What's in a Name ? Simon : The Social Context

[mbuckley3]

Posts based on tenuous evidence are not unknown on this forum, but this is a necessarily speculative attempt to grasp some of the intangible influences on the literary tradition. Methodological rigour is not claimed. Rather, as John Moles wrote in another context, "..because the evidence is so defective, there comes a point where we must employ the principle 'ben trovato'."☆

The case in point is the partial erasure of Simon in the figure of Simon Peter.

Kirsopp Lake, in his commentary on Acts 10.5 : "Peter is mentioned 56 times in Acts i.-xv., but he is called 'Simon surnamed Peter' only in this verse and in x.18, x.32, and xi.13. In xv.14, in the speech of James, he is called Symeon. In Mark he is called Simon in the three first chapters until the list of the apostles is given, where it is stated that Jesus gave him the additional name of Peter. After that he is called Peter, except in the garden of Gethsemane where 'Simon' is used. The same general usage is found in Matthew and Luke, but John uses 'Peter' and 'Simon Peter' equally, and on no distinguishable plan."

Paul has no Simon; indeed Peter only appears in Gal.2.7ff, where it is by no means clear that Peter and Cephas are identical. Mark has no Cephas; regarding the renaming of Simon at 3.16, "the text..is remarkably clumsy, and if there were any evidence one might suspect that the words και...Σιμωνι were an interpolation."* It is John 1.42 which conflates Simon, Peter and Cephas. In the list of apostles in the C2 Epistula Apostolorum, Cephas survives as a separate figure from Peter, but there is no Simon.

The easy explanation for this tendency in the texts as we have them is that in a C2 context the identification by Justin and Irenaeus of Simon Magus as the fount of all heresy entailed that there be no confusion between two Simons. However, that rather begs the question : why, given all the possible candidates, was 'Simon' chosen for this role ? Were there connotations in the name which suggested this choice ?

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According to Tal Ilan,** going by the archaeological and literary evidence, Simon was the most popular name of non-fictional males in Palestine in the period 330BC-200AD. By her criteria of statistical validity, there were 234 individuals of that name out of a total of 2509. There was no decline in its popularity over time.

Ilan classifies Simon as a biblical-Hebrew name, which of course it is (son of Jacob). However, independently, Simon was also a Greek name.

Xenophon, On Horsemanship 1.1, refers to a Simon who wrote a similar treatise. Aristophanes, Knights 242, has Simon, a cavalryman, as a member of the chorus. Diogenes Laertius 2.122-124 lists four notable Simons : an associate of Socrates, a writer of rhetorical treatises, a doctor and a sculptor. Aristotle's will names a servant Simon as a beneficiary (Diogenes Laertius 5.15). The online Lexicon of Greek Personal Names lists 221 Simons, mostly from inscriptional evidence, from a wide area, mostly BC or early AD. Only 14 are positively identified as Jewish.

It is in the wider, Greek-speaking world that we indeed find that the name Simon had particular connotations, both positive and negative.

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Firstly, the negative. The Telchines, the skilled artificers of mythology, first appear with a bad reputation in Callimachus, C3BC; 'Aetia' frag.75 styles them as magicians/γοητας. By the C1BC, the vocabulary was consistent.

Diodorus Siculus 5.55 : "..and men say that the Telchines were also magicians [γοητες] and could summon clouds and rain and hail at their will, and likewise could even bring snow. These things, the accounts tell us, they could do even as could the Magi [τους μαγους] ; and they could also change their natural shapes, and were hostile [φθονερους] to teaching their arts to others."

Nicolaus of Damascus, HGM p.147 (Dindorf) : "They were exceedingly maleficent and hostile [βασκανοι τε σφοδρα ησαν και φθονεροι]."

Strabo 14.2.7 : "Some say that the Telchines are sorcerers and magicians [βασκανους και γοητας] who pour the water of the Styx mixed with sulphur upon animals and plants in order to destroy them. But others, on the contrary, say that since they excelled in workmanship they were maligned [βασκανθηναι] by rival workmen and thus received their bad reputation."

Here we see Strabo eliding obscure mythographic lore with current popular superstition. So again at 10.3.7, discussing a plethora of sources which conflate the Telchines with the Corybantes, Dactyli etc, he reads the sources as referring to 'enthusiastic' cults in Greece and Asia Minor in current times. These (self-styled ?) Telchines and their ilk are "inspired individuals, Bacchants" who "in the guise of ministers [εν σχηματι διακονων] inspire terror at the celebration of the sacred rites" with musical 'special effects'.

These contemporary references add (necessary) weight to the credibility of what, as far as I can find, is the one pre-medieval text linking 'Simon' to the Telchines. Fortunately, it does not derive from the fanciful genealogies of a mythographer's handbook, known only to literati, but from what is listed as a popular proverb.

If the Suda can be trusted, Zenobius' Epitome of Proverbs is a C2 work, drawing on previous collections. At 5.41 :

" 'I know Simon and Simon [knows] me' / οιδα Σιμωνα και Σιμων εμε :
The Telchines were by nature maleficent/sorcerers [βασκανων]; they made the land barren by soaking it with water from the Styx. There were two leaders, Simon and Nikon. Simon prevailed as being most malignant, so that he blotted out the renown of Nikon. Thus the coiners of proverbs only name Simon.The proverb refers to those combining upon evil."

In other words, claiming to be an associate of Simon is a coded claim to have magical powers.

It is only a single piece of evidence, but it is superbly explanatory. If, at 'ground level', among some or many, the name Simon had connotations of (non-benign) magic, Simon the Samarian was the obvious choice for the anachronistic role of source of all heresy, with concomitant immorality and illegality. Logically, after all, Nicolas, one of The Seven appointed by the apostles (Acts 6), alleged founder (Irenaeus AH 1.26) of the Nicolaitans condemned in Revelation 2, was a more likely candidate. But while the Nicolaitans get their share of abuse, they are not accorded any structural significance.


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Secondly, there was a relevant positive connotation to the name which would have helped keep it in use in Christian circles. Here we turn to the Cynics, in their claim to be the true heirs of Socrates.

As regards the 'historical Jesus', "the reaction to the 'Cynic hypothesis' is itself an interesting chapter of scholarship on Christian origins, since the vehemence with which the hypothesis was attacked verged on exorcism" (John Kloppenborg★). Once focus turns away from the C1, the aftermath has been much more positive. In her recent, decidedly conservative, survey◆, the classicist Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé notes both that "Cynic heroes continued to be admired, even in Christian circles" (Clement of Alexandria, Origen) for their asceticism with moral purpose; and that Clement, Origen and Theophilus of Antioch show a knowledge of Cynic literature/florilegia. Then comes Eusebius, with his extensive quotation of the C2/C3 Charlatans Exposed, by the Cynic Oenomaus of Gadara. Thus it's reasonable to bring a Cynic literary hero into focus.

Simon the σκυτοτομος/shoemaker/leather-worker gets that brief chapter (not as a Cynic) in C3 Diogenes Laertius (2.122-124). "When Socrates came to his workshop and began to converse, he used to make notes of all that he could remember." Listed are 33 dialogues, "extant in a single volume". Pericles offered to sponsor him as part of his entourage, but got the reply, "I will not part with my free speech [παρρησιαν] for money".

At the very start of his Philosophers and Princes (Moralia 776B), C1-C2 Plutarch : the ruler needing advice should say to the philosopher, "Let me change from Pericles or Cato and become Simon the shoemaker or Dionysius the schoolteacher in order that you might sit down and converse with me, as Socrates did with them." Notable here is that the audience is expected to be as familiar with Simon as with Pericles and Cato.

These scraps are an epiphenomenon, traces of debates between Cynics where early Socratics, whether actual or (as Simon) probably fictional, were appropriated to define 'true' Cynicism. This becomes apparent in the Socratic Epistles¤, whose Plutarchan verbal echoes suggest a C2/C3 dating.

Ep.8-13 deal with the topic of whether philosophers should 'sell out' and work with rulers, with the βασιλικος κυων/royal Cynic/royal poodle● Aristippus set against the 'rigorist' Antisthenes. Simon is co-opted onto Antisthenes' side; his trade allows him to achieve the Cynic ideals of αυταρκεια/self-sufficiency and παρρησια/freedom of speech.

Ep.9, Aristippus to Antisthenes, ends : "With regard to the other things, go to Simon the shoemaker, in whom you have someone who is greater in wisdom than anyone ever was or will be, and converse with him."

Ep.12, Simon to Aristippus : "I admit that I am a shoemaker...I would, if it were necessary, cut straps once more for the purpose of admonishing foolish men who think that they are living according to the teaching of Socrates when they are living in great luxury."

Ep.13, Aristippus to Simon : "No, I do admire and praise you, since, though you are but a shoemaker, you are filled with wisdom and used to persuade Socrates and the most handsome and noble youths to sit with you..and the men of public affairs..including Pericles." (The praise is then undercut by Aristippus joking that the policy of the barefoot Antisthenes will bankrupt Simon..).

Ep.18, Xenophon to the friends of Socrates : "Greet Simon the Shoemaker and commend him, because he continues to devote himself to the teachings of Socrates and uses neither his poverty nor his trade as a pretext for not doing philosophy, as certain others do who do not want to understand fully or to admire Socrates' teachings and their contents."

At least to judge by the quality of Aristippus' jokes, the writer of Ep.8-13 was not inclined to the 'rigorist' tendency. Nevertheless, Simon is accorded the respect his promoters desired. For them, he was indeed the True Disciple.


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Appendix : While this post concerns Simon Peter, the influence of the figure of Simon the shoemaker on the Pauline tradition is also a reasonable inference. At 1Cor.4.12, in the middle of a very Cynic-seeming passage, Paul claims to work with his own hands. Acts 18.4 claims he was a σκηνοποιος, literally a tent-maker, although Kirsopp Lake in his commentary argued from the patristic evidence that the actual meaning was leather-worker, a view which has found wide acceptance. The pertinent question is not whether this is factual; rather, why was it thought to be a necessary part of the portrait ?


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☆ 'Cynic Cosmopolitanism', in 'The Cynics', ed. Branham & Goulet-Cazé, 1996, p.106
* Lake, 'Simon, Cephas, Peter', HTR 14.1, 1921, p.95
** 'Lexicon of Jewish Names in Antiquity, Part I, Palestine 330 BCE-200 CE', 2002
★ In his preface to :
◆ 'Cynicism and Christianity', ET 2019, French original 2015
¤ Accessed in : 'The Cynic Epistles, A Study Edition', ed. A.J. Malherbe, 1977, pp.217-307
● Diogenes' jibe, according to Diogenes Laertius 2.66


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Postscript : It is only fair to offer thanks to forum contributors : Ben Smith first alerted me to Zenobius; Stephen Goranson made me aware of Tal Ilan's book; Neil Godfrey, on his Vridar site, introduced me to the work of John Moles.

[neilgodfrey]

Finally --- a post that gives me an excuse to post some tidbits I've had on the shelf for a long time now. Do with them what you will:

Simon = Ear/hearing:

Was Simon a pun on the meaning of "hear" -- as in "if you have ears to hear, hear...." I've long considered such a thought a lost orphan but then I saw something in a book on Judean coins: ears were icons on some of them; hearing was the message, as in "the god hears". Meshorer says it was a common pagan icon, too, to depict a good god who listened to prayers. But the coin discussed in A Treasury of Jewish Coins is from the mid fourth century -- a little before the time of Jesus.

Screen Shot 2022-10-29 at 5.57.05 pm.png (57.93 KiB) Viewed 284 times

Simon = The Divine Name:

It has been (controversially) suggested that Simon was a pun on "The Name", ha-shem, the name of God. Pétrement, in Separate God, alerted me to this one:

It is even more difficult to believe that Simon claimed to be God the Father. It has been noted in this respect that there is some resemblance between the name Simon and one of the names by which God was referred to.6 This might explain the fact that, according to Justin (Apol. I 26), almost all the Samaritans worshiped Simon as the supreme God, which would otherwise be astonishing, even if one allowed that he was deeply venerated by his disciples. (p 235)

So off I went chasing down the first footnote which led me to Kretschmar's Zur religionsgeschichtlichen Einordnung der Gnosis in a 1953 issue of Evangelische Theologie:

Ap. I 26, 3. The reliability of this information has often been doubted and Justin may have exaggerated. But the assumption of A. H. Goldfahn in 'Justinus Martyr and the Agada' MGWJ 22 (1873), p. 195, that there was simply a confusion between 'Simon' and שימא (Hebrew השם), the paraphrase of the tetragram, is also not very convincing. Conversely, attempts have been made to show the influence of Simon in the Samaritan liturgy, cf. note 18. Recently, P. R. Weis in 'Some Samaritanisms of Justin Martyr', JThSt 45 (1944), p. 200, note 2, drew attention to a curious note in the introduction to Ibn Eisra's commentary on Esther. There it says that the Samaritans replaced the name of God Elohim in Gen. 1, 1 by the name of their idol אשימא. Behind this, of course, is 2 Kg. 17, 30, but there must also be an actual Samaritan custom. To see this as an after-effect of Simon, a possibility that Weis obviously reckons with, seems somewhat problematic to me. Should the Samaritans have sometimes used שימא to describe 'Elohim'? Of course, this could have been misunderstood by a Jew like Ibn Ezra.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Two more footnotes to track down from there:

Weis:

See I Apol., sub initio. Cp. also Dial. cxx. 6 where Justin says : ούδε yap cltto τον γένους του έμοΰ, λέγω δε των Σαμαριών. Scholars, however, are inclined to take γένους figuratively. His charge there against the Samaritans (and similarly in I Apol. xxxiv, lxxiii) : δν (Σίμωνα) θεάν ύπεράνω πάαης άρχήϊ και έξουσίας και δυνάμεως είναι λεγουσιν was explained by A. H. Goldfahn (‘Justinus Martyr und die Agada’, M.G.W.J., 1873, p. 195) as resting on a confusion between Simon and שימא (Hebr. השם ), the Name which the Samaritanssubstituted for the Tetragrammaton so as to avoid its pronunciation. He failed, however, to point out that the same accusation was made against them by the Jews. Ibn Ezra in the introduction to his commentary on Esther says tha t the Samaritans substituted fo r א ל הי ם in Gen. i. 1 the name of their idol אשימא (i.e. 2 , אשימה Kings x v ii. 30). . . .

finally, the one who started it all, Goldfahn, is in the Fraktur font -- if you have access to Jstor it is at https://www.jstor.org/stable/44654834

But the real doozey is Riegel and Jordan's' book, beginning from page 98 https://archive.org/details/simonsonofmanco00rieg/page/98/mode/2up

[MrMacSon]

Yeah, 'Simon' requires some discussion; maybe even beyond the notable issue of the partial erasure of Simon in the figure of Simon Peter (which th eOP does well)

I'm gonna start with a selection and re-ordering of some points in the OP (for my own contemplation):

Paul has no Simon; indeed Peter only appears in Gal.2.7ff, where it is by no means clear that Peter and Cephas are identical.

Mark has no Cephas; regarding the renaming of Simon at 3.16, "the text...is remarkably clumsy, and if there were any evidence one might suspect that the words και...Σιμωνι were an interpolation" [Lake, 'Simon, Cephas, Peter', HTR 14.1, 1921, p.95]

In Mark he is called Simon in the three first chapters until the list of the apostles is given, where...Jesus gave him the additional name of Peter. After that he is called Peter, except in the garden of Gethsemane where 'Simon' is used. The same general usage is found in Matthew and Luke, but John uses 'Peter' and 'Simon Peter' equally, and on no distinguishable plan."

John 1.42 conflates Simon, Peter and Cephas.

Kirsopp Lake, in his commentary on Acts 10.5 : "Peter is mentioned 56 times in Acts i.-xv., but he is called 'Simon surnamed Peter' only in this verse [Acts 10.5]; and, in x.18, x.32, and xi.13. In xv.14, in the speech of James, he is called Symeon.

In the list of apostles in the C2 Epistula Apostolorum, Cephas survives as a separate figure from Peter, but there is no Simon.

The easy explanation for this tendency in the texts as we have them is that, in a C2 context, the identification by Justin and Irenaeus of Simon Magus as the fount of all heresy entailed that there be no confusion between two Simons. However, that rather begs the question : why, given all the possible candidates, was 'Simon' chosen for this role ? Were there connotations in the name which suggested this choice ?

■■■■■

Tal Ilan classifies Simon as a biblical-Hebrew name, which of course it is (son of Jacob). However, independently, Simon was also a Greek name.

Xenophon, On Horsemanship 1.1, refers to a Simon who wrote a similar treatise. Aristophanes, Knights 242, has Simon, a cavalryman, as a member of the chorus. Diogenes Laertius 2.122-124 lists four notable Simons : an associate of Socrates, a writer of rhetorical treatises, a doctor and a sculptor. Aristotle's will names a servant Simon as a beneficiary (Diogenes Laertius 5.15). The online Lexicon of Greek Personal Names lists 221 Simons, mostly from inscriptional evidence, from a wide area, mostly BC or early AD. Only 14 are positively identified as Jewish.

It is in the wider, Greek-speaking world that we indeed find that the name Simon had particular connotations, both positive and negative.

■■■■■

... The Telchines, the skilled artificers of mythology, first appear with a bad reputation in Callimachus, C3BC; 'Aetia' frag.75 styles them as magicians/γοητας. By the C1BC, the vocabulary was consistent.

Diodorus Siculus 5.55 : "..and men say that the Telchines were also magicians [γοητες] and could summon clouds and rain and hail at their will, and likewise could even bring snow. These things, the accounts tell us, they could do even as could the Magi [τους μαγους] ...

The Telchines were by nature maleficent/sorcerers [βασκανων]; they made the land barren by soaking it with water from the Styx. There were two leaders, Simon and Nikon. Simon prevailed as being most malignant, so that he blotted out the renown of Nikon. Thus the coiners of proverbs only name Simon.The proverb refers to those combining upon evil."

In other words, claiming to be an associate of Simon is a coded claim to have magical powers.

■■■■■

In her recent, decidedly conservative, survey◆, the classicist Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé notes both that "Cynic heroes continued to be admired, even in Christian circles" (Clement of Alexandria, Origen) for their asceticism with moral purpose; and that Clement, Origen and Theophilus of Antioch show a knowledge of Cynic literature/florilegia. Then comes Eusebius, with his extensive quotation of the C2/C3 Charlatans Exposed, by the Cynic Oenomaus of Gadara. Thus, it's reasonable to bring a Cynic literary hero into focus.

◆ 'Cynicism and Christianity', ET 2019, French original 2015

Simon the σκυτοτομος/shoemaker/leather-worker gets that brief chapter (not as a Cynic) in C3 Diogenes Laertius (2.122-124). "When Socrates came to his workshop and began to converse, he used to make notes of all that he could remember." Listed are 33 dialogues, "extant in a single volume". Pericles offered to sponsor him as part of his entourage, but got the reply, "I will not part with my free speech [παρρησιαν] for money".

At the very start of his Philosophers and Princes (Moralia 776B), C1-C2 Plutarch : the ruler needing advice should say to the philosopher, "Let me change from Pericles or Cato and become Simon the shoemaker or Dionysius the schoolteacher in order that you might sit down and converse with me, as Socrates did with them." Notable here is that the audience is expected to be as familiar with Simon as with Pericles and Cato.

These scraps are an epiphenomenon, traces of debates between Cynics where early Socratics, whether actual or (as Simon) probably fictional, were appropriated to define 'true' Cynicism. This becomes apparent in the Socratic Epistles¤, whose Plutarchan verbal echoes suggest a C2/C3 dating.

< . . omitted . . >

Ep.18, Xenophon to the friends of Socrates : "Greet Simon the Shoemaker and commend him, because he continues to devote himself to the teachings of Socrates and uses neither his poverty nor his trade as a pretext for not doing philosophy, as certain others do who do not want to understand fully or to admire Socrates' teachings and their contents."

At least to judge by the quality of Aristippus' jokes, the writer of Ep.8-13 was not inclined to the 'rigorist' tendency. Nevertheless, Simon is accorded the respect his promoters desired. For them, he was indeed the True Disciple.

■■■■■

Appendix : While this post concerns Simon Peter, the influence of the figure of Simon the shoemaker on the Pauline tradition is also a reasonable inference. At 1Cor.4.12, in the middle of a very Cynic-seeming passage, Paul claims to work with his own hands. Acts 18.4 claims he was a σκηνοποιος, literally a tent-maker, although Kirsopp Lake in his commentary argued from the patristic evidence that the actual meaning was leather-worker, a view which has found wide acceptance.

The pertinent question is not whether this is factual; rather, why was it thought to be a necessary part of the portrait ?

I think the NT subsumes a lot of non-Jewish characters or concepts : that it uses NT characters to do so : to overtake as many avenues of the empire as possible : philosophies and their representatives