Chapter XLVI.—Simon’s Rage.

But when Simon heard this, he assailed Peter with curses and reproaches, saying:  “Oh most wicked and most deceitful of men, to whom fortune, not truth, hath given the victory.  But I sought repentance not for defect of knowledge, but in order that you, thinking that by repentance I should become your disciple, might entrust to me all the secrets of your profession, and so at length, knowing them all, I might confute you.  But as you cunningly understood for what reason I had pretended penitence, and acquiesced as if you did not understand my stratagem, that you might first expose me in presence of the people as unskilful, then foreseeing that being thus exposed to the people, I must of necessity be indignant, and confess that I was not truly penitent, you anticipated me, that you might say, that I should, after my penitence, again return to my infidelity, that you might seem to have conquered on all sides, both if I continued in the penitence which I had professed, and if I did not continue; and so you should be believed to be wise, because you had foreseen these things, while I should seem to be deceived, because I did not foresee your trick.  But you foreseeing mine, have used subtlety and circumvented me.  But, as I said, your victory is the result of fortune, not of truth:  yet I know why I did not foresee this; because I stood by you and spoke with you in my goodness, and bore patiently with you.  But now I shall show you the power of my divinity, so that you shall quickly fall down and worship me.”