tremble at the threats of the Law, but, as being free,
to do whatever they would. For it was not by good actions, but by
grace they would gain salvation.

For which cause, indeed, those of his association ventured on every
kind of licentiousness, and practised every kind of magic,
fabricating love philtres and spells, and all the other arts of
sorcery, as though in pursuit of divine mysteries. And having
prepared his (Simon's) statue in the form of Zeus, and Helen's in
the likeness of Athena, they burn incense and pour out libations
before them, and worship them as gods, calling themselves
Simonians.

III.--_The Simon of the Legends_.

The so-called Clementine Literature:

A. _Recognitiones_. Text: Rufino Aquilei Presb. Interprete (curante E.G.
Gersdorf); Lipsiae, 1838.

_Homiliae_. Text: _Bibliotheca Patrum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
Selecta_, Vol. I. (edidit Albertus Schwegler); Tubingensis, Stuttgartiae,
1847.

B. _Constitutiones_. Text: _SS. Patrum qui Temporibus Apostolicis
Floruerunt Opera_ (edidit J.B. Cotelerius); Amsteladami, 1724.

A. The priority of the two varying accounts, in the _Homilies_ and
_Recognitiones_, of the same story is in much dispute, but this is a
question of no importance in the present enquiry. The latest scholarship
is of the opinion that "the Clementines are unmistakably a production of
the sect of the Ebionites."[61] The Ebionites are described as:

A sect of heretics developed from among the Judaizing Christians of
apostolic times late in the first or early in the second century.
They accepted Christianity only as a reformed Judaism, and believed
in our Blessed Lord only as a mere natural man spiritually
perfected by exact observance of the Mosaic law.[62]

Summary.[63] Clement, the hero of the legendary narrative, arrives at
Caesarea Stratonis in Judaea, on the eve of a great controversy between
Simon and the apostle Peter, and attaches himself to the latter as his
disciple (H. II. xv; R.I. lxxvii). The history of Simon is told to
Clement, in the presence of Peter, by Aquila and Nicetas--the adopted
sons of a convert--who had associated with Simon.

Simon was the son of Antonius and Rachael, a Samaritan of Gittha, a
village six schoeni[64] from the city of Caesarea (H.I. xxii), called a
village of the Gettones (R. II. vii). It was at Alexandria that Simon
perfected his studies in magic, being an