Simon Magus

Simon Magus

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Title: Simon Magus
Author: George Robert Stow Mead
Release Date: July 12, 2004 [EBook #12892]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SIMON MAGUS
AN ESSAY ON THE FOUNDER OF SIMONIANISM BASED ON
THE ANCIENT SOURCES WITH A RE-EVALUATION OF HIS
PHILOSOPHY AND TEACHINGS.

BY
G.R.S. MEAD

SIMON MAGUS.
INTRODUCTION.
Everybody in Christendom has heard of Simon, the magician, and how
Peter, the apostle, rebuked him, as told in the narrative of the _Acts of
the Apostles_. Many also have heard the legend of how at Rome this
wicked sorcerer endeavoured to fly by aid of the demons, and how
Peter caused him to fall headlong and thus miserably perish. And so
most think that there is an end of the matter, and either cast their mite
of pity or contempt at the memory of Simon, or laugh at the whole
matter as the invention of superstition or the imagination of religious
fanaticism, according as their respective beliefs may be in orthodoxy or
materialism. This for the general. Students of theology and church
history, on the other hand, have had a more difficult task set them in
comparing and arranging the materials they have at their disposal, as
found in the patristic writings and legendary records; and various
theories have been put forward, not the least astonishing being the
supposition that Simon was an alias for Paul, and that the Simon and
Peter in the accounts of the fathers and in the narrative of the legends
were simply concrete symbols to represent the two sides of the Pauline
and Petrine controversies.
The first reason why I have ventured on this present enquiry is that
Simon Magus is invariably mentioned by the heresiologists as the
founder of the first heresy of the commonly-accepted Christian era, and
is believed by them to have been the originator of those systems of
religio-philosophy and theosophy which are now somewhat
inaccurately classed together under the heading of Gnosticism. And
though this assumption of the patristic heresiologists is entirely
incorrect, as may be proved from their own works, it is nevertheless
true that Simonianism is the first system that, as far as our present

records go, came into conflict with what has been regarded as the
orthodox stream of Christianity. A second reason is that I believe that
Simon has been grossly misrepresented, and entirely misunderstood, by
his orthodox opponents, whoever they were, in the first place, and also,
in the second place, by those who have ignorantly and without enquiry
copied from them. But my chief reason is that the present revival of
theosophical enquiry throws a flood of light on Simon's teachings,
whenever we can get anything approaching a first-hand statement of
them, and shows that it was identical in its fundamentals with the
Esoteric Philosophy of all the great religions of the world.
In this enquiry, I shall have to be slightly wearisome to some of my
readers, for instead of giving a selection or even a paraphraze of the
notices on Simon which we have from authenticated patristic sources, I
shall furnish verbatim translations, and present a digest only of the
unauthenticated legends. The growth of the Simonian legend must
unfold itself before the reader in its native form as it comes from the
pens of those who have constructed it. Repetitions will, therefore, be
unavoidable in the marshalling of authorities, but they will be shown to
be not without interest in the subsequent treatment of the subject, and at
any rate we shall at least be on the sure ground of having before us all
that has been said on the matter by the Church fathers. Having cited
these authorities, I shall attempt to submit them to a critical
examination, and so eliminate all accretions, hearsay and controversial
opinions, and thus sift out what reliable residue is possible. Finally, my
task will be to show that Simon taught a system of Theosophy, which
instead of deserving our condemnation should rather excite our
admiration, and that, instead of being a common impostor and impious
perverter of public morality, his method was in many respects of the
same nature as the methods of the theosophical movement of to-day,
and deserves the study and consideration of all students of Theosophy.
This essay will, therefore, be divided into the following parts:
I.--Sources of Information.