly the Gods call
it. For mortals to dig it up is difficult; but Gods can do all things."[27]

16. Sufficient, he says, is what is said by the Gentiles for a knowledge
of the whole matter, for those who have ears for hearing. For he who
tasted this fruit, he says, was not only not changed into a beast by Circe,
but using the virtue of the fruit, reshaped those who had been already
changed into beasts, into their former proper shape, and re-struck and
recalled their type. For the true man and one beloved by that sorceress
is discovered by this milk-white divine fruit, he says.
In like manner Leviticus, the third book, is smelling or respiration. For
the whole of that book treats of sacrifices and offerings. And wherever
there is a sacrifice, there arises the smell of the scent from the sacrifice
owing to the incense, concerning which sweet smell the sense of smell
is the test.
Numbers, the fourth book, signifies taste, wherein speech (or the Word)
energizes. And it is so called through uttering all things in numerical
order.
Deuteronomy, again, he says, is so entitled in reference to the sense of
touch of the child which is formed. For just as the touch by contact
synthesizes and confirms the sensations of the other senses, proving
objects to be either hard, warm, or adhesive, so also the fifth book of
the Law is the synthesis of the four books which precede it.
All ingenerables, therefore, he says, are in us in potentiality but not in
actuality, like the science of grammar or geometry. And if they meet
with befitting utterance[28] and instruction, and the "bitter" is turned
into the "sweet"--that is to say, spears into reaping hooks and swords
into ploughshares[29]--the Fire will not have born to it husks and
stocks, but perfect fruit, perfected in its imaging, as I said above, equal
and similar to the ingenerable and Boundless Power. "For now," says
he, "the axe is nigh to the roots of the tree: every tree," he says, "that
bringeth not forth good fruit, is cut down and cast into the fire."[30]
17. And so, according to Simon, that blessed and imperishable
(principle) concealed in everything, is in potentiality, but not in
actuality, which indeed is He who has stood, stands and will stand; who
has stood above in the ingenerable Power, who stands below in the

stream of the waters, generated in an image, who shall stand