Simon Magus by George Robert Stow Mead
page 23 of 127 (18%)
page 23 of 127 (18%)
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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 |
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