Simon Magus

One of the great villains of church history, at least according to his Christian detractors, is a shadowy figure referred to as Simon the magos (“magician”). Many readers may be familiar with his portrayal in the book of Acts where he is identified as a Samaritan who was adept in the practice of magic, is acclaimed by the crowds as the embodiment of a Great Power, is converted to the Jesus movement by Philip the Evangelist, and is rebuked by Peter when he tried to bribe Peter to attain the ability to impart the Spirit (cf. Acts 8:9-24). Incidentally, this created the term “simony,” denoting the illegitimate attempts to purchase ecclesiastical offices and power. 

The Christian philosopher Justin Martyr, who addressed his First Apology to the emperor Antonius Pius (ruled 138-161 CE) and his son Verisimmus, recounts that Simon spread his teachings in Rome and uses the existence of a statue between two bridges on the river Tiber (1 Apol. 26; 56). He read the inscription as “to Simon the holy god” (simoni sancto deo), but a statue dedicated to the deity Semo Sancus was unearthed in 1574 with the inscription semoni sanco deo fidio sacrum (“to Semo Sancus Dius Fidius”). Was this the statue that Justin saw and misinterpreted in reference to Simon Magus? If so, this may have sparked the later legends of Simon Magus’s activities in Rome and to Peter encountering his old foe there, with the chief apostle triumphing over the arch-heretic.

According to Irenaeus of Lyon (Against Heresies 1.26.1-4), Simon and his consort Helena of Tyre was remembered as the father of all of the demiurgical theologies (i.e. the belief that the material world was created by a lesser divinity or divinities, often termed the “demiurge” or “craftsman”, rather than a supremely transcendent, spiritual deity) in all of their diversity in his genealogy of heresy. This portrait of Simon influenced later Christian writers (e.g., Hippolytus, Refutation of all Heresies 6.15; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2.14.1-6; 2.17.1; Epiphanius, Panarion 21; Jerome, Illustrious Men 1). The apocryphal Acts of Peter narrate how Simon Peter and Simon Magus engaged in a magical contest in Rome to see whose message was divinely authorized. The Jewish Christian sources underlying the pseudo-Clementine Recognitions and Homilies also polemicize against Simon Magus, but the name “Simon” may actually be a cipher for the Apostle Paul as the real target of the author’s criticism (e.g., Peter rejects “Simon’s” claims about his own authoritative status on the basis of visions that he has had, as opposed to Peter’s personal acquaintance with Jesus during his ministry, or complains in his letter to James about his “enemy” spreading lawless teachings among the Gentiles).

When we strip away the apocryphal legends about Simon’s magical abilities (e.g. including flying over the capital of the Empire!), the typical polemical insults used in antiquity to slander an opponent, and the representation of Simon’s thought as a crude parody of Christian doctrine (e.g. did Simon identify himself as the persons of the Trinity or attempt a resurrection miracle after being buried alive?), is there anything left about Simon’s person or message that is historically reliable? Was he some kind of ritual specialist who was believed to be possessed by a divine spirit and did he found a movement that was a serious rival to the apostles in Jerusalem? Can elements of the myth that Irenaeus attributed to him – the existence of the supreme power, the first thought (the feminine Greek noun ennoia) that conceived other angelic beings, or the gnostic savior that delivered ennoia from the material world that the angelic powers had created to imprison her (this cosmogonic myth was acted out by Simon and Helena) – be traced back to Simon? There is an extensive scholarly bibliography about Simon for those interested in pursuing such questions, but the main concern of this post is to discover how Peter ended up confronted the magician not only in Samaria but also in Rome itself. Here are some resources to learn more about this figure:

• Ferreiro, Alberto. Simon Magus in Patristic, Medieval and Early Modern Traditions. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
• Haar, Stephen. Simon Magus: The First Gnostic? Berlin: De Gruyter, 2003.
• Meeks, Wayne A. “Simon Magus in Recent Research.” Religious Studies Review 3 (1977): 137-142.