31. Another part of my smoke' which you frequently laugh at is my pretence, as you say, to know what I do not know, and the parade I make of great teachers to deceive the common and ignorant people. You, of course, are a man not of smoke but of flame, or rather of lightning; you fulminate when you speak; you cannot contain the flames which have been conceived within your mouth, and like Barchochebas, the leader of the revolt of the Jews, who used to hold in his mouth a lighted straw and blow it out so as to appear to be breathing forth flame: so you also, like a second Salmoneus, brighten the whole path on which you tread, and reproach us as mere men of smoke, to whom perhaps the words might be applied, |Thou touchest the hills and they smoke.| You do not understand the allusion of the Prophet when he speaks of the smoke of the locusts; it is no doubt the beauty of your eyes which makes it impossible for you to bear the pungency of our smoke.
Son of a Star; the leader of the Jewish revolt against Hadrian, a.d.132-5. King of Elis whom Jove destroyed for imitating thunder and lightning by his chariot and brazen bridge and torches.
Ps. civ.52
Supposed to refer to Rev. ix.7, 17