Note 198 — LECTURE IV. Primitive Religious Expression: In the Object.

As Keary well says: “The essence of primitive belief lies not in any likeness to humanity, but in differences from it.” Outlines of Prim. Belief, p. 26. The Neo-Platonic doctrine of “emanation” led to the belief that a man might become so filled with the divine essence as to become divine himself. This was the claim of Simon the Magician, who “became confessedly a god to his silly followers,” says Hippolytus in his Refutation of all Heresies, bk. vi., cap. 13.