Mýtus o Šimonově Heleně

It has been shown by previous research that the myth of Simon's Ennoia-Helena is best understood as a development of Jewish speculation on Wisdom as God's spouse on the one hand, and the biblical concept of Israel as a lecherous woman on the other. Simon is a propriet like Hosea, whose marriage to a prostitute no longer symbolizes the return of Israel to the Lord, but the return of fallen Wisdom who was adulterated by jealous angels, including the Lord of Israel. The reinterpretation of the biblical material may have been facilitated by the image of the Semitic love goddess, who was probably reflected in biblical imagery itself. -- The identification of Ennoia-Helena with Helen of Troy, however, has not yet been convincingly explained. Allegorical interpretation of Helen of Troy as a symbol of the individual or the general soul does not provide any clear link between the two mythical personae. I suggest that the link could have been provided by the interpretation of Helen as the beauty of becoming, and her identification with Aphrodite as a goddess of both divine and physical beauty, who in her higher aspect is identical with Athene, the goddess of wisdom. Although the interpretation is attested in late Platonists only, it is reasonably well founded in Plato's dialogues and may have been known before Simon. The Platonic parallel could have served Simon in his attempt to abandon the concept of abidance by the law (symbolized by the Jewish Wisdom) and to found a new individual religion after the pattern of philosophy.