SIMON MAGUS sī’ mən mā’ gəs (Σίμων ὁ μάγος). The magician encountered by Philip and the Apostles Peter and John in Samaria.

1. The account in Acts 8:9-24. In recording the persecution which followed Stephen’s death, Luke says that Christians “were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria” (Acts 8:1) and “went about preaching the word” (8:4). He then particularizes with Philip’s mission in Samaria. Philip’s preaching commanded great attention and was attested by “signs” (8:6), healings and exorcisms (8:7). The result was a wide acceptance of the Gospel. Two significant incidents follow, the encounter with Simon Magus and (at the conclusion of the Samaritan tour) the encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch.

In the case of Simon Luke has compressed much information, showing that firm handling of material which marks the whole of Acts. As to his reason for its inclusion, J. E. Roberts describes it as an indication that “the Gospel, making its first essay on non-Jewish soil, was discovered to be mightier than the magic which exercised such a powerful influence over the contemporary world” (HDAC II. 498). Simon by his magical arts had gained a large following in Samaria. He had assumed the title “the power of God which is called Great” (there are examples from inscrs. of the use of divine titles by other magicians). An alternative rendering is “the power of the God who is called Great.” C. C. Torrey from a presumed Aram. original suggests this, which would imply a combination of the Gr. Zeus (=Most High God) and the Heb. Yahweh (“Power” was a rabbinical synonym). Simon’s reputation is emphasized in order to show the dramatic changes now brought about.

Philip encountered him in a town which was prob. the capital Sebaste, but may have been Gitta, Simon’s traditional home. The magician himself became a convert (episteusen, “believed,” is the normal term in Acts), was baptized with many others, and was amazed at the miracles of Philip which apparently surpassed his own. How genuine was his conversion can only be judged by the sequel.

This remarkable response in Samaria caused the apostles to dispatch Peter and John, their most prominent members (cf. chs. 2; 3). Their special function was to lay hands on the converts so that they might receive the Holy Spirit. It was these visible acts of the Jerusalem leaders which aroused Simon to an intense interest in their “craft.” Perhaps the gift of tongues was evident, if one follows the analogies of Acts 10:44-46 and 19:6. The externality of Simon’s faith seems indicated by his bold attempt to bribe the apostles into imparting their “power.” Peter’s severe rebuke (8:20-23) implies Simon’s basic misconception about the gifts of God which are inward in their nature (“the gall of bitterness” [8:23] and “the bond of iniquity” are both OT echoes, from Deut 29:18 and Isa 58:6 respectively). Yet there remained the possibility of his seeking in penitence the forgiveness of God. His final plea (Acts 8:24) does not make it clear whether he had penetrated beyond the “signs” and the fear of retribution to any real faith, but his subsequent heretical reputation and the doubts raised by Luke himself make it safer to regard him as a nominal convert only. The story closes with a reference to a preaching tour which may have been partly designed to counter the cult of Simon.

2. Christianity and magic in Acts. A recurring motif in Acts is the conflict between Christianity and the magical practices which were so prevalent in the Graeco-Roman world of the 1st cent. (see article on Magic and Sorcery). It is here relevant only to note two parallels to the Simon Magus narrative, both involving Jewish magicians in a Gentile context.

At Paphos in Cyprus the proconsul Sergius Paulus kept a Jewish magician Elymas Bar-Jesus (13:6ff.), and Luke again describes the incident with accurate detail. This man, whose master was “a man of intelligence,” tried to nullify Paulus’ response to the preaching of Paul and Barnabas. Paul’s denunciation of Elymas recalls Peter’s words to Simon in its directness and intensity: the magician is an enemy of the faith, an embodiment of Satan, and becomes temporarily blinded. At the outset of the Gentile missionary outreach, an important Rom. convert was preserved from the assault of Satan. Luke describes the Jewish exorcists at Ephesus (19:13-20) who encountered Paul’s mission of healing and casting out of spirits. As Simon had tried to buy miraculous powers with money, so these sons of Sceva tried to use “the name of the Lord Jesus” as a magic incantation. Their discomfiture resulted in a great turning to the faith in Ephesus and the repudiation of magic arts. The practice of divination is also illustrated by the story of the slave girl at Philippi (16:16ff.).

In all these incidents Luke shows an awareness of the “principalities and powers” which lay behind the magicians’ actions. In the early Christian expansion were being further fulfilled the words of Jesus recorded in His Gospel: “If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Luke 11:20).

3. The relation between Simon Magus and Gnostic heresies. The name of Simon Magus occurs frequently in the early history of “Christian” gnosticism (for which see article), and there has been much debate as to whether the Simoniani, a sect which lasted well into the 3rd cent., had its origins in the magician of Acts 8.

The earliest post-Biblical evidence is that of Justin Martyr, who says (Apol. i. 26, 56) that a certain Simon from Gitta in Samaria during the reign of the Emperor Claudius practiced magic in both Samaria and Rome, and was given divine honors. He mistakenly appeals to a Rom. statue which bore the inscr. “Simoni Deo Sancto” (to Simon the Holy God), but which was actually erected in honor of a Sabine deity Semo Sancus. Justin mentions that Simon was accompanied by Helena, a former prostitute whom he now called his “First Idea” (Ennoia) and says that a disciple of his, Menander, led many astray in Antioch by his sorcery. He attributes the movement to the efforts of evil spirits to overcome the spread of the Christian faith in the Empire. Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. i. 16) gives further details: Helena was in reality, Simon claimed, the mother of all the angelic orders, but when she came under the bondage of her own progeny he had become incarnate to free her, and to bring all men to faith in himself.

These accounts show obvious perversions of orthodox Christology. Hippolytus and Epiphanius also testify to these claims of Simon from their knowledge of Simonian writings, and Jerome quotes as Simon’s the sayings: “I am the Word of God, I am the Comforter, I am the Almighty, I am all there is of God.” This is borne out by other traditions, perhaps deriving from Justin, that Simon evolved his own trinitarian formula. He was said to have revealed himself in Samaria as the Father, among the Jews as the Son, and among the Gentiles as the Holy Spirit. Simon is thus portrayed as the heretic par excellence of the subapostolic age. Eusebius (Eccl. Hist. ii. 13. 1ff.) sums it up by declaring Simon to be the author of all heresy.

In another stream of lit., the Clementine “Homilies” and “Recognitions” (romances of the mid-2nd cent. about the search of Clement, a Rom., after the truth) Simon emerges as the antagonist of the Apostle Peter. First he is linked with John the Baptist, together with another heretic Dositheus, and is said to have learned his craft at Alexandria. Prolonged arguments between Peter and Simon are reported, and clashes between them at Caesarea and Antioch. In fact, the apostle is said to have devoted himself to undoing the havoc caused by Simon in numerous places. These encounters appear in other forms in the gnostic writings “Acts” and “Acts of Peter and Paul,” with Rome as the center of the conflict, and Peter finally conquers the heretic, who dies and fails to rise again.

To what extent can one link the Simon of Acts 8 with the central figure of these legends, and with the Simonian sect? In the 19th cent. Ger. scholars of the Tübingen school interpreted the post-Biblical lit., particularly the Clementine romances, in such a way as to exaggerate greatly the cleavage between Peter and Paul and their followers in the Early Church, and thus to cast serious doubt on the historicity of many incidents in Acts, the story of Simon Magus among them. However, it is now generally accepted that Luke’s account is perfectly reliable. Simon’s cult in Samaria may well have been the seed of the later aberrations of the Simoniani. How much actually stemmed from the historical Simon’s travels and teachings will perhaps never be known. The cult became part of wider 2nd-cent. Gnosticism, and no doubt the Church Fathers tended to ascribe too much to Simon himself. He became the arch-symbol of heresy.

The impression from the patristic evidence is that a real dread existed in the Church at the repulsiveness of these deviations from the apostolic doctrine of Christ. This impression is closely akin to the spirit of Luke’s account in the Acts of the early encounters with Satan and his instruments of evil. But, in the Acts, as in Luke’s gospel, there is the certainty of a continuing victory for Christ and His Church. Origen was accordingly able to say in the 3rd cent. that the Simoniani had dwindled to insignificant numbers (Contr. Cels. i. 57).

Bibliography J. E. Roberts, HDAC II (1918), 493-498; R. P. Casey, BC V (1933), 151-163; A. D. Nock, ibid. 164-188; R. M. Grant, Miracle and Natural Law in Graeco-Roman and Christian Thought (1952), Ch. 7; Gnosticism and Early Christianity (1960), Ch. 3.