Note 26 — THE MYTH OF SIMON MAGUS

But still the proof abounds. In Lucian’s account of the Syrian Goddess we are told26 that in the temple at Byblos there was a statue, apparently epicene or double-sexed, called by some Dionysos, by others Deucalion, and by others Semiramis, but to which the Syrians gave no specific name, calling it only Semeion, a word which in Greek properly means “sign,” but may mean image. There can be little doubt that Movers27 was right in surmising this statue to be just the primordial Sem or Sem-on, the Great Sem of the Semitic race. The two-sexed character is in perfect keeping with the ideal duality of the old Assyrian Nature-Gods;28 and the peculiar detail of the name which was not a name brings us again to the Sem-on of the Samaritans.