never changes its light, and therefore said Moses; "That YHVH thy
Elohim is a consuming fire." Surely He consumes. It devours and
consumes every thing which rests under it; and on this he said:
"YHVH is thy Elohim" not "our Elohim," because Moses has been in
that white light, Above, which neither devours nor consumes. Come,
See! It is not His Will to light that blue light that should unite
with that white light, only for Israel; because they cleave or
connect under Him. And, Come, See! Although the nature of that dark
or blue light is, that it shall consume every thing which joins
with it below, still Israel cleaves on Him, Below, ... and although
you cleave in Him nevertheless you exist, because it is written:
"You are all alive this day." And on this white light rests above a
Hidden Light which is stronger. Here is the above mystery of that
flame which comes out from it, and in it is the Wisdom of the
Above.[100]

And if Chaldaea gave the impulse which enshrined the workings of the
Cosmos in such graphic symbology as the above, we are not surprised to
read in the Chaldaean Oracles ([Greek: logia]),[101] ascribed to
Zoroaster, that "all things are generated from One Fire."[102] And this
Fire in its first energizing was intellectual; the first "Creation" was
of Mind and not of Works:

For the Fire Beyond, the first, did not shut up its power ([Greek:
dunamis]) into Matter ([Greek: hulae]) by Works, but by Mind, for
the fashioner of the Fiery Cosmos is the Mind of Mind.[103]

A striking similarity with the Simonian system, indeed, rendered all the
closer by the Oracle which speaks of that:

Which first leaped forth from Mind, enveloping Fire with Fire,
binding them together that it might interblend the
mother-vortices,[104] while retaining the flower of its own
Fire.[105]

This "flower" of Fire and the vorticle idea is further explained by the
Oracle which says:

Thence a trailing whirlwind, the flower of shadowy Fire, leaping
into the wombs (or hollows) of worlds. For thence it is that all
things begin to stretch below their wondrous rays.[106]

Compare this with the teaching of Simon that the "fruit" of the Tree is
placed in the Store-house and not cast into the Fire.

In his aeonology, Simon, like other Gnostic teachers, begins with the
Word, the Logos, which springs up from the Depths of t