The Simon of the New Testament
Acts. The author and date are unknown, though it is commonly supposed to be by the author of the third gospel, traditionally known as Luke. It was not quoted before the late second century. The earliest manuscript is no older than the sixth century, though some argue for the third.
The Simon of the Fathers
Justin Martyr. His First Apology likely dates to the early second century. Neither the birth nor death dates of Justin are known. The manuscript is from the fourteenth century.
Irenaeus. His chief literary activity occurred in the last decade of the second century. Manuscripts are probably from the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries. His birth and death dates are unknown, with suggestions for his birth ranging from the late first to mid-second century and his death around the early third century.
Clement of Alexandria. His greatest literary activity spanned the late second to early third century. He was born between the mid-second century and died at an unknown date. The oldest manuscript is from the eleventh century.
Tertullian. One work, generally attributed to a Pseudo-Tertullian, dates to around the late second century. Another work comes from the early third century. He was born in the mid-second century and died between the early to mid-third century.
Hippolytus, possibly. The date is uncertain, likely from the late second to early third century. The author is unknown and only conjecturally Hippolytus. The manuscript is from the fourteenth century.
Origen. He was born in the mid to late second century and died in the mid-third century. The manuscript is from the fourteenth century.
Philastrius. His birth date is unknown, and he likely died in the late fourth century.
Epiphanius. He was born in the early fourth century and died in the early fifth century. The manuscript is from the eleventh century.
Jerome. His commentary was written in the late fourth century.
Theodoret. He was born toward the end of the fourth century and died in the mid-fifth century. The manuscript is from the eleventh century.
The Simon of the Legends
The so-called Clementine literature.
The Recognitions and Homilies. The Greek originals are lost, and only the Latin translation by Rufinus remains. Rufinus was born in the mid-fourth century and died in the early fifth century. The originals are placed by conjecture near the beginning of the third century. The manuscript is from the eleventh century.
A medieval account in the Constitutions of the Holy Apostles. These were unknown until the mid-sixteenth century when a Venetian printed an epitomized translation from a manuscript found in Crete. They are considered hopelessly apocryphal.
The Simon of the New Testament
Acts. Now, a certain fellow named Simon had previously been in the city practicing magic and astonishing the people of Samaria, claiming he was someone great. Everyone, from the least to the greatest, paid attention to him, saying, "This man is the Power of God, which is called Great." They listened to him because he had amazed them with his magic arts for a long time. But when they believed Philip, who preached about the Kingdom of God and the Name of Jesus Christ, they began to be baptized, both men and women. Simon himself also believed and, after being baptized, stayed constantly with Philip. He was astonished upon seeing the signs and great wonders that took place.
When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. The two went down and prayed for the people, that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For as yet, it had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus.
Then they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. When Simon saw that the Holy Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, saying, "Give me this power too, so that anyone I lay my hands on may receive the Holy Spirit."
But Peter said to him, "May your silver perish with you, because you thought the gift of God could be bought with money. You have no part or share in this Word, for your heart is not right before God. Turn away from this evil of yours and pray to the Lord, in case the intent of your heart might be forgiven. For I see you are steeped in bitterness and bound by iniquity."
Simon answered and said, "Pray to the Lord for me, so that none of the things you have spoken may happen to me."
The Simon of the Fathers
Justin Martyr. He wrote that even after Christ ascended into heaven, demons put forward certain men who claimed to be gods. These were not only unopposed by you but even deemed worthy of honors. Among them was a Samaritan named Simon, from a village called Gitta, who, during the reign of Claudius Caesar, performed magic wonders through the art of demons possessing him. He was regarded as a god in your imperial city of Rome and honored as a god with a statue erected by you on the river Tiber, between two bridges, bearing an inscription in Roman: "To Simon, the Holy God." Nearly all Samaritans, and a few among other nations, confess him as the first god and worship him. They also speak of a certain Helen, who accompanied him at that time, a former prostitute whom he made his first Thought.
Irenaeus. Simon was a Samaritan, a notorious magician about whom Luke, a disciple and follower of the apostles, spoke. He had previously practiced magic in their region and misled the Samaritan people, claiming he was someone great. They all listened to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, "He is the Power of God, called Great." They paid attention because he had astonished them with his magical feats for a long time. This Simon pretended to believe, thinking the apostles also performed their healings by magic rather than God’s power. He assumed their ability to fill believers with the Holy Spirit through laying on hands was some superior magic. Offering money to the apostles to gain this power for himself, he received this reply from Peter: "May your money perish with you, since you thought God’s gift could be bought with money. You have no part or share in this Word, for your heart is not right before God. For I see you are in bitterness and bound by iniquity."
Since the magician still refused to believe in God, he ambitiously strove to rival the apostles, hoping to gain great renown. He expanded his studies into universal magic, astonishing many—so much so that he was reportedly honored with a statue for his magical knowledge by Claudius Caesar.
Thus, many glorified him as a god. He taught that he appeared among the Jews as the Son, descended in Samaria as the Father, and came to other nations as the Holy Spirit. He claimed to be the highest power, the Father over all, allowing himself to be called whatever name people pleased.
The sect of this Samaritan Simon, from whom all heresies originated, was built on these ideas.
He traveled with a certain Helen, a hired prostitute from the Phoenician city of Tyre, whose freedom he had bought. He said she was the first conception of his Mind, the Mother of All, through whom he initially conceived the creation of Angels and Archangels. This Thought, leaping forth from him and knowing her Father’s will, descended to the lower regions and generated Angels and Powers, by whom he said this world was made. After generating them, she was detained by them out of envy, as they did not wish to be seen as the offspring of another. He himself was entirely unknown to them, and it was his Thought, imprisoned by the Powers and Angels she emanated, that suffered all kinds of indignity to prevent her return to her Father—even being confined in a human body and transmigrating into other female forms, like from one vessel to another. She was also in that Helen whose actions sparked the Trojan War. For this reason, Stesichorus lost his sight when he spoke ill of her in his poems, but regained it after repenting and writing a recantation praising her. Transmigrating from body to body and continually suffering indignity, she last stood for hire in a brothel and was the "lost sheep."
Thus, he claimed he had come to take her away for the first time, free her from her bonds, and offer salvation to men through his "knowledge." Since the Angels mismanaged the world, each desiring sovereignty, he had come to set things right. He descended, transforming himself and resembling the Powers, Principalities, and Angels, appearing to men as a man though he was not one, and seeming to suffer in Judea though he did not. Moreover, the Prophets spoke their prophecies under the inspiration of the Angels who made the world, so those who believed in him and Helen ignored them and followed their own pleasures as if free, for men were saved by his grace, not by righteous works. Righteous actions, he argued, are not natural but accidental, imposed by the Angels who made the world to enslave men through such precepts. Thus, he promised the world would be dissolved, and those who were his would be freed from the rule of its makers.
Therefore, their initiated priests live immorally. Each practices magic arts to the best of their ability, using exorcisms and incantations, love potions, spells, and so-called "familiars" and "dream-senders," diligently cultivating the rest of the curious arts. They also have an image of Simon resembling Jupiter and one of Helen resembling Minerva, which they worship. They take their name from their most impiously minded founder, calling themselves Simonians, from whom the falsely named Gnosis derives its origins, as one can learn from their own claims.
Clement of Alexandria. In one passage, he confirms the Simonian use of the term "He who stood." In another, he notes that a branch of the Simonians was called Entychitae.
Tertullian, or Pseudo-Tertullian. In one work, the passage is very brief, a mere notice under the heading "Anonymous Catalog of Heresies." In another work, it reads as follows:
Simon the Samaritan, the purveyor of the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles, after being condemned along with his money to perdition, shed vain tears and turned to attack the truth, as if to satisfy vengeance. Supported by his art’s powers, he used some force or other for illusions. With the same money, he bought a Tyrian woman, Helen, from a place of public pleasure—a fitting substitute for the Holy Spirit. He pretended he was the highest Father and that she was his first suggestion, through which he proposed the creation of Angels and Archangels. Sharing in this design, she sprang forth from the Father and descended to the lower regions. There, with the Father’s design thwarted, she produced Angelic Powers ignorant of the Father, the maker of this world. These detained her, not per his intent, lest they be thought offspring of another after her departure. Subjected to every kind of contempt to prevent her leaving, she sank as low as human form, as if restrained by fleshly chains. Over many ages, passing through various female conditions, she became that Helen fatal to Priam and later to Stesichorus’s eyes, causing his blindness due to his poem’s insult. She later removed it, pleased by his praise. Thus, transmigrating from body to body in extreme dishonor, she stood for hire, a Helen viler than her predecessor. She was the "lost sheep" to whom the highest Father, Simon, descended. After recovering and returning her—whether on his shoulders or knees is unclear—he turned to men’s salvation, as if freeing those needing liberation from these Angelic Powers. To deceive them, he transformed himself, pretending to be a man to men only, acting as the Son in Judea and the Father in Samaria.
Hippolytus, possibly. I will set forth the system of Simon of Gittha, a village in Samaria, and show that those who followed him drew inspiration from him, with speculations of a similar nature despite differing terms.
This Simon was skilled in magic, deluding many partly through the art of Thrasymedes, as previously explained, and partly by corrupting them with demons. He sought to deify himself—a sorcerer full of madness whom the apostles refuted in the Acts. Far wiser and humbler was Apsethus the Libyan, who aimed to be thought a god in Libya. Since Apsethus’s story is not unlike the foolish Simon’s ambition, it seems fitting to recount it, as it aligns with Simon’s endeavor.
Apsethus the Libyan wanted to become a god. Despite great efforts, he failed to fulfill his desire but wished people to at least think he had. For a time, he succeeded. The foolish Libyans sacrificed to him as a divine power, believing they trusted a voice from heaven.
He gathered many parrots and caged them. Libya has numerous parrots that clearly mimic human voices. He kept the birds for a while, teaching them to say, "Apsethus is a god." After training them to speak this phrase, which he thought would make him seem divine, he released them in every direction. Their voices spread across Libya, reaching Greek settlements. Amazed by the birds’ words and unaware of Apsethus’s trick, the Libyans considered him a god.
But a Greek, correctly guessing the supposed god’s scheme, not only exposed him using the same parrots but also brought about the boastful fool’s downfall. The Greek caught several parrots and retrained them to say, "Apsethus caged us and made us say, 'Apsethus is a god.'" Hearing the parrots’ retraction, the Libyans united and burned Apsethus alive.
Similarly, we must view Simon the magician, readily comparing him to this Libyan’s attempt to become a god. If the comparison holds and Simon’s fate resembled Apsethus’s, let us try to retrain Simon’s parrots to say he was not Christ—who has stood, stands, and will stand—but a man, born of a woman, from seed, blood, and carnal desire, like others. That this is true will be easily shown as our account continues.
Simon, in paraphrasing Moses’s Law, speaks with cunning misunderstanding. When Moses says God is a fire that burns and destroys, Simon takes it wrongly, claiming Fire is the Universal Principle. He misunderstands, not seeing that it means "a fire burning and destroying," not "God is fire." Thus, he tears apart Moses’s Law and borrows from the obscure Heracleitus. Simon asserts the Universal Principle is Boundless Power, saying:
"This is the writing of the revelation of Voice and Name from Thought, the Great Power, the Boundless. Thus, it shall be sealed, hidden, concealed, placed in the Dwelling founded on the Universal Root."
He claims the man below, born of blood, is the Dwelling, and the Boundless Power, which he calls the Universal Root, resides in him. According to Simon, this Boundless Power, Fire, is not simple, unlike most who deem the four elements, including fire, simple. He says Fire has a dual nature: concealed and manifested. The concealed parts of Fire hide within the manifested, which are produced by the concealed.
This aligns with Aristotle’s "in potentiality" and "in actuality," and Plato’s "intelligible" and "sensible."
The manifested side of Fire holds all things a man can see or unknowingly overlook. The concealed side includes all a man can conceive as intelligible, even if it escapes sensation, or fails to conceive.
Generally, of all things sensible and intelligible, which he calls concealed and manifested, the Fire above the heavens is a treasure-house, like a great Tree seen by Nebuchadnezzar in a vision, nourishing all flesh. He views the manifested Fire as the trunk, branches, leaves, and outer bark. These parts of the great Tree, he says, are ignited by the all-devouring flame of Fire and destroyed. But the fruit, if perfectly imaged and shaped as itself, is stored, not cast into the Fire. The fruit is made to be stored, while the husk is meant for the Fire—that is, the trunk, generated not for itself but for the fruit.
He claims this aligns with scripture: "For the vineyard of the Lord Sabaoth is the house of Israel, and a man of Judah a well-beloved shoot." If a man of Judah is a cherished shoot, he says, it shows a tree is merely a man. Scripture, he adds, sufficiently speaks of its division and scattering, enough to instruct those perfectly imaged: "All flesh is grass, and every glory of the flesh as the flower of grass. The grass dries up, and its flower falls, but the speech of the Lord endures forever." The Speech of the Lord, he says, is the Speech born in the mouth, the Word, for no other place produces it.
In short, the Fire, per Simon, encompasses all visible and invisible things, those sounding within and aloud, the numbered and numbering. In his Great Revelation, he calls it the Perfect Intellectual, encompassing all conceivable thoughts infinitely, in speech, thought, and action, much like Empedocles says:
"By earth we perceive earth; by water, water; by aether divine, aether; fire by destructive fire; by friendship, friendship; and strife by bitter strife."
He claims all parts of the Fire, visible and invisible, have perception and some intelligence. Thus, the generable cosmos arose from the ingenerable Fire. It began, he says, as follows. The first six Roots of the generation principle the cosmos took were from that Fire. These Roots, generated in pairs from the Fire, he names Mind and Thought, Voice and Name, Reason and Reflection. In these six Roots, the whole Boundless Power existed in potentiality, not actuality. This Boundless Power, he says, is He who has stood, stands, and will stand. If perfectly imaged within the six Powers, it will be, in essence, power, greatness, and completeness, identical to the ingenerable, Boundless Power, not inferior in any way. But if it remains only potential, unperfected in imaging, it vanishes and perishes, like the potential for grammar or geometry in a man’s mind. When potential gains skill, it becomes the light of generated things; without it, ignorance and darkness result, as if it never existed, perishing with the man at death.
Of these six Powers and the seventh beyond them, he calls the first pair Mind and Thought, heaven and earth. The male, heaven, looks down and cares for its partner, while the earth below receives intellectual fruits from heaven, akin to itself. Thus, he says, the Word, steadfastly contemplating things born from Mind and Thought—that is, heaven and earth—says: "Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has said: I have generated sons and raised them up, but they have set me aside."
He claims the speaker is the seventh Power, He who has stood, stands, and will stand, the cause of the good things Moses praised as very good. The second pair is Voice and Name, sun and moon. The third is Reason and Reflection, air and water. In all these, the Great Power, the Boundless, He who has stood, was blended and mixed, as I have said.
When Moses says God made heaven and earth in six days and rested on the seventh, Simon reinterprets it differently, making himself a god. When they say three days precede the sun and moon’s generation, they mean esoterically Mind and Thought—heaven and earth—and the seventh Power, the Boundless. These three Powers came before all others. When they say "he has generated me before all the Aeons," he claims it refers to the seventh Power. This seventh Power, first in the Boundless Power before all Aeons, is what Moses meant, he says, by "the spirit of God moved over the water"—the spirit holding all things, the Image of the Boundless Power. Simon says: "The Image from the incorruptible Form, alone ordering all things." The Power moving above the water, he claims, comes from an imperishable Form and alone orders all.
With the world’s structure as they describe, God, he says, fashioned man from earth’s soil, making him not single but double, per the image and likeness. The Image is the spirit moving above the water, which, if unperfected, perishes with the world, remaining only potential, not actual. This, he says, is the scripture’s meaning: "Lest we be condemned with the world." But if perfected and generated from an "indivisible point," as written in his Revelation, the small becomes great. This great endures for the boundless, changeless eternity, no longer becoming.
How, then, does God fashion man, he asks? In the Garden, he thinks. We must see the womb as a Garden, he says, and scripture tells us this when it says: "I am he who fashioned thee in thy mother’s womb," for he prefers it written this way. Speaking of the Garden, he claims Moses allegorically meant the womb, if we trust the Word.
If God fashions man in the mother’s womb, that is, the Garden, as I said, the womb must be the Garden, Eden the surrounding region, and the "river going forth from Eden to water the Garden" the navel. This navel, he says, splits into four channels, with two air-ducts on either side to convey breath and two veins for blood. When the navel from Eden’s region attaches to the fetus in the epigastric area—commonly called the navel—the two veins carry blood from the Edenic region through the liver’s gates to nourish the fetus. The air-ducts, channels for breath, embrace the bladder on either side near the pelvis, uniting at the great duct called the dorsal aorta. Thus, breath passing through the side doors to the heart moves the embryo. While being fashioned in the Garden, the babe neither eats through the mouth nor breathes through the nostrils. Surrounded by womb waters, it would die instantly if it breathed, drawing in water. Instead, wrapped in an envelope called the amnion, it is nourished via the navel and receives breath’s essence through the dorsal duct, as I said.
The river from Eden, he says, divides into four channels—four ducts, or four senses of the fetus: sight, smell, taste, and touch. These are the only senses the child has while forming in the Garden.
This, he claims, is the law Moses set, and each of his books aligns with it, as their titles show. The first book, Genesis, he says, suffices for understanding all, representing sight, one river division, for the world is seen.
The second book, Exodus, was necessary for the born to pass through the Red Sea—meaning blood, he says—toward the Desert, tasting bitter water. The "bitter," he says, is the water past the Red Sea, the path of painful, bitter knowledge we travel in life. But when Moses, the Word, changes it, the bitter becomes sweet. All can hear this publicly by echoing the poets:
"In root it was black, but like milk was the flower. Moly the Gods call it. For mortals to dig it is hard; but Gods can do all."
What the Gentiles say suffices for understanding all, he claims, for those with ears to hear. He who tasted this fruit, he says, was not turned into a beast by Circe but used its virtue to reshape those already changed into beasts back to their proper form, recalling their type. The true man, beloved by that sorceress, is found by this milk-white divine fruit, he says.
Likewise, Leviticus, the third book, is smell or breath. It deals wholly with sacrifices and offerings. Wherever a sacrifice occurs, the scent rises with incense, tested by the sense of smell.
Numbers, the fourth book, signifies taste, where speech energizes. It is named for uttering all in numerical order.
Deuteronomy, he says, relates to the child’s sense of touch while forming. As touch confirms other senses by contact—proving things hard, warm, or sticky—so the fifth book synthesizes the prior four.
All ingenerables, he says, exist in us potentially, not actually, like grammar or geometry. If they meet fitting speech and teaching, turning the "bitter" to "sweet"—spears to hooks, swords to ploughshares—the Fire bears not husks but perfect fruit, imaged as I said, equal and like the ingenerable, Boundless Power. "Now," he says, "the axe is near the tree’s roots: every tree not bearing good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire."
Thus, per Simon, the blessed, imperishable principle hidden in all is potential, not actual—He who has stood above in the ingenerable Power, stands below in the water’s stream, generated in an image, and will stand beside the blessed, Boundless Power if perfectly imaged. Three stand, he says, and without three standing Aeons, the generable moving on the water, fashioned to a perfect celestial likeness, would not be ordered, becoming no less than the ingenerable Power. This, he says, is their meaning: "Thou and I, the one thing; before me, thou; after thee, I."
This, he claims, is one Power, split above and below, generating, growing, seeking, finding itself—its own mother, father, sister, spouse, daughter, son—one, the Universal Root.
The beginning of generated things, he says, is from Fire, understood thus: all things generated start with desire from Fire. This desire for mutable generation is called "being on fire." Though Fire is one, it has two mutation modes. In man, hot, yellow blood—like formed fire—turns to seed; in woman, it becomes milk. This change in the male generates, while in the female it nourishes the child. This, he says, is "the flaming sword turned to keep the tree of life’s way." Blood turns to seed and milk; this Power becomes mother and father—father of the born, mother of the nourished—needing nothing, self-sufficient. The tree of life, guarded by the fiery sword, is the seventh Power, proceeding from itself, holding all, stored in the six Powers. If the sword were not turned, the fair tree would perish; turned to seed and milk, what is stored potentially, with fitting speech and a place to grow, starts from a tiny spark, growing to perfection, expanding to an infinite, unchangeable power, equal to the unchangeable Aeon, no longer generated for boundless eternity.
Thus, to the foolish, Simon was a god, like Apsethus the Libyan—subject to generation and suffering in potentiality, but freed from suffering and birth once imaged and perfected, passing from the first two Powers, heaven and earth. Simon distinctly says in his Revelation:
"To you, I say what I say and write what I write. The writing is this.
"Of the universal Aeons, two shoots spring from one Root, without beginning or end—the Power, invisible, inapprehensible Silence. One shoot manifests from above, the Great Power, Universal Mind ordering all, male; the other from below, Great Thought, female, producing all.
"Pairing together, they unite and manifest the Middle Distance, incomprehensible Air, without beginning or end. In this is the Father, sustaining and nourishing all with a beginning and end.
"This is He who has stood, stands, and will stand, a male-female power like the pre-existing Boundless Power, without beginning or end, existing in oneness. From this, Thought in oneness emerged and became two.
"He was one; holding her in himself, he was alone, not first though pre-existing. Manifesting to himself, he became second. Nor was he called Father until Thought named him so.
"Producing himself, he manifested his Thought; the manifested Thought did not make the Father but, contemplating him, hid him—the Power—in herself, male-female, Power and Thought.
"They pair as one, for no difference exists between Power and Thought. Power is found from above, Thought from below.
"What manifests from them, though one, is found as two, male-female with the female in itself. Thus, Mind is in Thought—inseparable, though one, yet found as two."
So Simon twisted interpretations as he pleased, not only from Moses’s writings but also from pagan poets, falsifying them. He allegorizes the wooden horse, Helen with the torch, and other things, weaving them into fictions about himself and his Thought.
He claimed she was the "lost sheep," who, dwelling in women repeatedly, confused the world’s Powers with her unmatched beauty, sparking the Trojan War. This Thought inhabited the Helen born then, and when all Powers claimed her, strife and war arose among the nations she appeared to.
Thus, Stesichorus lost his sight for abusing her in verse, regaining it after repenting and praising her in a recantation.
Later, when Angels and lower Powers—who, he says, made the world—changed her body, she lived in a Tyre brothel, where he found her on arrival. He claims he came to free her from bondage first, buying her freedom and keeping her with him, pretending she was the "lost sheep" and he the Power over all. Having fallen for this harlot, Helen, he bought and kept her, ashamed for his disciples to know, inventing this tale.
His followers mimic the vagabond magician, promoting promiscuous intercourse, saying, "All soil is soil; it matters not where one sows, so long as he sows." They boast of this as "perfect love," citing, "the holy shall be sanctified by the holy." They claim they are beyond what is usually deemed evil, being redeemed. By freeing Helen, he offered salvation through his unique knowledge.
He said the Angels misgoverned the world from love of power, so he came to fix it, transformed to resemble Dominions, Principalities, and Angels. He appeared as a man though not one, seemed to suffer in Judea though he didn’t, manifesting as the Son to Jews, the Father in Samaria, and the Holy Ghost elsewhere, allowing any name men chose. The Prophets, inspired by the Angels who made the world, he said, should be ignored by his and Helen’s believers, who act freely, saved by his grace.
They assert no punishment comes for evil, as it’s not natural but institutional. The Angels who made the world set rules to enslave listeners, he says, while the world’s dissolution is to ransom their own.
His disciples perform magic rites, incantations, philtres, spells, and send "dream-sending" demons to disturb targets. They train "familiars," worship statues of Simon as Zeus and Helen as Athena, calling the former Lord and the latter Lady. If any, seeing the images, name them Simon or Helen, they are cast out as ignorant of the mysteries.
While leading many astray with magic in Samaria, he was refuted by the apostles. Cursed, as written in Acts, he turned to these schemes in discontent. Eventually, he went to Rome, clashing again with the apostles. Peter had many encounters with him, as he continued misleading crowds with magic. Near his end, staying under a plane tree and teaching, he risked exposure from his prolonged stay. He claimed if buried alive, he’d rise on the third day. Ordering his disciples to dig a grave and bury him, they did so, but he remains absent to this day, for he was not the Christ.
Origen. Simon, the Samaritan magician, tried to deceive some with his magic. At that time, he succeeded, but today I doubt you’d find thirty Simonians in the world. I may have overstated their number. A few linger near Palestine, but elsewhere his name is unknown in the sense of his intended doctrine. Alongside reports about him, we have the Acts account. Those who speak of him are Christians, clearly witnessing he was not divine.
Then, citing many of our names, he says he knows Simonians called Heleniani, worshiping Helen or a teacher Helenus. But he doesn’t know they deny Jesus as God’s Son, claiming Simon is God’s Power, telling marvelous tales of him. Simon thought claiming powers like Jesus’s would make him as renowned among men as Jesus is to many.
Simon pretended he was the Power of God, called Great, while Dositheus claimed to be God’s Son. Simonians no longer exist anywhere. By swaying many, Simon spared his disciples the fear of death, which Christians were taught was removed, claiming no difference between it and idolatry. Yet initially, Simonians faced no plots. The evil demon opposing Jesus’s teaching knew Simon’s disciples wouldn’t undo his plans.
Philastrius. After Christ’s passion, our Lord, and his ascent to heaven, a magician named Simon arose, a Samaritan from a village called Gittha. With time for magic arts, he deceived many, claiming he was some Power of God above all. The Samaritans worship him as the Father, wickedly exalting him as their heresy’s founder, heaping praises on him. Baptized by the blessed apostles, he abandoned their faith, spreading a wicked, harmful heresy. He claimed he transformed, like a shadow, and thus suffered, though he says he didn’t.
He dared say the world was made by Angels, themselves made by beings with perception from heaven, who deceived humanity.
He also claimed another Thought descended to save men—that Helen famed in the Trojan War by vain poets. The Powers, driven by desire for her, caused strife. She, arousing their desire and appearing as a woman, couldn’t reascend to heaven, as the heavenly Powers blocked her. She awaited another Power, Simon himself, to come and free her.
The wooden horse of the Trojan War, per vain poets, he called allegorical, symbolizing the ignorance of impious nations. Yet it’s known that Helen with the magician was a Tyre prostitute, whom Simon followed, practicing magic and committing crimes with her.
After fleeing blessed Peter from Jerusalem to Rome, he contended with the apostle before Emperor Nero. Routed in every argument by Peter’s words and struck by an angel, he met a just end, revealing his magic’s blatant falsity to all.
Epiphanius. From Christ’s time to ours, the first heresy was Simon the magician’s. Though not distinctly Christian, it wrought havoc by corrupting Christians. A sorcerer based in Gittha, a still-existing Samaritan village, he deluded the Samaritans with magic, enticing them by claiming he was God’s Great Power, come from above. He told Samaritans he was the Father, Jews the Son, and said he only appeared to suffer. He ingratiated himself with the apostles, was baptized by Philip with many, and shared their rite. All but him awaited the great apostles to receive the Holy Spirit by their hands, as Philip, a deacon, lacked that power. But Simon, with a wicked heart and false aims, clung to base greed, offering Peter money for the Spirit-giving power, hoping to profit by giving little and gaining much.
His mind, vile from devilish magic illusions, wove images and showed barbaric, demonic tricks with charms. Publicly, under Christ’s name, he pretended to mix hellebore with honey, poisoning those he lured into his delusion under Christ’s cloak, causing their death. Lewd by nature and shamed by his promises, the vagabond crafted a corrupt allegory for his deceived followers. Taking a roving woman, Helen, from Tyre, he hid their undue intimacy. When disgrace burst over his mistress, he spun a fabulous psychopompy for his disciples, claiming he was God’s Great Power and calling his prostitute the Holy Spirit, saying he descended for her. "In each heaven I changed form," he said, "to evade my Angelic Powers and reach my Thought, called Prunicus and Holy Spirit, through whom I made Angels, who made the world and men." He claimed she was the Helen of the Trojan War, about whom poets spoke allegorically. Displaying her beauty, this Power from above—called Prunicus, or Barbero or Barbelo by other sects—drove them mad, sent to despoil the world-making Rulers. Angels warred over her, slaughtering each other from desire she stirred, while she suffered nothing. They constrained her from reascending, each lying with her in every female form—reincarnating across human, beast, and other bodies—to diminish themselves through bloodshed, allowing her to collect Power and reascend.
She was with Greeks and Trojans then, working similarly before and after the world by invisible Powers. "She is with me now," he said, "and I descended for her. She awaited me, for she is the Thought, called Helen in Homer." Homer had to show her on a tower, revealing the Phrygians’ plot to Greeks with a torch—the light from above. The wooden horse, he said, was Gentile ignorance; as Phrygians dragged it unwittingly to their ruin, so Gentiles, "without my wisdom," draw ruin on themselves. He claimed Athena was this Thought, twisting Paul’s words—changing truth to lies: "Put on faith’s breastplate, salvation’s helmet, greaves, sword, and buckler"—into a jest from Philistion’s mimes. The Apostle spoke with firm reason, holy faith, and divine power, but he turned it to a joke, claiming Philistion mysteriously typed it as Athena. Naming his Tyre companion Thought, Athena, Helen, and more, he said, "I descended for her. She’s the 'lost sheep' from the Gospel." He left followers images—his as Zeus, hers as Athena—for worship, deceiving his dupes.
He enjoined obscene mysteries—sheddings of bodies, emissions of men, women’s menses—gathered filthily for rites. Anyone with God-given sense would see this as death, not life. He names Dominions and Principalities, assigns different heavens with Powers, gives them barbarous names, and says salvation comes only through this mystagogy and sacrifices to the Universal Father via these beings. He claims this world was defectively made by evil Dominions and Principalities, with corruption and destruction only of flesh, but souls purify if initiated by his false Gnosis—the start of the so-called Gnostics. He said the Law wasn’t from God but a left-hand Power, Prophets from various Powers, not the Good God. He assigns each as he pleases: the Law to one, David another, Isaiah another, Ezekiel another, all from the left-hand Power, outside Perfection, and Old Testament believers subject to death.
But truth overturns this. If he were God’s Great Power and his harlot the Holy Spirit, let him name the Power or word he found for her, with none for himself. How was he found in Rome, dying mid-city? In what scripture did Peter prove he had no share in God’s fear? Could the world not exist in the Good God, who chose all good? How could a left-hand Power speak in Law and Prophets, preaching Christ’s coming, the Good God, and forbidding evil? How could the Old and New Testaments not share one divine nature and spirit, when the Lord said, "I came not to destroy the Law but fulfill it"? To show the Law came through Him and Moses, and the Gospel’s grace through His presence, He told Jews, "If you believed Moses, you’d believe me; he wrote of me." Many arguments oppose the sorcerer. How do obscene things give life, unless a demonic notion? The Lord answered in the Gospel those saying, "If man and woman are so, it’s not good to marry," with, "Not all grasp this; some made themselves eunuchs for heaven’s kingdom," showing natural abstinence as heaven’s gift. Elsewhere, on righteous marriage—which Simon basely twists—He said, "What God joined, let no man part."
How unaware is the vagabond, refuting himself in babbling, not knowing what he says? After claiming he made Angels through Thought, he says he changed form in each heaven to escape them, fearing them. How did he fear Angels he made? His error’s spread is easily refuted by all, as scripture says, "In the beginning, God made heaven and earth." In harmony, the Lord says in the Gospel, as to His Father, "O Father, Lord of heaven and earth." If the maker of heaven and earth is naturally God, our Lord’s Father, all Simon’s slanders—defective world-making by Angels, his demonic world—are vain, deceiving those led astray.
Jerome. Among them is Simon, a Samaritan we read of in Acts, who said he was some Great Power. Among his volumes’ claims, he proclaimed:
"I am God’s Word; I am glorious, the Paraclete, Almighty, the whole of God."
Theodoret. Simon, the Samaritan magician, first served the demon’s evil, based in Gittha, a Samaritan village. Reaching sorcery’s peak, he persuaded many with wonders to join his school, calling him a divine Power. Seeing apostles perform true, divine wonders and grant the Spirit’s grace, he thought himself worthy of equal power. Great Peter, detecting his vile intent, urged him to heal his mind’s wounds with repentance’s drugs. He reverted to evil, leaving Samaria—now seeded with salvation—for untilled lands, deceiving the easily caught with magic, binding them in their lore to hinder belief in apostolic teachings.
Divine grace armed Peter against his madness. Following him, Peter dispelled his foul teaching like mist, revealing truth’s light. Yet, despite exposure, the wretch persisted against truth, reaching Rome under Claudius Caesar. His sorceries so amazed Romans that they honored him with a bronze pillar. But divine Peter stripped his deception’s wings, and in a final wonder-working contest before assembled Romans, made him fall from a height by prayers, capturing eyewitnesses for salvation.
Simon birthed a legend thus: He posited a Boundless Power, the Universal Root, called Fire with dual energy—manifested and concealed. The generable world arose from Fire’s manifested energy. From it emanated three pairs, called Roots: Mind and Thought, Voice and Intelligence, Reason and Reflection. Calling himself the Boundless Power, he appeared to Jews as the Son, descended to Samaritans as the Father, and roamed other nations as the Holy Spirit.
Living with a harlot, Helen, he pretended she was his first Thought, the Universal Mother, through whom he made Angels and Archangels, who made the world. Envious Angels cast her down, he says, unwilling to be seen as fabrications, leading her through female bodies, including the famous Helen of the Trojan War.
He descended, he said, to free her from their chains and offer men salvation through his unique knowledge.
In descent, he transformed to evade the Angels managing the world’s order. He appeared in Judea as a man, though not one, suffered though not suffering, with Prophets as Angels’ ministers. He urged believers to ignore them and the Law’s threats, acting freely as saved by grace, not good deeds.
Thus, his followers ventured into all licentiousness, practicing magic—love philtres, spells, sorcery arts—as if chasing divine mysteries. They made Simon’s statue as Zeus, Helen’s as Athena, burning incense, pouring libations, and worshiping them as gods, calling themselves Simonians.
The Simon of the Legends
The so-called Clementine Literature:
The Recognitions and Homilies. Clement, the tale’s hero, arrives at Caesarea Stratonis in Judea on the eve of a great debate between Simon and Peter, joining Peter as a disciple. Simon’s history is told to Clement, with Peter present, by Aquila and Nicetas—adopted sons of a convert—who knew Simon.
Simon, son of Antonius and Rachael, was a Samaritan from Gittha, a village some distance from Caesarea, called a village of the Gettones. In Alexandria, he perfected his magic studies, following John, a Hemero-baptist, through whom he engaged religious doctrines.
John preceded Jesus by a method of pairing. Jesus, like the Sun, had twelve disciples; John, the Moon, had thirty—the days in a lunation, or more precisely twenty-nine and a half—one being a woman, Helen, counted as half a man in the perfect Triacontad, or Aeons’ Pleroma. In the Recognitions, Helen is named Luna in Rufinus’s Latin.
Simon was John’s favorite disciple, but absent in Alexandria at John’s death, Dositheus, a co-disciple, took leadership. Returning, Simon accepted this but soon outshone him. One day, enraged, Dositheus struck Simon with his staff; it passed through Simon’s body like smoke. Amazed, Dositheus yielded leadership to Simon, became his disciple, and soon died.
Aquila and Nicetas then recount Simon’s private confession of love for Luna and list his magic feats they witnessed: digging through mountains, passing through rocks like clay, falling from a high mountain and landing gently, breaking prison chains, opening doors unaided, animating statues to seem human, growing trees instantly, walking unharmed through fire, changing or doubling his face, turning into animals, growing a beard on a boy, flying, becoming gold, making and unmaking kings, receiving divine honors, and sending a sickle to reap tenfold on its own.
The Homilies add turning stones to loaves, melting iron, producing images at feasts, having dishes serve themselves at home, making spectres appear in markets, moving statues when walking, and shadows preceding him as souls of the dead.
Once, Aquila saw Luna looking from all a tower’s windows at once.
Most peculiarly, Simon used a dead boy’s soul for wonders, detailed more in the Homilies than Recognitions, so the former’s account is followed.
Simon confessed to Nicetas and Aquila, as friends, that he murdered, separating a boy’s soul to aid his feats. His method: "He sculpts the boy on a statue, kept consecrated in his sleeping chamber, saying after shaping him from air by divine changes and sketching his form, he returns him to air."
Simon explains: "The man’s spirit, turned to heat, draws in air like a cupping-glass; then turns it to water within the spirit’s envelope. Unable to escape the spirit’s force, it becomes blood, solidifying to flesh; once solid, he shows a man of air, not earth. Convinced he could make a new man of air, he reversed the changes, returning him to air."
When converts thought this was the person’s soul, Simon laughed, saying it was a daemon pretending to be the soul, possessing people.
Peter explains to Clement that the coming debate with Simon hinges on scripture. Peter admits falsehoods exist in scripture but says they can’t be explained to the masses, permitted for righteous reasons.
"Scriptures say all sorts, so unthankful inquirers won’t find truth, just what they wish," he says.
In the lengthy explanation of passages Simon will raise—like plural gods and God hardening hearts—Peter says those against God are false additions, a secret to guard.
Yet in the public debate, this secret is revealed to counter Simon’s claim: "I say there are many gods, but one God of them all, incomprehensible and unknown to all," and "I believe in a Power of immeasurable, ineffable Light, whose greatness even the world’s maker, Moses the lawgiver, and your master Jesus don’t know."
Notably, Peter challenges Simon to back his claims with quotes from Jewish scriptures, ones unknown to them, Greek writings, or his own.
Simon argues the Law’s God is imperfect, thus not supreme. After Peter’s lengthy rebuttal, Simon is worsted when Peter threatens to question the murdered boy’s soul in Simon’s chamber. Simon flees to Tyre or Tripolis, and Peter resolves to follow among Gentiles.
The accounts grow contradictory and muddled. Per the Homilies, Simon flees from Tyre to Tripolis, then Syria. The main dispute at Laodicea centers on God’s unity. Simon cites the Old Testament for many gods, shows scripture contradictions, accuses Peter of magic and differing from Christ, claims Jesus isn’t self-consistent, says the world’s maker isn’t the highest God, and declares the Ineffable Deity. Peter refutes him, and Simon retreats.
At Antioch, Simon incites the people against Peter as an impostor. Peter’s friends alert authorities, forcing Simon to flee. At Laodicea, he meets Faustinianus or Faustus, Clement’s father, who rebukes him. Simon changes Faustinianus’s face to his own likeness to be captured instead. Peter sends the transformed Faustinianus to Antioch, where, as Simon, he confesses imposture and affirms Peter’s mission. Peter enters Antioch triumphant.
The Apostolic Constitutions’ tale is short, drawn from Acts and partly Clementines, ending with Simon’s mythic death in Rome by Peter’s prayers. Simon, led by demons, flies upward. Details vary elsewhere.
A vague reference to Simonian literature notes: "We know Simon and Cleobius’s followers composed poisonous books in Christ’s and his disciples’ names, carrying them to deceive you who love Christ and us, his servants."
So end the key legends. Others, set in Nero’s Rome, follow, too apocryphal to detail from original texts. A brief digest from a noted scholar’s summary suffices.
The Greek Acts of Peter and Paul detail the conflict, involving both apostles. Simon and Peter must raise a dead body. Simon’s magic moves the head, but it dies when he leaves. Peter’s prayers truly resurrect it. Both divine each other’s plans. Peter prepares blessed bread, sharing the secret with the emperor. Simon can’t guess it, raises hell-hounds against Peter, but the bread banishes them.
In the Acts of Nereus and Achilleus, Simon sets a fierce dog at his door to block Peter. Peter’s cross tames it toward him, but it rages against Simon, forcing him to flee the city in disgrace.
Simon retains Nero’s favor with magic, pretending decapitation by glamour, while a ram’s head is cut. The drama ends with a wooden tower in the Campus Martius. Simon ascends in a fiery chariot, but Peter’s prayers make the demons drop him to a miserable death.
This links to a tale of Nero’s wooden theater in the Campus, where a gymnast playing Icarus fell near him, splattering blood.
So go these varied tales—sometimes insightful, mostly absurd. I’ll now sift the rubbish from this patristic and legendary pile, seeking value beyond what first appears.
Ref:
http://www.gnosis.org/library/grs-mead/grsm_simon_magus.htm