Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/923

 he was bestowing advice about mundane matters. His extraordinary life made a great impression; large numbers of Arabians, Armenians, and other pagans were converted by him, while emperors, bishops, and pilgrims from distant lands, even Spain and Britain, consulted him most reverently. An object of deepest reverence all through life, at the news of his approaching death great crowds assembled (July 459) round his pillar to receive his last words. On Aug. 29 he was seized with a mortal illness, and died Sept 2, 459. His body was transported with great pomp to Antioch, attended by bishops and clergy, and guarded by the troops under Ardabryius, commander of the forces of the East. The emperor Leo sent letters to the bp. of Antioch demanding It to be brought to Constantinople. The people of Antioch piteously reminded Leo, "Forasmuch as our city is without walls, for we have been visited in wrath by their fall, we brought hither the sacred body to be our wall and bulwark," and were permitted to retain it; but this did not avail to protect the city against capture by the Persians. Simeon wrote many epistles on current ecclesiastical matters: (1) one Evagrius mentions (H. E. i. 13), to the emperor Theodosius against restoring their synagogues to the Jews. It effectually incited the emperor to intolerant courses. He withdrew the concession and dismissed the official who advised it. (2) An epistle to Leo, on behalf of the council of Chalcedon, and against the ordination of Timotheus Aelurus (ii. 10). (3) Evagrius gives (ib.) extracts from one to Basil of Antioch on the same topic. (4) An epistle to the empress Eudocia on the same (Niceph. xv. 13 ), by which she was converted from Eutychian error. (5) Eulogius of Alexandria mentions his profession of the Catholic faith, which Cave conjectures to have been identical with (2) (cf. Phot. Biblioth. cod. 230). Besides these, there is extant a Latin version of a sermon, de Morte Assidue Cogitanda, which in the ''Biblioth. Patr.'' is usually ascribed to our Simeon. Lambecius, on the authority of a MS. in the imperial library at Vienna, ascribes it to Simeon of Mesopotamia (Comm. de Biblioth. Caesarea, vol. viii. lib. v. col. 198, ed. Kollar). Evagrius (i. 13) describes the appearance of Simeon's relics in his time, and also (i. 14) a visit he paid to the monastery and pillar of Simeon. The pillar was then enclosed in a church, which no woman was ever allowed to enter, and where supernatural manifestations were often seen. Count de Vogüé (Syrie Centrale, t. i. pp. 141–154, Paris, 1865–1877) describes fully the present state of the church, and shews Evagrius's minute accuracy.

[G.T.S.]

Simon (1) Magus, the subject of many legends and much speculation. It is important to discriminate carefully what is told of him by the different primary authorities.

The Simon of the Acts of the Apostles.—Behind all stories concerning Simon lies what is related Acts viii. 9–24, where we see Simon as a magician who exercised sorcery in Samaria with such success that the people universally accepted his claim to be "some great one," and accounted him "that power of God which is called great." We are further told that he was so impressed by the miracles wrought by Philip, that he asked and obtained admission to Christian baptism; but that he subsequently betrayed the hollowness of his conversion by offering money to Peter to obtain the power of conferring the gift of the Holy Ghost. All subsequent accounts represent him as possessing magical power and coming personally into collision with Peter. The Acts say nothing as to his being a teacher of heretical doctrine; nor do they tell whether or not he broke off all connexion with the Christian society after his exposure by Peter.

The Simon of Justin Martyr.—When Justin Martyr wrote his Apology the Simonian sect appears to have been formidable, for he speaks four times of their founder Simon (Apol. i. 26, 56; ii. 15; Dial. 20), and undoubtedly identified him with the Simon of Acts. He states that he was a Samaritan, born at a village called Gitta; he describes him as a formidable magician, who came to Rome in the days of Claudius Caesar and made such an impression by his magical powers that he was honoured as a god, a statue being erected to him on the Tiber, between the two bridges, bearing the inscription "Simoni deo Sancto." Now in 1574 there was dug up in the place indicated by Justin, viz. the island in the Tiber, a marble fragment, apparently the base of a statue, bearing the inscription, "Semoni Santo Deo Fidio," with the name of the dedicator (see Gruter, Inscrip. Antiq. i. p. 95, n. 5). The coincidence is too remarkable to admit of any satisfactory explanation other than that Justin imagined a statue really dedicated to a Sabine deity (Ovid. Fasti, vi. 214) to have been in honour of the heretic Simon.

Justin further states that almost all the Samaritans, and some even of other nations, worshipped Simon, and acknowledged him as "the first God" ("above all principality, power, and dominion," Dial. 120), and that they held that a woman named Helena, formerly a prostitute, who went about with him, was his "first conception" (ἔννοια πρώτη). In connexion with Simon, Justin speaks of another Samaritan heretic,, and states that he (Justin) had published a treatise against heresies. When Irenaeus (Haer. i. 23) deals with Simon and Menander, his coincidences with Justin are too numerous and striking to leave any doubt that he here uses the work of Justin as his authority, and we get the following additional particulars: Simon claimed to be himself the highest power, that is to say, the Father who is over all; he taught that he was the same who among the Jews appeared as Son, in Samaria descended as Father, in other nations had walked as the Holy Spirit. He was content to be called by whatever name men chose to assign to him. Helen was a prostitute whom he had redeemed at Tyre and led about with him, saying that she was the first conception of his mind, the mother of all, by whom he had in the beginning conceived the making of angels and archangels. Knowing thus his will, she had leaped away from him, descended to the lower regions, and generated angels and powers by whom this world was made. But this "Ennoea" was detained in