[67] διὰ τῆς ἰδίας ἐπιγνώσεως; per suam agnitionem, Cr.; “thro’ his own intelligence,” Macmahon.
[68] Reading ἄρχοντες for the ἀρχαί of the Codex.
[69] This sentence also appears verbatim in Irenæus, I, 16, 1.
[70] i. e. the prophets.
[71] The whole of this from the last quotation to the end of the section is also from Irenæus, I, 16, 2.
[72] What these πάρεδροι οἱ λεγομένοι were is hard to say; but one of the later documents of the Pistis Sophia introduces a fiend in hell as the “Paredros Typhon.” “Assessor” or “coadjutor,” the meanings of the word in classical Greek, would here seem inappropriate.
[73] From the beginning of the section to here is from Irenæus, I, 16, 3.
[74] That is, made up this doctrine.
[75] C. W. King in the Gnostics and their Remains (2nd ed.) thinks that the omitted word is Persia. There is evidently a lacuna here, and perhaps a considerable one.
[76] Because his age made his pretensions to divinity absurd. The story given after this directly contradicts all ecclesiastical tradition which makes Simon perish by the fall of his demon-borne car while flying in the presence of Nero and St. Peter in the Campus Martius.