“I will speak to Demetrius. He has a good heart and a clear brain. He may suggest something which may lead to good. He may enlist Helena in our behalf, if Helena is here. I cannot see what harm can come of it.”
I went down into the square. Demetrius was overjoyed to see me. He did not, however, seem surprised to find me in Antioch. We sat down together and I told him all our troubles. I unbosomed my whole grief to him like a brother. I had the discretion to say nothing of Beltrezzor, resolving to let the old man work out his own plan alone. If harm came to any one, it could only be to myself.
Demetrius knew that the condemned woman was my sister, and professed the deepest interest and sympathy in her case. I pleaded the youth, and the innocent and sweet character of Mary, against the charge of foul and dangerous heresy.
He seemed to think the heresy was bad enough, for he indulged in the most contemptuous expressions against Jesus and his disciples. “But,” said he, “it is all the work of Lelius. No one can aid you so efficiently as Simon Magus. Great magician and sorcerer as he has been and is still, he is a noble and generous man. I am confident he will assist you in delivering your sister from her fearful peril. He is now lecturing to a select audience on the great points of his new philosophy. Come with me to his palace and hear him. When he has finished, we will consult together as to what is to be done.”
I followed him; and ascending the marble steps of a princely mansion, and passing through a great hall adorned with statues and immense vases of flowers, we were ushered into a room of moderate size, but superbly furnished. The audience nearly filled the place, for there were but two or three chairs near the door.
Simon Magus, on a raised platform, was in the very heat and height of an eloquent discourse. His subject was the nature of the soul and its transformations. His voice was winning, his gestures expressive, his eye a blaze of intellectual fire. His language was full of Orientalisms and Egyptian mysticisms. Taught in the severer school of Grecian philosophy, and blessed with the far greater analytic light of spiritual knowledge, I perceived at once that the influx of ideas into his mind came from cunning, subtle, evil spirits, and that the tendency of his words was to bewilder, dazzle and betray.
“You saw me,” said he, “turn water into wine just now. You saw me turn silver into gold. You saw me resolve a rose into nothing; you saw me restore it as it was before. These things, I told you, were symbolic of spiritual transformations.
“When the spirit by prayer, by faith, by watching, by study, by abstinence, by suffering—is purified and etherealized, it undergoes similar transformations, and from water becomes wine; from silver becomes gold; from human becomes divine. Thus it is that I have become the power of God—the Son of God—the Word of God; and that I have still a holier name, incommunicable to you.
“In this state I have supreme control over matter. You saw me a little while ago take up a deadly serpent. It bit a dog before your eyes and the creature died in a minute. It fastened itself upon my hands and my cheeks; I was unhurt. You saw me swallow balls of fire. I am unharmed. So I can float in the air like a bird; I can live under water like a fish. I can point my finger at a tree, and it will wither. I can call to a cloud, and it comes to me. I can curse a city, and it will sink into the sea.”
There was an excited and admiring murmur among his credulous hearers. The fanatical impostor continued: