Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/456

 ledge of himself." The same story is told by Hippolytus (Ref. vi. 19, p. 174), Tertullian (de Anima, 34), Epiphanius (Haer. 21), Philaster (Haer. 29), Theodoret (Haer. Fab. i. 1). Tertullian evidently knows no more than he read in Irenaeus; but Hippolytus, who had read the Μεγάλη Ἀποφάσις, gives some additional particulars, e.g. that Simon allegorized the story of the wooden horse and of Helen and her torch. The wooden horse must also have been mentioned in the earlier treatise against heresies, used by Epiphanius and Philaster, both of whom state that Simon expounded it as representing the ignorance of the nations. Epiphanius, then, it may be believed, did not invent some other particulars, in which he differs from or goes beyond Irenaeus. He states that Simon called this conception (Ennoea) Prunicus and Holy Spirit; and he gives a different account, in some respects, of the reasons for her descent into the lower world. According to this account, she was sent in order to rob the Archons, the framers of this world, of their power, by enticing them to desire her beauty, and setting them in hostility to one another.

The honour paid to Helena by the followers of Simon was known to Celsus, who says (v. 62) that certain Simonians were also called Heleniani, from Helena, or else from a teacher Helenus. We are told also by Irenaeus and Hippolytus that the Simonians had images of Simon as Jupiter and of Helen as Minerva, which they honoured, calling the former lord, the latter lady. This adaptation of the myth of Athene springing from the head of Zeus to the alleged relation of Ennoea to the first Father is of a piece with the appropriation of other Grecian myths by these heretics.

The doctrine thus attributed to Simon has close amity with that of other Gnostic systems, more especially that of the Ophites, described at the end of bk. i. of Irenaeus, except that in the Simonian system one female personage fills parts which in other systems are distributed among more than one. But in several systems we have the association with the First Cause of a female principle, his thought or conception; and we have the myth of the descent of a Sophia into the lower material regions, her sufferings from the hostility of the powers who rule there, her struggles with them, and her ultimate redemption. Peculiar to Simon is his doctrine of the transmigration of souls and his identification, by means of it, of himself and his female companion with the two principal personages of the Gnostic mythology. Simon, moreover, persuaded his followers not only to condone his connexion with a degraded person, but to accept the fact of her degradation fully admitted as only a greater proof of his redemptive power. We find it easier to believe, therefore, that the story had a foundation in fact than that it was imagined without any. On the other hand, it does not seem likely that Simon could have been the first Gnostic, it being more credible that he turned to his account a mythology already current than that he could have obtained acceptance for his tale of Ennoea, if invented for the first time for his own justification.

Baur has suggested (Christliche Gnosis, p. 308) that Justin in his account of the honours paid at Samaria to Simon and Helena may have been misled by the honours there paid to Phoenician sun and moon divinities of similar names. On this and other cognate questions see. Suffice it here to say that one strong fact in support of his theory, viz. that in the Clementine Recognitions (ii. 14, preserved in the Latin of Rufinus) the companion of Simon is called Luna, may have originated in an early error of transcription. She is Helena in the corresponding passage of the Clementine Homilies, ii. 23; and we find elsewhere the false reading Selene for Helene, e.g. in Augustine (de Haer. 1).

[G.S.]

Helena (2), St., or Flavia Julia Helena Augusta, first wife of Constantius Chlorus, and mother of Constantine the Great, born c. 248, died c. 327.

Little is known for certain of her life, except that she was mother of Constantine the Great and when about 80 years old undertook a remarkable pilgrimage to Palestine, which resulted in the adornment and increased veneration of the holy places.

She was doubtless of humble parentage, being, according to one story, the daughter of an innkeeper (Anon. Valesii 2, 2, "matre vilissima," Ambrose, de Obitu Theodosii, § 42, p. 295). Constantius when he made her acquaintance was a young officer in the army, of good family and position, nearly related, by the female line, to the emperor Claudius, and appears to have at first united her to himself by the looser tie then customary between persons of such different conditions (Hieron. Chron. anno. 2322; Orosius, vii. 25; Chron. Pasch. 304, vol. i. p. 516, ed. Bonn; Zos. ii. 8). The relation of "concubinatus" might be a lifelong one and did not necessarily imply immorality. In outward appearance it differed nothing from the ordinary civil marriage by mutual consent, and was sometimes called "conjugium inaequale." Her son Constantine, apparently her only child, was born probably in 274, at Naissus in Dardania, the country where his father's family had for some time been settled. After his birth Constantius probably advanced Helena to the position of a lawful wife. That she had this position is expressly stated by some of our authorities, but the very emphasis of their assertion implies that there was something peculiar about the case (Eus. H. E. viii. 13, 12, παῖδα γνήσιον . . . καταλιπών and the inscription from Salerno given below). Respect for Constantine would naturally prevent writers in his reign from stating the circumstances in detail. It may be, however, that his law to legitimatize the children of a concubine "per subsequens matrimonium" was suggested by his mother's experience.

After living with Constantius some 20 years Helena was divorced on the occasion of his elevation to the dignity of Caesar in 292; the Augustus Maximian, in choosing him for his colleague, requiring this, as a matter of policy, in order that Constanius might marry his own step-daughter, Theodora (Eutrop. Brev. ix. 22; Victor, de Caesaribus, 39; Epitome, 54)—a proceeding which has parallels in Roman history. The looseness of the marriage tie among the Romans is a quite sufficient