The Great Declaration by Simon Magus.
Translated by David Litwa.
This is the letter of declaration, voice, and name from the Thought of the Great and Infinite Power. It will be sealed, hidden, veiled, and stored in the dwelling where the root of the universe is established—the root of aeons, powers, and thoughts; the root of gods, angels, and spirits sent forth; the root of things that exist and things that do not, of things born and unborn, of things comprehensible and incomprehensible; the root of years, months, days, and hours—an indivisible point from which the smallest being begins and grows by degrees. Though it is nothing and composed of nothing, it will generate an incomprehensible magnitude through its own thought.
The dwelling is the human born from bloodlines in whom the infinite Power, the root of the universe, resides. The infinite Power is fire, for God is a flaming and devouring fire. This fire is not simple, as many claim, assuming the four elements and fire are basic bodies. Instead, the fire’s nature is dual, with something hidden and something revealed.
The hidden aspects are concealed within the manifest aspects of the fire, and the manifest aspects arise from the hidden ones.
The manifest part of the fire contains everything—whatever one can conceive or not among visible things—while the hidden part holds everything intelligible, beyond sense perception, whether one can think of it or not.
In general, the supercelestial fire is the treasury of all existing things, both perceptible and intelligible, hidden and manifest. It resembles the massive tree seen by Nebuchadnezzar in a dream, a tree that nourishes all flesh.
The visible aspect of the fire includes the trunk, branches, leaves, and surrounding bark. All these manifest parts of the massive tree are consumed by the all-devouring flame of fire.
However, the fruit of the tree, if fully shaped according to its model and formed in its own likeness, is stored in the storehouse, not cast into the fire. The fruit grows to be preserved, but the chaff—the trunk—is meant for the fire, as it exists not for itself but for the fruit.
Scripture declares that the vineyard of the Lord Sabaoth is the house of Israel, and a person of Judah is a beloved new shoot. If a person of Judah is a beloved new shoot, it proves the tree is none other than a human being.
Concerning distinction and separation, scripture has spoken clearly. Those fully made in the image are guided by the words: All flesh is grass, and all its glory is like a flower of grass. The grass dries up, and its flower falls, but the speech of the Lord endures forever. This speech is the word born in the mouth of the Lord, with no other place of origin.
This is the nature of the fire. All existing things—whether visible or invisible, audible or sounding, countable or numbers—are perfect intelligibles. Each of its infinitely many parts can speak, think, and act, as Empedocles says: We behold earth from earth, water by water, aether by aether, fire by annihilating fire, affection by affection, strife by baneful strife.
All the invisible parts of the fire possess intelligence. Thus, the world that was born arose from unborn fire. It began to exist in this way: from the principle of that fire, the born world took six primal roots of generation.
These roots arose from the fire in pairs: Mind and Thought, Voice and Name, Reasoning and Conception. In these six roots lies the entire infinite Power, in potentiality, not in actuality. The infinite Power is the One who Stood and Will Stand.
Whoever attains the likeness while existing in the six powers will be, in substance, potential, magnitude, and finished perfection, one and the same as the Unborn and Infinite Power. This one will be in no way inferior to that Unborn, Unchanging, and Infinite Power.
But whoever remains only in potential within the six powers, not fully formed according to the model, vanishes and is destroyed. It is like the human mind’s potential to learn grammar or geometry: if the potentiality acquires a skill, it becomes a light for generated beings; but if it does not, it remains in darkness, without skill, and perishes as if it never existed when the person dies.
To you, I speak what I speak and write what I write—this very writing. There are two offshoots of all the aeons, without beginning or end, stemming from a single root or power: invisible and incomprehensible Silence.
One of these appears above: a Great Power, the Mind of the universe, pervading all things and male. The other is below: Thought, magnificent, female, and generating all things. Thus, they correspond to each other and form a pair. In the space between them lies an immeasurable expanse of air, without beginning or end.
In this air, the Father upholds all things and nourishes those beings with a beginning and end. He is the One Who Stood, Who Stands, Who Will Stand—an androgynous power, fitting for the infinite preexisting Power, without beginning or end, existing in unity. From this Power, the Thought in the unity emerged and became two.
The Father was one, for having her within himself, he was alone. Though he preexisted, he is not the first. He became a second deity when he appeared to himself from himself. Nor was he called Father before she named him Father.
Since he advanced from himself and manifested his own Thought, the Thought that appeared did not create him. When she saw him, she hid the Father within herself—that is, his power—an androgynous power and Thought. Thus, they correspond to each other, for power is inseparable from thought; they are one. Power is discovered from things above, while Thought is discovered from things below.
It works similarly with what is manifested from them. Though one, they are found to be two. The androgynous contains the female within himself. Likewise, there is Mind in Thought. They are inseparable. Though one, they are found to be two.
Mind and Thought, the first pair of six powers, with the seventh following, are Heaven and Earth. The male Mind above watches over and cares for his partner, while Earth below receives the fruits akin to her, raining down from heaven. For this reason, the Logos, often considering the offspring of Mind and Thought—that is, Heaven and Earth—says: Listen, Heaven, and hear, Earth, because the Lord has spoken! I fathered and exalted children, but they set me aside. The one who speaks these words is the Seventh Power, the One Who Stood, Who Stands, Who Will Stand. He is the cause of these goods, which Moses praised and called very good.
Voice and Name are sun and moon. Reasoning and Conception are air and water. In all these, the Great Power is mixed and blended. He is the Infinite Power, the Standing One.
Moses said: In six days, God made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day, he rested from all his works.
When scriptures mention three days before the sun and moon, they hint at Mind and Thought—that is, Heaven and Earth—plus the Seventh Power, the Infinite. These are the three powers that arose before all others.
When scriptures say, Before all the aeons you fathered me, such words refer to the Seventh Power. This power existed within the Infinite Power, arising before all aeons.
She is the Seventh Power, of whom Moses speaks: The divine Spirit hovered above the waters. This Spirit contains everything within itself, as an image of the Infinite Power—an image from an incorruptible form, alone ordering everything.
She is the power that hovered above the waters, born from the incorruptible form, and alone orders everything. When such creation occurred, God formed the human being by taking dust from the earth. He formed the human not simply but in a twofold manner: according to the image and according to the likeness.
The image is the Spirit hovering above the water. If it is not made in the likeness, it will be destroyed with the world, remaining only in potentiality, not in actuality. This is what the verse means: so that we might not be condemned with the world. Yet if it is made in the likeness and comes from an undivided point, the small will become great, and the great will attain infinite and unchanging eternity, no longer as something born.
How, then, and in what way does God form the human being? In paradise, for it seemed right to him. Paradise stands for the womb. Scripture teaches this is true when it says: I am the one forming you in the womb of your mother. Moses figuratively called the womb paradise, if it is right to believe the Logos.
A river flows from Eden to water the paradise. From there, it splits into four branches. If God forms the human in the womb of a mother—that is, in paradise—let the womb signify paradise, Eden the placenta, and the river flowing from Eden to water paradise signify the umbilical cord. This umbilical cord splits into four branches. On each side of the umbilical cord, two arteries extend as channels of breath, and two veins serve as channels of blood. 
When the umbilical cord flows from Eden, the placenta, it is organically joined with the fetus at the epigastrium, or the navel, in common speech. The two veins, coursing along what are called the gates of the liver, nourish the fetus as conveyers of blood brought from Eden, the placenta.
At the same time, the arteries, which are channels of breath, surround the bladder on both sides along the broad bone and join the great artery—the one along the spine called the aorta. Consequently, the breath produces movement in the embryo as it flows into the heart through its side entries.
The fetus formed in paradise neither receives food through the mouth nor breathes through the nostrils. It exists in fluids. If it breathed, death would ensue, for the fetus would suck in the fluids and perish. The fetus is entirely bundled in the amniotic membrane, nourished through the umbilical cord, and receives the substance of breath through the aorta running along the spine.
The river flowing from Eden divides into four branches or channels, referring to the four sense faculties of the fetus: vision, hearing, smell, and taste. The child possesses only these senses while being formed in paradise. This represents the Law that Moses laid down. In accord with this Law, each of the books was written, as their titles reveal.
The first book is Genesis. Its title conveys the knowledge of the universe, for genesis signifies vision, into which one branch of the river is divided. This is because the world was seen by vision.
The second book is Exodus, for the child, when born, must cross the Red Sea—red referring to blood—then come to the desert and taste bitter water. The water beyond the Red Sea is bitter, signifying the road of knowledge during this life, as it travels through bitter toils.
But that bitter water is converted by Moses—that is, the Logos—to become sweet. This applies generally to all people, as heard from those who quote the poets: It was black in root, but its flower was like milk. The gods call it moly. It is hard to dig up for mortal men, yet gods can do all things.
This passage, spoken by the Gentiles, suffices for those with an obedient ear to gain knowledge of the universe. Only the one who tasted this fruit was not transformed into a beast by Circe. Moreover, he used the power of this special fruit to mold, stamp, and restore to their former shape those already transformed into beasts.
Through that milky and divine fruit, a man is found trustworthy and loved by that witch. Similarly, Leviticus, the third book, refers to the sense of smell and respiration, as it concerns sacrifices and offerings. Wherever there is a sacrifice, a pleasant odor arises from the incense offerings, and the sense of smell judges this pleasant odor.
Numbers, the fourth book, signifies taste, wherever the spoken word is active. It is named so because we speak everything in numerical order. Deuteronomy was written for the fully formed child’s sense of touch.
Just as the sense of touch, by handling what is seen by the other senses, sums them up and confirms them—judging whether something is hard, hot, or sticky—so the fifth book of the law summarizes the four books before it.
Therefore, all unborn realities exist in us in potentiality, not in actuality, like the skill of grammar or geometry. If one encounters apt speech and instruction, the bitter will turn sweet—that is, spears will turn to sickles and swords into plows. There will be no chaff or wood—things born for fire—but fruit, mature and formed according to the model, equal and like the unborn and infinite Power.
But if it remains a tree only, not producing fully formed fruit, it is done away with. For the axe is near the roots of the tree. Every tree not producing good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
There is a blessed and incorruptible reality hidden in every human being—in potentiality, not in actuality—which is the One Who Stood, Stands, and Will Stand. He stood above in the Unborn Power, stands below in the flow of waters, born in an image, and will stand above alongside the blessed infinite Power, if made in the likeness.
Thus, there are three standing aeons, and apart from these three, the Unborn One is not ordered. He is the one hovering upon the waters, formed according to the likeness. He is perfect, heavenly, and in no way inferior to the Unborn Power. I and you are one. What is before me is you. What is after you is I.
This is the single power, divided above and below, giving birth to herself, increasing herself, seeking herself, finding herself, being mother, father, sister, partner, daughter, son of herself—yet one, the root of the universe.
The source of generation for those who are born comes from fire. For all those destined for generation, the desire for generation stems from fire. Thus, the desire for changeable generation is called burning.
Although it is one, the fire has two modes of conversion. In the male, the blood turns into semen, characterized, like fire, by heat and a whitish color. In the woman, the same blood turns into milk. Thus, the turning in the male becomes generation, while in the female, it becomes nourishment for the offspring. This is the meaning of the flaming sword that turns to guard the way to the tree of life.
The blood turns to semen and milk, and this power becomes father and mother, sowing what is generated and fostering growth for what is nourished. It needs nothing and is self-sufficient. The tree of life is guarded by the flaming sword, which is the Seventh Power, self-derived, containing everything, and situated within the six powers.
If the flaming sword is not turned, the good tree will be corrupted and destroyed. But if the fire turns into semen and milk, the one situated in these, in potentiality, when encountering apt speech and the place of the Lord where speech is born, will grow vastly. Though beginning as the tiniest spark, he will become an infinite and unchanging power in an unchanging eternity, no longer born in the finite world.
One is born and able to suffer when in potentiality, but passionless from birth when formed according to the likeness. Thus, becoming perfect, one moves out from the first two powers, namely Heaven and Earth.
The Great Declaration of Simon Magus.
Translated by Roberr Price.
This is the declaration of Voice and Name from Thought, which is the Great Power, the Boundless. It shall be sealed, hidden, concealed, and placed in the Dwelling that rests upon the Universal Root. To you, I say what I must say, and I write what I must write. This is the record of it.
From the Universal Aeons spring two shoots, without beginning or end, stemming from a single Root, which is the invisible Power, the unknowable Silence. One shoot appears from above. This is the Great Power, the Universal Mind that orders all things, being male. The other appears from below. It is the Great Thought, which is female and brings forth all things.
In this state, they pair with each other, uniting and appearing in the Middle Distance, the incomprehensible Air, without beginning or end. Here is found the Father, who sustains and nourishes all things that have a beginning and an end.
Such is he who has Stood, who Stands, and who will Stand—a male-female Power, like the Boundless Power, which knows neither beginning nor end, existing in Oneness. From this, the Thought within the Oneness proceeded and became Two.
Thus, he was one; for, having her within himself, he was alone. He was not so at first, because, though pre-existent, by revealing himself to himself, he became a second. He could not be called Father until Thought named him so.
By producing himself, he revealed his own Thought. Similarly, the revealed Thought did not make the Father known but concealed him by contemplating him, that is, the Power, within herself, resulting in a male-female unity, Power and Thought.
They pair with each other, yet remain one, with no difference between Power and Thought. Power is revealed from above, while Thought is revealed from below.
Likewise, what was revealed from them, though one, is found as two, the male-female having the female within itself. Thus, Mind is contained within Thought, inseparable from each other, which, though one in reality, are seen as two.
Man, born from blood here below, is the Dwelling, and the Boundless Power dwells in him, as it is the Universal Root. The Boundless Power, that is, Fire, is not one. Fire is twofold, one side manifest, the other concealed. The concealed things of Fire are within the manifest ones, while the revealed are produced by the hidden. The manifest side of Fire contains all visible things one may perceive, as well as those one neither suspects nor perceives. In the concealed side of Fire are all things conceived and intelligible, even if they surpass the senses or are beyond conception.
In general, all things, visible and intelligible, concealed and manifested, are contained in the Fire that surpasses the heavens, like a great Tree, which nourishes all flesh. The manifested side corresponds to the trunk, limbs, leaves, and encasing bark. All these parts of the Tree are set ablaze by the all-consuming flame of the Fire and destroyed. But the fruit of the Tree, if its form is perfect and it assumes the true shape, is gathered into the storehouse, not thrown into the Fire. The fruit is produced to be stored, but the bark, having served its purpose, is destined for the Fire, as it exists only to protect the fruit.
It is written in Scripture: “For the vineyard of the Lord Sabaoth is the house of Israel, and a man of Judah is a well-loved shoot.” If a man of Judah is a well-loved shoot, it is clear that a tree is nothing but a man. As for its division and distribution, Scripture speaks plainly enough for those who have ripened to perfection: “All flesh is mere grass, and everything in which mortals glory is like the wildflower. The grass dries up, and the wildflower droops, but the word of the Lord endures through the aeon.” The word of the Lord is the speech that comes to flower in the mouth and in the Word, for where else may it be produced?
In sum, the Fire, possessing such a nature, contains all things visible and invisible, those heard within and those heard aloud, the numerable and the innumerable. It may be called the Perfect Intellect, since it is everything one can think of, in infinite ways, whether through speech, thought, or deed. All parts of the Fire, both seen and unseen, possess awareness and a measure of intelligence. Thus, the contingent cosmos was generated from the unbegotten Fire. It began to be generated in this manner. The first six Roots of the Principle of generation, which the cosmos received, came from that Fire. The Roots were begotten of the Fire by pairs: Mind and Thought, Voice and Name, Reason and Reflection. In these six Roots was contained the totality of the Boundless Power, though only in potentiality, not yet in actuality. This Boundless Power is he who has Stood, Stands, and will Stand. If he matures to perfection within the six Powers, he will be, in essence, power, greatness, and completeness, one and the same with the Unbegotten and Boundless Power, in no way inferior to it. But if it remains only in potentiality and never attains its proper image, it is doomed to vanish and perish, like unused knowledge of grammar or geometry latent in the mind. If something potential is exercised, it comes to light among created things. But if it is never realized, it lapses into darkness, as if it had never been. When one dies, it dies with him.
Of these six Powers and the seventh, which lies beyond them, the initial pair are Mind and Thought, or heaven and earth. The male gazes down from on high and remembers its partner, while the earth below receives from heaven the fruits of intellect that rain upon it and correspond to the things of earth. For this reason, the Word often and faithfully contemplates those things generated from Mind and Thought, heaven and earth, and says, “Hear, O heaven! Give ear, O earth, for the Lord has said, ‘I have begotten sons and raised them up, but they have shoved me aside!’” He who says this is the seventh Power, he who has Stood, who Stands, and who will Stand, for he is the creator of those things that were very good.
Next come Voice and Name, which are sun and moon. After them are Reason and Reflection, or air and water. In all of them was mixed and mingled the Great Power, the Boundless, he who has Stood, who Stands, and who will Stand.
When it is said, “In six days God made the heaven and the earth, and on the seventh rested from all his labors,” it tells of a great mystery. One may see the absurdities that confound those who take these words literally. On the fourth day, God made the sun and moon to exist. Yet light was called into being on the first day! When it is stated that there are three days before the generation of the sun and moon, it means esoterically Mind and Thought, or heaven and earth, and the seventh Power, the Boundless. These three Powers were begotten before all others. When it says, “He has begotten me before all the Aeons,” the words refer to the seventh Power. This seventh Power, the first Power subsisting in the Boundless Power, begotten before all Aeons, is the Spirit that holds all things in itself, the Image of the Boundless Power, reflecting the eternal Form that orders everything. The power hovering above the water is begotten by an Immortal Form and orders everything.
Having made the world in this manner, God formed man by taking dirt from the ground. He made him not single but double, according to both the image and the likeness. The Image is the Spirit hovering over the water, which, if it does not mature into its true form, perishes along with the world, since it lingers in potentiality and never attains actuality. This is what Scripture means: “So we may not be condemned along with the world.” But if it matures perfectly into its intended image and is begotten from an indivisible point, the small shall become great. This great thing shall persist through the endless and eternal Aeon, no longer belonging to the process of becoming.
How and in what manner does God fashion man? In the Garden. We must view the womb as a garden, the cave referred to when it says, “It was you who formed my inner parts, you who knitted me together in my mother’s womb… my frame was not unknown to you when I was made in secret, intricately crafted in the caverns of the earth.” This is why this metaphor was chosen. When speaking of the Garden, it refers allegorically to the womb, if we are to believe the word.
If God fashions man in his mother’s womb, that is, the Garden, then the womb must be understood as the Garden, and Eden as the area around the womb. The “river going out of Eden to water the Garden” is the umbilical cord. This cord divides into four channels. On either side of the cord are a pair of air ducts, so the fetus may breathe, and a pair of veins to carry blood. When the cord extending from the area of Eden connects to the fetus in the epigastric region, the pair of veins through which the blood flows carry it from the Edenic region through the gates of the liver, nourishing the fetus. The air ducts, channels for breath, surround the bladder on either side in the pelvic region and unite at the large duct called the dorsal aorta. Thus, the breath passing through the lateral doors into the heart provokes the motion of the embryo. As long as the baby is fashioned in the Garden, it neither receives nourishment by the mouth nor breathes through the nostrils. Being completely surrounded in water, it would die if it took a breath, inhaling the fluid. Instead, the whole is contained in an envelope called the amnion and is nourished through the umbilical cord, receiving what breath conveys through the dorsal duct.
Thus, the river that goes out of Eden and divides into four streams, four ducts, refers to the four senses of the fetus: vision, smell, taste, and touch—these being the only senses the child possesses while in the womb.
Such is the Law laid down, and on its pattern, each book was written, as the titles indicate. The first is “Genesis,” and this title bespeaks the whole matter. “Genesis” denotes vision, one of the divisions of the river. Through sight, one perceives creation. The second book, “Exodus,” signifies that everyone born must travel through the Red Sea and cross the wilderness, the red denoting blood, and taste the bitter water. This bitterness is that of the water beyond the Red Sea, referring to the painful, bitter path of learning we must walk through life. But when transformed by the Word, what was bitter becomes sweet. This is attested even by secular sources, as the poet says: “Its root was black, but the flower was like milk. Moly, the immortals name it. How hard for mortals to dig up, but for the gods, all is child’s play.” What is said here is enough to provide knowledge of the whole, for those with ears to hear. Whoever tasted this fruit was immune from the spell that turned men into pigs and had the power to restore those so cursed. Regaining their proper shape, they were like a defaced coin melted down and struck anew. Through this fruit, as white as milk, one discovered the true man, beloved by the enchantress.
Likewise, the third book, Leviticus, concerns smelling or breathing, since its content is taken up with sacrifices and offerings. Inseparable from sacrificing is the ascending odor of the incense accompanying the sacrifice; the olfactory sense determines the propriety of the scent. The fourth book, Numbers, refers to taste, activated by speaking. The book receives its name from listing everything in order.
All eternal ideas, like grammar or geometry, are within us as potential but not actual. When they encounter appropriate discourse and teaching, and if the bitter becomes sweet, like spears turned to pruning hooks and swords to ploughshares, the Fire will not reap husks and sticks but perfect fruit—not malformed, equal and similar to the Unbegotten and Boundless Power. For now, the axe is set at the root of the tree. Every tree that fails to bear good fruit is chopped down and flung into the fire.
That blessed and immortal Principle is concealed in everything potentially, if not actually. It is he who has Stood, who Stands, and who will Stand, who has Stood above in the Unbegotten Power, who Stands below in the stream of the waters, begotten in an image, and who shall Stand above, at the side of the blessed and Boundless Power, provided there is perfect conformity to the image he bears. There are three who Stand, and without three Standing Aeons, there would be no ordering of the creation that hovers over the water, created in likeness—a perfect celestial being, in no way inferior to the Unbegotten Power, so that one shall say to the other: You and I are one; you are before me so that I may be after you. This is the one Power, divided into the above and below, begetting itself, multiplying itself, seeking itself, finding itself—mother to itself and father, sister, mate: the daughter, the son, the mother, and the father of itself: One, the Universal Root.
Of all things generated, the spark of desire for their generation comes from Fire, just as the desire for physical begetting is called “being on fire.” Though Fire is one, it admits two modes of change. In the male, blood, hot and yellow like newly kindled fire, is changed into semen. In the female, the same blood becomes milk. This transformation in the male accounts for the generative function, while in the female, it results in the ability to nurse the child. This is meant by “the flaming sword that turned this way and that to guard the path to the Tree of Life.” The blood turns this way into semen and that way into milk. This Power becomes both mother and father, father of all who are born and mother of those who are nourished. It needs nothing, being self-sufficient. The Tree of Life, guarded by the whirling, fiery sword, is the seventh Power that proceeds from itself, containing all—yet latent in the six Powers. If the fiery sword did not turn, that beautiful tree would be despoiled and die. But if it is turned into semen and milk, what is stored in them potentially, having reached the age of reason and found an appropriate place where reason may mature, will, from the merest spark, increase to mature protection and expand until it becomes an infinite Power, immutable, equal in power and alike in form to the immutable Aeon, no longer begotten for an illimitable eternity.
In this manner, the Fire assumed both male and female forms, one from above and the other from below, as each matured toward perfect conformity with the heavenly Power whose likeness and image they were. When they appeared in the midst of the rushing water of this realm of becoming, the female Thought was set upon and defiled by the Angels and lower Powers who made this world of matter. They used the fiery power within her to give life to their creations.
It is Thought who is the lost sheep of the parable, and Mind who seeks her out at the cost of abandoning all his goods. She passes from body to body, ever abiding in the forms of women, and she hurls the Powers of the world into confusion, pitting one against the other, by reason of her superlative beauty, as of the heavens themselves. In this manner, the Trojan War erupted on her account. This Thought took up residence in Helen, and because all the Powers, both governing Achaia and ruling Troy, laid claim to her, schism and war erupted among the nations to whom she was made manifest. Thus, it was not Helen at fault, but those covetous Powers who lusted for her and fought with each other on the plains of Illium—Zeus against Skamander, Apollo against Memnon.
This is why the poet Stesichorus was deprived of his sight when he treated her rudely in his verses. When he later recanted and wrote new verses extolling her virtues, he received his sight again.
After these things, when her body was exchanged by the Angels and Powers, she was exposed in the streets of Tyre in Phoenicia as an infant, taken up by a brothel master, and raised in a brothel, where she knew no other life save that of degradation. But as the poet recounts the stratagem of the Achaians, who infiltrated the fastness of Troy inside a great toy horse, so did her yoke-mate Mind, the male, gain entry to the realm of her captors by appearing in the likeness of their creatures, as a man.