After losing control of the Baptist Cult to Dositheus, Simon follows clues salvaged from Master Johns bequest back home to Samaria. He uses his experience as John the Baptists' Apprentice to raise a Samaritan cult to assist him. As a result, the historic "Samaritan prophet "(34 c.e. persecution by Pontius Pilate) was Simon Magus: he succeeded in obtaing the Jars of Moses buried on Mount Gerizim, and headed to Alexandria.
   In Alexandria, Simon spends time among the hellenistic jewish Collegia, where he has a conversation with an eclectic group; the conversation sparks the idea of adapting the common osiris-dionysos myth to Judaism and Israel.  He meets a Asian learned in sorcery, and makes arrangements to journey to Jerusalem to study in the court of Queen Hele of Adiabene.