19. So then Simon by such inventions got what interpretation he
pleased, not only out of the writings of Moses, but also out of
those of the (pagan) poets, by falsifying them. For he gives an
allegorical interpretation of the wooden horse, and Helen with the
torch, and a number of other things, which he metamorphoses and
weaves into fictions concerning himself and his Thought.

And he said that the latter was the "lost sheep," who again and
again abiding in women throws the Powers in the world into
confusion, on account of her unsurpassable beauty; on account of
which the Trojan War came to pass through her. For this Thought
took up its abode in the Helen that was born just at that time, and
thus when all the Powers laid claim to her, there arose faction and
war among those nations to whom she was manifested.

It was thus, forsooth, that Stesichorus was deprived of sight when
he abused her in his verses; and afterwards when he repented and
wrote the recantation in which he sung her praises he recovered his
sight.

And subsequently, when her body was changed by the Angels and lower
Powers--which also, he says, made the world--she lived in a brothel
in Tyre, a city of Phoenicia, where he found her on his arrival.
For he professes that he had come there for the purpose of finding
her for the first time, that he might deliver her from bondage. And
after he had purchased her freedom he took her about with him,
pretending that she was the "lost sheep," and that he himself was
the Power which is over all. Whereas the impostor having fallen in
love with this strumpet, called Helen, purchased and kept her, and
being ashamed to have it known by his disciples, invented this