Simon Magus | Page 3

have said may come upon me."
II.--The Simon of the Fathers.

i. Justinus Martyr (Apologia, I. 26). Text: _Corpus Apologetarum
Christianorum Saeculi Secundi_ (edidit Io. Car. Th. Eques de Otto);
Jenae, 1876 (ed. tert.).
And thirdly, that even after the ascension of the Christ into heaven the
daemons cast before themselves (as a shield) certain men who said that
they were gods, who were not only not expelled by you,[4] but even
thought worthy of honours; a certain Samaritan, Simon, who came
from a village called Gitta; who in the reign of Claudius Caesar[5]
wrought magic wonders by the art of the daemons who possessed him,
and was considered a god in your imperial city of Rome, and as a god
was honoured with a statue by you, which statue was erected in the
river Tiber, between the two bridges, with the following inscription in
Roman: "Simoni Deo Sancto." And nearly all the Samaritans, but few
among the rest of the nations, confess him to be the first god and
worship him. And they speak of a certain Helen, who went round with
him at that time, and who had formerly prostituted herself,[6] but was
made by him his first Thought.
ii. Irenaeus (Contra Haereses, I. xxiii. 1-4). Text: Opera (edidit
Adolphus Stieren); Lipsiae, 1848.
1. Simon was a Samaritan, the notorious magician of whom Luke the
disciple and adherent of the apostles says: "But there was a fellow by
name Simon, who had previously practised the art of magic in their
state, and led away the people of the Samaritans, saying that he was
some great one, to whom they all listened, from the small to the great,
saying: 'He is the Power of God, which is called Great.' Now they gave
heed to him because he had driven them out of their wits by his magical
phenomena." This Simon, therefore, pretended to be a believer,
thinking that the apostles also wrought their cures by magic and not by
the power of God; and supposing that their filling with the Holy Spirit
by the laying on of hands those who believed in God, through that
Christ Jesus who was being preached by them--that this was effected by
some superior magical knowledge, and offering money to the apostles,
so that he also might obtain the power of giving the Holy Spirit to
whomsoever he would, he received this answer from Peter: "Thy

money perish with thee, since thou hast thought that the gift of God is
obtained possession of with money; for thee there is neither part nor lot
in this Word, for thy heart is not right before God. For I see thou art in
the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity."
And since the magician still refused to believe in God, he ambitiously
strove to contend against the apostles, so that he also might be thought
of great renown, by extending his investigations into universal magic
still farther, so that he struck many aghast; so much so that he is said to
have been honoured with a statue for his magic knowledge by Claudius
Caesar.
He, therefore, was glorified by many as a god; and he taught that it was
he himself who, forsooth, appeared among the Jews as the Son, while
in Samaria he descended as the Father, and in the rest of the nations he
came as the Holy Spirit. That he was the highest power, to wit, the
Father over all, and that he allowed himself to be called by whatever
name men pleased.
2. Now the sect of the Samaritan Simon, from whom all the heresies
took their origin, was composed of the following materials.
He took round with him a certain Helen, a hired prostitute from the
Phoenician city Tyre, after he had purchased her freedom, saying that
she was the first conception (or Thought) of his Mind, the Mother of
All, by whom in the beginning he conceived in his Mind the making of
the Angels and Archangels. That this Thought, leaping forth from him,
and knowing what was the will of her Father, descended to the lower
regions and generated the Angels and Powers, by whom also he said
this world was made. And after she had generated them, she was
detained by them through envy, for they did not wish to be thought to
be the progeny of any other. As for himself, he was entirely unknown
by them; and it was his Thought that was made prisoner by the Powers
and Angels that has been emanated by her. And she suffered every kind
of indignity at their hands, to prevent her reäscending to her Father,
even to being imprisoned in the human body and transmigrating into
other female bodies, as from one vessel into another.[7] She also was in