Simon Magus (Greek Σίμων ὁ μάγος, Latin: Simon Magus), also known as Simon the Magician, was a religious figure whose confrontation with Peter is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. The act of simony, or paying for position, is named after Simon, who tried to buy his way into the power of the Apostles.
According to Acts, Simon was a Samaritan magus or religious figure of the 1st century AD and a convert to Christianity, baptised by Philip the Evangelist. Simon later clashed with Peter. Accounts of Simon by writers of the second century exist, but are not considered verifiable. Surviving traditions about Simon appear in traditional texts, such as those of Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Hippolytus, and Epiphanius, where he is often described as the founder of Gnosticism,Hippolytus: Refutation of All Heresies can be found in Rev. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The Ante-Nicene Fathers (1919; reprint ed., Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1971), 5:74–81, for the part we need about Simon. which has been accepted by some modern scholars, while others reject claims that he was a Gnostic, maintaining that he was merely considered to be one by the Church Fathers.Antonia Tripolitis Religions of the Hellenistic-Roman Age Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2002 p. 125Alberto Ferreiro Simon Magus in Patristic, Medieval And Early Modern Traditions BRILL, 2005 p. 53
Justin, who was himself a 2nd-century native of Samaria, wrote that nearly all the Samaritans in his time were adherents of a certain Simon of Gitta, a village not far from Flavia Neapolis. Irenaeus believed him to have been the founder of the sect of the Simonians.Dictionary of Christian Biography, Vol. 4, p. 682.Hastings' Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, Vol. 2, p. 496. Hippolytus quotes from a work he attributes to Simon or his followers the Simonians, Apophasis Megale, or Great Declaration. According to the early church heresiologists, Simon is also supposed to have written several lost treatises, two of which bear the titles The Four Quarters of the World and The Sermons of the Refuter.
In apocryphal works including the Acts of Peter, Pseudo-Clementines, and the Epistle of the Apostles, Simon also appears as a formidable sorcerer with the ability to levitate and fly at will. He is sometimes referred to as "the Bad Samaritan" due to his malevolent character.Mark J. Edwards "Portraits: Biographical Representation in the Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire" Clarendon Press, Oxford (1997) page 69 The Apostolic Constitutions also accuses him of "lawlessness" (antinomianism).Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, vi. § 4, 16.
History Acts of the Apostles
The canonical Acts of the Apostles features a short narrative about Simon Magus; this is his only appearance in the New Testament.
Josephus Josephus mentions a magician named Atomus (Simon in Latin manuscripts)Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 20:7, §2. as being involved with the procurator Felix, King Agrippa II and his sister Drusilla, where Felix has Simon convince Drusilla to marry him instead of the man she was engaged to. Some scholars have considered the two to be identical,Hilgenfeld, Ketzergeschichte, p. 170; Albert, Die Ersten Fünfzehn Jahre der Christlichen Kirche, p. 114, Münster, 1900; Waitz, in Zeitschrift für Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, v. 128; Price 2012. although this is not generally accepted, as the Simon of Josephus is a Jew rather than a Samaritan.
Justin Martyr and Irenaeus Justin Martyr (in his Apologies, and in a lost work against heresies, which Irenaeus used as his main source) and Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses) record that after being cast out by the Apostles, Simon Magus came to Rome where, having joined to himself a profligate woman of the name of Helen, he gave out that it was he who appeared among the Jews as the Son, in Samaria as the Father and among other nations as the Holy Spirit. He performed such signs by magic acts during the reign of Claudius that he was regarded as a god and honored with a statue on the island in the Tiber which the two bridges cross, with the inscription Simoni Deo Sancto, "To Simon the Holy God" (First Apology, XXVI). However, in the 16th century, a statue was unearthed on the island in question, inscribed to Semo Sancus, a Sabine deity,Semoni Sanco Deo. Gruter, vol. 1, p. 95, n. 5. leading some scholars to conclude that Justin Martyr confused Semoni Sancus with Simon.
Myth of Simon and Helen Justin and Irenaeus are the first to recount the myth of Simon and Helen, which became the center of Simonian doctrine. Epiphanius of Salamis also makes Simon speak in the first person in several places in his Panarion, and the implication is that he is quoting from a version of it, though perhaps not verbatim.
As described by Epiphanius, in the beginning God had his first thought, his Ennoia, which was female, and that thought was to create the angels. The First Thought then descended into the lower regions and created the angels. But the angels rebelled against her out of jealousy and created the world as her prison, imprisoning her in a female body. Thereafter, she was reincarnated many times, each time being shamed. Her many reincarnations included Helen of Troy, among others, and she finally was reincarnated as Helen, a slave and prostitute in the Phoenician city of Tyre. God then descended in the form of Simon Magus, to rescue his Ennoia, and to confer salvation upon men through knowledge of himself.
For as the angels were mismanaging the world, owing to their individual lust for rule, he had come to set things straight, and had descended under a changed form, likening himself to the Principalities and Powers through whom he passed, so that among men he appeared as a man, though he was not a man, and was thought to have suffered in Judaea, though he had not suffered.
But the prophets had delivered their prophecies under the inspiration of the world-creating angels: wherefore those who had their hope in him and in Helen minded them no more, and, as being free, did what they pleased; for men were saved according to his grace, but not according to just works. For works were not just by nature, but only by convention, in accordance with the enactments of the world-creating angels, who by precepts of this kind sought to bring men into slavery. Wherefore he promised that the world should be dissolved, and that those who were his should be freed from the dominion of the world-creators.
In this account of Simon there is a large portion common to almost all forms of Gnostic myths, together with something special to this form. They have in common the place in the work of creation assigned to the female principle, the conception of the Deity; the ignorance of the rulers of this lower world with regard to the Supreme Power; the descent of the female (Sophia) into the lower regions, and her inability to return. Special to the Simonian tale is the identification of Simon himself with the Supreme, and of his consort Helena with the female principle.
Hippolytus In Philosophumena, Hippolytus retells the narrative on Simon written by Irenaeus (who in his turn based it on the lost Syntagma of Justin). Upon the story of "the lost sheep", Hippolytus comments as follows:
Also, Hippolytus demonstrates acquaintance with the folk tradition on Simon which depicts him rather as a magician than Gnostic, and in constant conflict with Peter (also present in the apocrypha and Pseudo-Clementine literature). Reduced to despair by the curse laid upon him by Peter in the Acts, Simon soon abjured the faith and embarked on the career of a sorcerer:
Simonians
Hippolytus gives a much more doctrinally detailed account of Simonianism, including a system of divine emanations and interpretations of the Old Testament, with extensive quotations from the Apophasis Megale. Some believe that Hippolytus' account is of a later, more developed form of Simonianism, and that the original doctrines of the group were simpler, close to the account given by Justin Martyr and Irenaeus (this account however is also included in Hippolytus' work).
Hippolytus says the free love doctrine was held by them in its purest form, and speaks in language similar to that of Irenaeus about the variety of magic arts practiced by the Simonians, and also of their having images of Simon and Helen under the forms of Zeus and Athena. But he also adds, "if any one, on seeing the images either of Simon or Helen, shall call them by those names, he is cast out, as showing ignorance of the mysteries."
Epiphanius Epiphanius writes that there were some Simonians still in existence in his day (c. AD 367), but he speaks of them as almost extinct. Gitta, he says, had sunk from a town into a village. Epiphanius further charges Simon with having tried to wrest the words of St. Paul about the armour of God() into agreement with his own identification of the with Athena. He tells us also that he gave barbaric names to the "principalities and powers", and that he was the beginning of the Gnostics. The Law, according to him, was not of God, but of "the sinister power". The same was the case with the prophets, and it was death to believe in the Old Testament.
Cyril of Jerusalem
Cyril of Jerusalem (346 AD) in the sixth of his Catechetical Lectures prefaces his history of the Manichaeans by a brief account of earlier heresies: Simon Magus, he says, had given out that he was going to be translated to heaven, and was actually careening through the air in a chariot drawn by demons when Peter and Paul knelt down and prayed, and their prayers brought him to earth a mangled corpse.Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, vi. 15.
Apocrypha Acts of Peter The apocryphal Acts of Peter gives a more elaborate tale of Simon Magus' death. Simon is performing magic in the Forum, and, in order to prove himself to be a god, he levitates into the air above the Forum. The apostle Peter prays to God to stop his flying, and he stops mid-air and falls into a place called "the Sacra Via" (meaning "Holy Way" in Latin), breaking his legs "in three parts". The previously non-hostile crowd then stones him. Now gravely injured, he has some people carry him on a bed at night from Rome to Ariccia, and is brought from there to Terracina to a person named Castor, who has been banished from Rome, on account of accusations of sorcery levelled against him. The Acts then continue to say that he died "while being sorely cut by two physicians".
Acts of Peter and Paul Another apocryphal document, the Acts of Peter and Paul gives a slightly different version of the above incident, which was shown in the context of a debate in front of the Emperor Nero. In this version, Paul the Apostle is present along with Peter, Simon levitates from a high wooden tower made upon his request, and dies "divided into four parts" due to the fall. Peter and Paul are then imprisoned by Nero, who further orders that Simon's body be kept carefully for three days, in case, Christ-like, the magician should rise again.Acts of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.
Pseudo-Clementine literature The Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions and Homilies give an account of Simon Magus and some of his teachings in regards to the Simonians. They are of uncertain date and authorship, and seem to have been worked over by several hands in the interest of diverse forms of belief.