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of the holy Philip to the fellow apostles in Jerusalem, that Samaria has received the word of God and that it is time for them also to be given priests, and when the holy Peter and John came down from Jerusalem and were performing the laying on of hands, those who were deemed worthy of this grace were receiving the Holy Spirit. But Simon, having seen that through the laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Spirit is given, being sick with love of power, offers gifts to the apostles, saying: Give me also this authority, so that on whomever I lay my hands he may receive the Holy Spirit. But Peter said to him: May your silver perish with you, because you thought to obtain the gift of God with money, and so on. This is Simon who before had renounced the devil and his angels and all his works; this is he who received baptism from the apostle Philip; but praiseworthy up to this point, but after these things, pitiable. For having missed the mark and such grace, and having been judged unworthy of ordination, he begins to fight against the apostles, no longer recognizing the workmen, no longer recognizing the one who begot him, having forgotten everything at once; a short while ago a disciple, and now an enemy. What has happened to you, O man? Who has so brutalized you? Who has brought you to this very madness? Why have you given yourself over completely to the evil one, so that your whole heart has been hardened and no longer receives the apostles' counsel, but to consider yourself more righteous than the apostles? And he does not cease warring against the apostles until death, and he did not hesitate to cross from Samaria to Rome and there to cooperate with the devil and to war against Christ. We have shown through the facts the founder of the heresies; and through these things it would have been enough to persuade the deceived whose disciples they are, whose zealots they are, whose work they pursue, for whose sake they fight against Christ. But that we may put them to greater shame, we will persuade them that even to this day they hold to his teaching; and taking the proof of this from those very ones, we will refute them from their own refutations. For just as the catholic and apostolic church preserves the genealogy of Christ, so also the heresies guard the succession of Simon. It is written in a book preserved among them which they call the Acts of Peter, that a certain Gemellus became a genuine disciple of Simon; he himself having remained with him until the final shame and death. And his name to this day is attached to the heresy of the pseudo-renunciants, for they are named Gemellitae. This Gemellus, after the fall of Simon and his bitter death—for the death of sinners is evil—not finding a place to harm or deceive anyone in Rome, as the writing testifies, for there is no such heresy in it—reaches these parts and finding the nation simple and easy and inexperienced in error, begins to teach and to ordain and to pervert all the mysteries of the Christians and calls himself a renunciant. And he himself was a heresiarch, having received the heresy in succession from Simon, having neither received baptism from anyone, nor having been called a Christian at all, except having been discipled by Simon alone and having profited from his things. The heresy had this beginning. And as time went on and some were deceived because the leaders of the churches of Christ were being persecuted by those then persecuting the church, and being one heresy, they seemed to escape notice, and again their instructor, the devil, once having them under his control and obedient in all things, divides them into two thus: some among them being found to possess animals were abominated by those not possessing them. For those not possessing them, having cast these out as unclean and unholy for such a renunciation, they alone inherited the name of their founder of perdition, Gemellus. But indeed, the devil again cuts them up; for once he has mastered them as a plaything

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τοῦ ἁγίου Φιλίππου τοῖς ἐν Ἱεροσολύμοις συναποστόλοις, ὅτι δέδεκται ἡ Σαμάρεια τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ὅτι καιρός ἐστι δοθῆναι αὐτοῖς καὶ ἱερέας, κατελθόντων δὲ τοῦ ἁγίου Πέτρου καὶ Ἰωάννου ἀπὸ Ἱεροσολύμων καὶ ποιούντων τὰς χειροθεσίας, ἐλάμβανον πνεῦμα ἅγιον οἱ τῆς χάριτος ταύτης κατ αξιούμενοι. Θεασάμενος δὲ ὁ Σίμων ὅτι διὰ τῆς ἐπιθέσεως τῶν χειρῶν τῶν ἀποστόλων δίδοται τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, φιλαρχίαν νοσήσας προσφέρει δῶρα τοῖς ἀποστόλοις λέγων· ∆ότε κἀμοὶ τὴν ἐξουσίαν ταύτην, ἵνα ᾧ ἐπιθῶ τὰς χεῖρας λαμβάνῃ πνεῦμα ἅγιον. Πέτρος δὲ πρὸς αὐτὸν εἶπε· Τὸ ἀργύριόν σου σὺν σοὶ εἰς ἀπώλειαν, ὅτι τὴν δωρεὰν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐνόμισας διὰ χρημάτων κτᾶσθαι καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς. Οὗτός ἐστι Σίμων ὁ πρὸ τοῦ ἀποταξάμενος τῷ διαβόλῳ καὶ τοῖς ἀγγέλοις αὐτοῦ καὶ πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔργοις αὐτοῦ· οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀποστόλου Φιλίππου ὑποδεξάμενος τὸ βάπτισμα· ἀλλ' ἐπαινετὸς μέχρι τούτου, μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα ἐλεεινός. Ἀστοχήσας γὰρ τοῦ σκοποῦ καὶ τῆς τοιαύτης χάριτος καὶ τῆς χειροτονίας ἀνάξιος κριθείς, ἄρχεται πολεμεῖν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις μηκέτι γνω ρίζων τοὺς ἐργάτας, μηκέτι γνωρίζων τὸν γεννήσαντα, πάντων ὁμοῦ ἐπιλαθόμενος· ὁ πρὸ μικροῦ μαθητὴς καὶ νῦν πολέμιος. Τί ἔπαθες, ἄνθρωπε; Τίς σε οὕτως ἀπεθηρίωσε; Τίς σε εἰς αὐτὴν τὴν λύσσαν ἀνήνεγκε; Τί ἐξέδωκας σεαυτὸν παντελῶς τῷ πονηρῷ, ὥστε πηρωθῆναι πᾶσαν τὴν καρδίαν σου καὶ μηκέτι δέχεσθαι τὴν τῶν ἀποστόλων παραίνεσιν, ἀλλ' ἑαυτὸν εἶναι δικαιότε ρον τῶν ἀποστόλων νομίζειν; Καὶ οὐ παύεται μέχρι θανάτου πο λεμῶν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις, καὶ οὐκ ὤκνησεν ἀπὸ Σαμαρείας μέχρι Ῥώμης διαβῆναι κἀκεῖ συνεργῆσαι τῷ διαβόλῳ καὶ πολεμῆσαι τῷ Χριστῷ. Ἐδείξαμεν διὰ τῶν πραγμάτων τὸν ἀρχηγὸν τῶν αἱρέσεων· καὶ ἤρκει διὰ τούτων πεῖσαι τοὺς ἀπατωμένους τίνος εἰσὶ μαθηταί, τίνος εἰσὶ ζηλωταί, τίνος τὸ ἔργον μεταδιώκουσι, τίνος ἕνεκεν τῷ Χριστῷ μάχονται. Ἀλλ' ἵνα πλέον αὐτοὺς ἐντρέψωμεν, πείσομεν αὐτοὺς ὅτι μέχρι καὶ σήμερον τὴν διδαχὴν ἐκείνου κατέχουσι· καὶ τοῦτο ἀπ' αὐτῶν ἐκείνων λαβόντες τὴν ἀπόδειξιν ἀπὸ τῶν ἰδίων ἐλέγχων αὐτοὺς ἐλέγξομεν. Ὡς γὰρ ἐκκλησία ἡ καθολικὴ καὶ ἀποστολικὴ σῴζει τὴν γενεαλογίαν τοῦ Χριστοῦ, οὕτως καὶ αἱ αἱρέσεις φυλάσσουσι τὴν διαδοχὴν τοῦ Σίμωνος. Γέγραπται ἐν βιβλίῳ παρ' αὐτοῖς φυλασ σομένῳ ὃ λέγουσι Πέτρου Πράξεις, ὅτι Γέμελλός τις γνήσιος μαθητὴς γέγονε τοῦ Σίμωνος· αὐτὸς ἕως τῆς τελευταίας αἰ σχύνης καὶ τοῦ θανάτου αὐτῷ παραμείνας. Καὶ τούτου τὸ ὄνομα μέχρι τοῦ νῦν ἐπίκειται τῇ αἱρέσει τῶν ψευδοἀποτακτιτῶν, Γεμελλῖται γὰρ ἐπονομάζονται. Οὗτος ὁ Γέμελλος μετὰ τὴν πτῶ σιν τοῦ Σίμωνος καὶ τὸν πικρὸν θάνατον-θάνατος γὰρ ἁμαρτωλῶν πονηρός μὴ εὑρὼν τόπον τοῦ καταβλάψαι τινὰ ἢ ἀπατῆσαι ἐν τῇ Ῥώμῃ, ὡς τὸ γράμμα μαρτυρεῖ, οὐδὲ γὰρ ἔστι τοιαύτη αἵρεσις ἐν αὐτῇ-καταλαμβάνει τὰ μέρη ταῦτα καὶ εὑρὼν ἀφελὲς καὶ εὔκολον τὸ ἔθνος καὶ ἄπειρον τῆς πλάνης ἄρχεται τοῦ διδάσκειν καὶ χειροτονεῖν καὶ πάντα κακουργεῖν τὰ μυστήρια τῶν χριστιανῶν καὶ ἑαυτὸν ἀποτακτίτην ὀνομάζει. Καὶ ἦν αἱρεσιάρχης αὐτὸς διαδεξάμενος ἀπὸ τοῦ Σίμωνος τὴν αἵρεσιν, μήτε βάπτισμα λαβὼν παρά τινος, μήτε ὅλως χριστιανὸς ὀνομασθείς, ἢ μόνῳ Σίμωνι μαθητευθεὶς καὶ τὰ ἐκείνου ὠφελημένος. Ταύτην τὴν ἀρχὴν ἔσχεν ἡ αἵρεσις. Χρόνου δὲ προϊόντος καί τινων ἀπατηθέντων διὰ τὸ τοὺς προεστῶτας τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν τοῦ Χρισ τοῦ ἐλαύνεσθαι ὑπὸ τῶν τότε διωκόντων τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, μία δὲ αἵρεσις ὄντες ἐδόκουν λανθάνει καὶ πάλιν ὁ καθηγητὴς αὐτῶν διάβολος ἔχων αὐτοὺς ἅπαξ ὑποχειρίους καὶ εἰς πάντα ὑπηκόους, μερίζει αὐτοὺς εἰς δύο οὕτως· εὑρεθέντες τινὲς εἰς αὐτοὺς ζῷα ἔχοντες ὑπὸ τῶν μὴ ἐχόντων ἐβδελύχθησαν προώ σαντες γὰρ τούτους οἱ μὴ ἔχοντες ὡς ἀκαθάρτους καὶ ἀνοσίους τῆς τοιαύτης ἀποτάξεως, αὐτοὶ μόνοι τὴν προσηγορίαν τοῦ ἀρχηγοῦ αὐτῶν τῆς ἀπωλείας τοῦ Γεμέλλου ἐκληρονόμησαν. Ἀλλὰ γὰρ καὶ αὐτοὺς πάλιν κατατέμνει ὁ διάβολος· ἅπαξ γὰρ κρατήσας αὐτῶν ἀντὶ παιγνίου