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Chapter XV.—Simon Magus, Professed to Have Made a Boy of Air.

“As we spoke these and such like words with looks suited to the occasion, this most vain fellow believed that we were deceived; and being thereby the more elated, he added also this:  ‘I shall now be propitious to you, for the affection which you bear towards me as God; for you loved me while you did not know me, and were seeking me in ignorance.  But I would not have you doubt that this is truly to be God, when one is able to become small or great as he pleases; for I am able to appear to man in whatever manner I please.  Now, then, I shall begin to unfold to you what is true.  Once on a time, I, by my power, turning air into water, and water again into blood, and solidifying it into flesh, formed a new human creature—a boy—and produced a much nobler work than God the Creator.  For He created a man from the earth, but I from air—a far more difficult matter; and again I unmade him and restored him to air, but not until I had placed his picture and image in my bed-chamber, as a proof and memorial of my work.’  Then we understood that he spake concerning that boy, whose soul, after he had been slain by violence, he made use of for those services which he required.”