SIMON MAGUS. - A Samaritan, contemporary of the Apostles (Acts 8:9–24). St Justin (Apol., I: PG 6, 3–68) calls him a native of Gitton (Γίττων); the deacon Philip, while evangelizing Samaria, found Simon there, who had acquired extraordinary fame for his magic arts (μαγείων), so that the crowds of Samaria acclaimed him: “This man is the Power of God, that which is called Great” (Acts 8:9–10).
The Acts of the Apostles recount his baptism, his encounter with Peter (q.v.) and his shameful offer to the latter (ibid. 8:9 ff.). Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Eusebius, the Pseudo-Clementines and the apocryphal Acts of Peter also speak of him.
Justin reports (Apol., I, 26; Dial. cum Tryph., 120) that Simon, in his travels, was accompanied by a certain Helen, formerly a prostitute, who would be “the primordial Idea” (ἐννοια) proceeding from him, “the great Power of God” (notions of distinctly Gnostic flavour); he adds that Simon came to Rome under the emperor Claudius and there continued his magical arts and received divine honours, with a statue on the Tiber Island bearing the inscription “Simoni Deo Sancto” (the inscription, on the pedestal of a statue found there in 1574, read “Semoni Sanco Deo Fidio,” and referred to the Sabine deity Seno Sanctus).
St Jerome attributes to Simon the words: “ego sum Sermo Dei, ego sum Speciosus, ego Paraclitus, ego Omnipotens, ego Omnia Dei” (In Matth., XXIV, 5: PL 26, 183), which seems an amplification of Acts 8:9–10. Irenaeus presents Simon as the source of all heresies (Adv. haer., I, 23, 2; 27, 4), that is, of the Gnostic sects which he chiefly has in view. In Justin’s brief notices, which are the most reliable, one can discern the doctrinal seeds that underlie Gnosticism. Yet it is difficult, given the scarcity of secure and precise data, to reconstruct Simonian Gnosticism. According to Hippolytus (Philosoph., VI, 7, 20), Simon would have written a work entitled ΑΠΟΦΑΣΙΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΗΣ, Great Declaration. But it is probable that this writing comes from his followers, the Simoniani, a Gnostic sect that persisted even into the 4th century, as one learns from Eusebius (Hist. eccl., II, 13). Legendary are the accounts in the apocryphal Acts of Peter and the Pseudo-Clementines (Homil., II, 22 ff.; IV, 4 ff.; Recogn., I, 72; II, 7 ff.; III, 12 ff.) about supposed encounters with the Apostle Peter (q.v.) in Rome or Syria, and about a challenge to fly, followed by a fall after the Apostle’s prayers. The opinion of Ch. Baur, who, on the slender basis of the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, saw in Simon the Magician the exponent of the struggle of Pauline Christianity against Petrine Christianity, is entirely outdated.