Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/95

 SIMON MAGUS 79 victory in the capital of the world also. According to this view, Simon Magus is an invention of the Jewish Christians, a distorted Paul, whom the church at large partly accepted as historical and partly catholicized, adding fresh touches to the picture of Simon, making him the father of all the heresies, the head of all the magi, a pseudo-Messiah, and so forth, but at last destroying the whole point of the story by adding that Peter and Paul had jointly overcome the magian in Home. Were this view of the Tubingen critics established, their whole conception of apostolic and post-apostolic times would also be proved ; it would have been made out (1) that legends of an anti-Pauline tendency form the basis of the tradition of the church ; (2) that the Acts of the Apostles is a compromise, and rests upon Jewish- Christian myths in part no longer understood ; (3) that the ecclesiastical tradition about Peter's journeyings had its origin merely in those of Paul ; and (4) there would be established an indisputable example of the production of biassed and fabricated history within primitive Chris- tianity so remarkable that upon the ground of it alone we should be justified in simply regarding the greater part of the historical statements of the first two Christian centuries as deliberate inventions. But on no other point are the proofs of the Tiibingen school weaker than in this. Only by inverting the historical order of the original documents, by dint of violent assertion, and by declaring with reference to the most important arguments that they existed in writings which now are lost, has it been possible for them to give even the appearance of stability to their hypothetical structure. The three Assertions of the Tiibingen critics (1) that the written sources of the pseudo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitions go back to the 1st century, (2) that already in these Paul has become distorted into Simon Magus and Peter is represented as having com- bated the Simon-Paul in Rome, and (3) that the Acts of the Apostles, Justin, and other church fathers in their statements about Simon and about Peter's stay in Rome depend upon these Jewish-Christian writings can none of them be proved. On the other hand, apart from the Acts of the Apostles, the existence of a Samaritan magus, Simon, in apostolic times, as well as of a sect of Simonians in the 2d century (in Samaria, and elsewhere in the Roman empire), is quite conclusively attested through Justin Martyr, and also through Celsus, Clement, Hippolytus, and Origen. 1 Even the Tiibingen critics themselves could. not deny the existence of a sect of Simonians ; they have therefore been obliged to advance 1 The testimony of Justin derives its great importance from the fact that he was himself a Samaritan ; he says expressly (Apol., ii. 15 ; see also Dial., 120), rov ev r!V'.a.vov SiSdy/j.aros Ka.Tep6vr)<Ta. In Apol., i. 26 he makes direct reference to Simon (see also i. 56), and remarks, ical ffxeSov -jravres fj.tv 2a/xa- pfts, 6lyoi Se KOI eV &ois eBvtffiv, us rbv trpiarov dfbv ~2.(^<ava 6fj.ooyowTes, ~2,lfjL<ava. Kal trpoffKvvovffi. Celsus (quoted in Orig., G. Gels., v. 62) alludes to a sect of Simonians, and says they were also called Helenians; Irenaus (Adv. Hfer., i. 23) is acquainted with the ritual and writings of this sect; Hippolytus (Philosoph., vi. 7-20) gives extracts from a Simonian book'A7ro'0a<m /j.ejdri. Particularly interesting is the testimony of Origen (C. Gels., i. 57; cf. vi. 11): ' Also Simon Magus, the Samaritan, wished to gain disciples by his magical arts. His impositions were virtually without result at the time, while at present, in my belief, the number of his adherents throughout the world does not amount to thirty. And perhaps this estimate is too high. At most there are only a few in Palestine, while in the other parts of the world where he desired to make his name illustrious it is quite iinknown. Where it is known, the fact is entirely due to the Acts of the Apostles. Christians alone still speak of him." Some would fain find a testimony in Josephus also ; but the Jewish conjurer Simon, of Cyprus, mentioned in Ant., xx. 7 has nothing whatever to do with the Samaritan. Renan would recognize Simon Magus in the second beast of Rev. xiii. ; but this hypothesis is utterly baseless. the desperate theory that the sect arose solely on the basis of the Jewish-Christian romance of Simon. The oldest account of Simon Magus occurs in the Acts of the Apostles. When Philip the evangelist came to Samaria about 37 A.D. he found a great religious movement going on. One named Simon had given himself out for some great person, and by dint of his extraordinary works had stirred up and gained over the whole popula- tion, who took him for the exalted manifestation of the Divine Power itself. Philip converted the majority of Simon's adherents; and Simon himself, amazed at the deeds wrought by Philip, received baptism, and joined the evangelist's society. Peter and John then came to Samaris to impart to the baptized the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands : and Simon offered the apostles money to invest him with a like power of conferring the gift. But Peter sternly rebuked him, exhorting him to repent and beseech God that the evil thought of his heart might be forgiven him. Simon thereupon begged the apostles to pray on his behalf. We have no means of checking this account, since we possess no other independent source. The author of the Acts seems to have known nothing of Simon Magus from other quarters, else he would hardly have closed the narrative as we have it. Simon is not yet viewed as hostile to Christianity. There is no justi- fication for doubt as regards the main points of this account. That in the fourth decade of the 1st century a pseudo-Messiah, named Simon, appeared in Samaria; that he gained a considerable following; that he tried to effect a union with the Christian missionaries, who, however, soon perceived his real character and shook him off, these facts must be treated as historical. 2 They are vouched for by Justin, whose statement is not borrowed from the Acts. 3 Justin, it is true, makes no direct state- ment about any relations whatever between Simon and Christianity, but represents him as one who gave himself out for God and as the founder of an entirely new religion ; but, since on the other hand he groups him with Menander and Marcion, and thinks of him as the devil-sent father of heretics, it is plain that he knew quite well of some relation between Simon and the Christians. The conception of Simon as the father of heresy within the church is in no way suggested in the Acts ; nor has Justin in the writings which we possess given any hint of a reason why Simon should be viewed in such a light. But the testimony of the Acts (viii. 13) that Simon received baptism, and for a while joined himself to the Christians, enables us at least in some degree to understand how he afterwards got the reputation alluded to. We shall see presently, moreover, that Simon must have introduced certain Christian elements into his teaching. 4 Justin has a good deal more about Simon that is not to be found in Acts : (1) he gives his birthplace as Gittha in Samaria ; (2) he states that Simon came to Rome in the reign of Claudius, and there by his magical arts gained some followers, and was taken for a god, and that a statue was erected to him on the Tiber Island with the inscription SIMONI DEO SANCTO ; and (3) he states that the adherents of Simon passed off a woman named Helena, 2 The same historical certainty cannot be claimed for the meeting of Peter and Simon, because in the Acts (ch. i.-xv. ) Peter is through- out pushed to the front, and because the motive assigned for his journey to Samaria is open to some suspicion. Still, the fact that even in the Jewish-Christian Acts of the Apostles Peter and Simon have personal dealings affords presumptive evidence that they did meet. 3 Unfortunately, Justin's Syntagma against the heretics, in which he dealt at greater length with Simon, is no longer extant; we are therefore limited to the meagre references in his Apology and Dialogw, and the statements of later writers who had read the Syntagma. 4 Justin repeatedly and emphatically says that Simon pretended to be a god, and was regarded by his adherents as the Supreme God ; see Dial., 120.