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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 619. The Traditionary Simon
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The Traditionary Simon
As regards one part of this story an interesting discovery has been made. In the year 1574 there was dug up in the place indicated by Justin, namely, in the island of the Tiber, a marble fragment, apparently the base of a statue, with the inscription Semoni Sanco Deo Fidio. It is now generally agreed that Justin mistook a statue dedicated to a Sabine deity for one dedicated to Simon.2 [Note: A. C. Headlam, in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, iv. 520.]
2. Justin also represents him as the originator of heresy, and the founder of the heretical sect of the Simonians. During the second century, all the information, as far as we know, that existed about Simon, was derived from the Acts of the Apostles and the writings of Justin. But during the second and fourth centuries a great mass of legendary matter accumulated round his name. In the Patristic literature, the Clementine literature, and the legendary Acts of Peter and Paul, its growth may be traced, until at the close of the fourth century we find in the Apostolic Constitutions what we may call the completed legend, combining the stories from the Clementine literature with those derived from the apocryphal Acts and the narrative in the Acts of the Apostles. He is represented, with increasing details, as the opponent of St. Peter, who follows him from place to place, disputing with him and exposing his pretensions at Cæsarea, Tyre, Laodicea, Antioch, and Rome. In the Acts of Peter and Paul, St. Paul is connected with St. Peter in resisting Simon, By one account Simon undertakes to fly over Rome, but by the prayers of St. Peter he falls and is killed. By another he ordered his disciples to dig a grave and bury him, saying he would rise on the third day. They did as they were ordered, “but he remained away even to the present day. For he was not the Christ.”
3. How far there is an actual historical basis for the idea that Gnosticism was directly or indirectly derived from him may be doubtful. His system exhibits all the elements which go to make up Gnosticism; especially we may notice that there we first find the idea that the highest God was not the Creator of the world; but then such tendencies and ideas were in the air. The same influences of dualism and syncretism which worked in his case would work also in others. But, anyhow, Simon was the one clear instance of a heretic mentioned in the New Testament. It was natural, therefore, to represent him as the typical arch-heretic, the originator of heresy, and the place which Justin assigned to him at the head of his heretical genealogy was one in which his position was uncontested.
4. Samaria was a country in which a sort of bastard Judaism came in contact with the old Syrian and Phœnician religions and the newer Hellenic paganism. All these different elements are present in Simon's system. That the relation of himself and Helena is a reminiscence of the Syrian male and female deity is equally natural, whether Helena be a real person (as is probable) or only the personification of an idea. The fact that in one account-that of the Recognitions-she is called Luna (a translation of σελήνη), makes the parallel to the Sun and Moon worship, the Baal and Astarte, more close. Simon represents an almost pre-Christian Gnosticism, and it is significant that only here do we find this very repulsive dualistic element. Simon represents the impostor of the period, whose claims are even more improbable than those of Apollonius of Tyana or Alexander of Abonoteichus. His mind is a medley of Hellenism, Judaism, and Orientalism; out of this he forms a system, in which he himself occupies the first position. The influence of Christianity and then the opposition to it give a certain vitality and force to the ideas he suggests, and in other hands they become fertile and prolific. Later Gnostics were more definitely Christian. The founders of the sects never claimed Divine honours for themselves. They discarded more extravagant features. But they shared with Simon the fundamental doctrine that the Creator of the world was an inferior and, perhaps, a malevolent deity.
There are some curious coincidences between the legends of Faust and Simon Magus. In the Clementine Homilies Faustus is the father of Simon, and Simon by his magical power changes his father's face into the exact image of his own.
The hero of the Faust legend is supposed to have been a certain Dr. Faust, of Knittlingen, who died in 1540. The legend appears first in a written form in 1587, and was obviously the result of a fertile imagination. It is quite possible that in building up the story reminiscences direct or indirect of the legend of Simon Magus may have come in. The following are points of resemblance: (1) firstly and most clearly the introduction of Helena in both; (2) the name Faustus; (3) the homunculus; (4) in Simon Magus himself we may have a suggestion of Mephistopheles. This connexion may be due to direct literary influence, or we may have here two different versions of a theme which has been common at various times, the contest between Religion and Magic-a contest which we have to believe is far older and more universal than was once thought.1 [Note: A. C. Headlam, in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, iv. 527.]
5. Interest in Simon has been revived in modern times by the theory of Baur that he was not an historical character, but represents the Apostle Paul. On this view the contest between Simon Peter and Simon Magus really represented the original conflict of Peter and Paul. Wherever Simon Magus occurs we should read Paul. At first it was clearly understood who this person designated as Simon the Samaritan really was, but as the two parties more and more came together the original meaning was forgotten, and hence we find, even in a book like the Acts of the Apostles, written in a conciliatory interest, fragments of the old contest still embedded. But we have to recognize that the whole of our accepted history of early Christianity is really a conventional ecclesiastical legend, and the real history of the period must be disentangled from the Clementine literature. It is marvellous with what ingenuity the parallel was worked out when once the idea was started. Simon called himself the great power of God. Paul claims that he lived by the power of God (2Co_12:9; 2Co_13:4). When Simon offers money to buy the power of conferring the gift of the Holy Ghost, this is an allusion to Paul, who by his contributions for the poor saints at Jerusalem was attempting to obtain the apostleship. Peter telling Simon that he has neither part nor lot in this matter, is really Peter telling Paul that he has not the κλῆρος τῆς ἀποστολῆς.
It seems very doubtful whether Simon of the Clementine literature is ever intended to represent Paul; nor is there any Pauline teaching put into Simon's mouth. The above passages, which are all the more important quoted, are hardly sufficient to establish the theory that Simon is Paul. The author or compiler of the Clementines really starts from the belief that the Simon of the Acts, whom Peter combated, was the source of all heresy, and so he makes his favourite Apostle travel from place to place combating in the person of Simon the false Marcionite teaching of which he was believed to be the originator. This will explain the whole situation, and is much less far-fetched than the explanation which finds Paul everywhere.