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This Simon was skilled in magic, and deluding many, partly by the art of Thrasymedes, in the way we have explained above, and partly corrupting them by means of daemons, he endeavoured to deify himself a sorcerer fellow and full of insanity, whom the apostles confuted in the Acts. Far more prudent and modest was the aim of Apsethus, the Libyan, who tried to get himself thought a god in Libya.
So he kept the birds for some time and taught them to say, "Apsethus is a god." And when, after a long time, the birds were trained and could speak the sentence which he considered would make him be thought to be a god, he opened the cage and let the parrots go in every direction.
And if the comparison is a correct one, and the fate which the magician suffered was somewhat similar to that of Apsethus, let us endeavour to re-teach the parrots of Simon, that he was not Christ, who has stood, stands and will stand, but a man, the child of a woman, begotten of seed, from blood and carnal desire, like other men.
And as the story of Apsethus is not very dissimilar to the ambition of the foolish Simon, it will not be unseemly to repeat it, for it is quite in keeping with Simon's endeavour. Apsethus, the Libyan, wanted to become a god.
For the Greek caught a number of the parrots and re-taught them to say "Apsethus caged us and made us say, 'Apsethus is a god." And when the Libyans heard the recantation of the parrots, they all assembled together of one accord and burnt Apsethus alive. And in the same way we must regard Simon, the magician, more readily comparing him with the Libyan fellow's thus becoming a god.
And the voice of the birds as they flew about went out into all Libya, and their words reached as far as the Greek settlements. And thus the Libyans, astonished at the voice of the birds, and having no idea of the trick which had been played them by Apsethus, considered him to be a god.
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