Simon Magus = Marcion: Who has suggested this?

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davidmartin
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Re: Simon Magus = Marcion: Who has suggested this?

Post by davidmartin »

Come on on Leucius, historicity in this minefield? :)
All we know is he claimed to be Christ after the widely believed date of the crucifixion and his followers didn't immediately disappear
For all we know Simon was the historical Jesus but what does that mean, it's not as if we can 'imagine' this Simon since his character we are familiar with comes from his opponents
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: Simon Magus = Marcion: Who has suggested this?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

davidmartin wrote: Tue Oct 11, 2022 1:03 am Come on on Leucius, historicity in this minefield? :)
It appears that Neil is considering the question of the historicity of Simon Magus. In his recent article he explores (with suitable caveats) the possibility that the author of Acts has borrowed material about Simon Magus from Justin. That's novel.

Trying to make sense of Simon Magus (Vridar)
https://vridar.org/2022/04/07/trying-to ... mon-magus/

///

I think it is more likely that the Simon Magus that Justin knew came first and that this was the Simon Magus known to the author of Acts. The Simon Magus of Acts followed knowledge of the Simon we find in Justin’s First Apology. Later we encounter more lurid mythical accounts of this Simon as he attempts to take on Peter in miracle-working contests but we’ll leave those stories for another discussion.

Our canonical author chose not to confront Simon’s followers in his own day with the image of Justin’s devilish figure. In Acts he appears to be doomed to a certain fate but at the same time there is room for a change of heart and that, I suspect, was enough in the author’s mind to leave a door open for even Simonian followers to be “restored” to the “right faith”.

We are discussing sources that were written in the second century or 90 to 120 years after the time of emperor Claudius in which they placed Simon Magus. Was he a historical figure? Without “hard evidence” we cannot be certain. As I mentioned in the opening I have always held Simon Magus at arm’s length, as something of a curiosity that I was never quite sure how to handle. Nonetheless, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, his historicity does have some explanatory power. “Church Fathers” did address “Simonian heresies” that adherents traced back to Simon and it does appear that Justin and the author of Acts treated him as having had a real history.

///

Later we encounter more lurid mythical accounts of this Simon as he attempts to take on Peter in miracle-working contests but we’ll leave those stories for another discussion.

As mentioned immediately above, the material from the NT apocryphal literature (Acts of Peter, Clementina, etc) is not addressed here but IMO definitely should be brought into the discussion at some stage.

The authorship date for the Acts of Peter is given at ECW as 150-200 CE. So we have c.150 CE a three way overlap between these sources for Simon Magus

1) NT canonical literature (Acts)
2) NT apocryphal literature (Acts of Peter)
3) Heresiological literature (Saint Justin)

Questioning historicity in this minefield is a valid warning. Nevertheless trying to make sense of Simon Magus is a worthwhile endeavor. At the end of the day the historicity (or otherwise) of Simon Magus needs to be assessed.
davidmartin
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Re: Simon Magus = Marcion: Who has suggested this?

Post by davidmartin »

ok, but if it's argued he really existed he also has to be considered a potential Jesus candidate at the same time?
Acts says he claimed to be the messiah but takes pains to place him after the crucifixion, but that assumes the dates are accurate, what if they are not? we are only talking about 15 years
The interesting thing in Acts is the reference to his 'thought' which is an allusion to Helena as a personification of the Holy Spirit I think this gives a clue to the theology of the Simonians around the time Acts was written. The similarities to Mary Magdalene are striking. Then there is the mysterious visit of Jesus to Tyre where he meets a woman, the same place Simon is supposed to have encountered Helena

I just wonder if there was such a gulf between the 'actual events' and early 2nd century orthodoxy that they were able to separate Simon off from Jesus even though they were the same historical person? But it is still anachronistic to suggest Simon = Jesus because so little is known about either of them does it even make sense to say that? All it would mean with certainty is there was disagreement on who Jesus was and a caricature Jesus got created just for purposes of separating one person's idea of him from another's and it ended up they were totally different people
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Simon Magus = Marcion: Who has suggested this?

Post by neilgodfrey »

Leucius Charinus wrote: Sun Oct 09, 2022 5:47 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 7:08 pm Can anyone direct me to works that have raised the possibility that Simon Magus was a cipher for, or in some way confused with, Marcion?
Has anyone written "On the Historicity of Simon Magus"?

Was Simon was a purely literary creation?

Or did Simon Magus "appear in the flesh" as an historical figure?
The idea that Simon Magus did not exist but was a caricature of Paul goes back to good old Ferdinand Christian Baur.

Simone Pétrement in A Separate God (the book I was reading that prompted this thread) raises the question -- pages 236-239.

After all, what reasons are there for holding that Simon existed other than in the legend and as the mask of another person? F. Chr. Baur judged that he was never anything but a caricature of Paul. The main reason for believing in his existence is doubtless that by the first century Simon was known to Luke, the author of the Acts of the Apostles, and that Luke's description does not seem to be applicable to Paul. Luke describes a Samaritan magician who, converted by Philip, had tried to buy the power of giving the Holy Spirit from the apostles. How could this story have been invented if it referred to Paul? It seems impossible, and yet, when one thinks about it, one notices at least a number of features in this description that could have been applied to Paul by those who opposed him. Was Simon a Samaritan? But for the Jews "Samaritan" was synonymous with heretic or sinner. In the Fourth Gospel Christ is treated as a Samaritan by his enemies (8:48). Was Simon a magician? Paul, who performed miracles, could have been thought of as a magician, just as Christ was. Did Simon wish to buy the right of giving the Holy Spirit? This may mean that he wished to be the head of his Church and to be able to put new converts in the way of receiving the Spirit, without having to refer to Jerusalem every time. He may have promised in exchange to send his gifts to the "poor" (ebionim), as the Jewish-Christian community at Jerusalem called itself. This is exactly what Paul did. Was there a disagreement between Simon and Peter? But there was also a disagreement between Peter and Paul, though on a different subject (Gal. 2:1114). Was Simon converted by Philip, whereas Philip does not seem to have played any role in Paul's conversion? Philip was a "Hellenist," as Ananias, who introduced Paul into the Christian community at Damascus, probably was, to and as the Christians at Antioch among whom Paul must have received instruction in Christianity were. (These Christians had in fact left Jerusalem at the time of the persecution against the Hellenists.) After Stephen's death Philip was perhaps the most well known of the Hellenists, and conversions could have been attributed to him that were the work of his group.

Certainly, if Philip himself told Luke that he had baptized Simon, Luke could not be mistaken on this point and Simon definitely existed. But is it certain that Luke owes this account to Philip? It is simply a possibility.

I realize that these suspicions go too far. But the resemblance between the accusation implied in the account about Simon in Acts, the accusation of having wished to buy the right to give the Holy Spirit, and the promise made by Paul to send money to the ebionim-this promise being part of the agreement whereby Paul was left at liberty to organize his Churches as he wished (Gal. 2:10), and among the rights Paul exercised was the imposition of hands to bring about participation in the Spirit (Acts 19:6)-this resemblance leads one to ask if the confusion of Simon with Paul is not found already in the account of Acts. . . .

Reasons can nevertheless be found for believing in Simon's existence. First his name: how did he come to be called Simon? Could the Simonians referred to by the heresiologists have only got their name from a fictional character whom they simply knew from Acts? Moreover, Justin and the Clementine works mention his place of birth. If Justin was the only one to give this detail, one might ask if it is worth more than what he says about the statue he thought to be of Simon and which was in fact that of Semo Sancus. This error would never have been suspected if the statue had not been rediscovered. But the agreements between the two traditions seem to give them a certain value (even though it is not impossible that one of them is drawn from the other, or that they come from a common legendary source).

But to doubt Simon's existence is perhaps to push skepticism too far. It is doubtless easier to think that he existed.

Given that he existed, what do we know about him and especially about his doctrine? . . . .

We therefore think it possible that Simon, if he existed, was of a schismatic tendency rather than a heresiarch properly speaking.

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Re: Simon Magus = Marcion: Who has suggested this?

Post by yakovzutolmai »

Sorry, it's not the answer you're seeking, but I will add my narrative's contribution to the question.

I have identified Simon Magus as a high priest Simon of the Boethus family, probably Cantheras (Simon II) if we want to call this person the Samaritan Prophet of Josephus. Otherwise Simon Boethus the HIgh Priest of Herod.

My reasons for this identification have to do with the views of the Simonians, whose bizarre 200ft tall Simon-as-Christ and consort of Helena reminds me of a crass interpretation of Egypt's theology about the esoteric identity of the high priest transposed into Judaism/Samaritanism. This fits with Simon Magus's clear identification as an Egyptian magician.

The political environment for Herod when he appointed Simon was that he had spent the kingdom and the temple's money. We see that later, the prince of Assyria is paying silk road tax to Rome through Herod, a deal finalized with the trading of Parthian hostages for Roman Aquilae by Augustus around 20BC. The source for this is a reading of Moses of Chorene, whose description of Arsham fits the historical circumstances of Tiridates of Parthia, the usurper who kidnapped the hostage princes. We would interpret this to mean that Herod's erstwhile money troubles were eventually resolved.

So, for a brief period, Herod would need money. Here, a speculative but reasonable hypothesis is that the marriages to "Cleopatra of Jerusalem" and "Mariamne Boethus" had something to do with this. Boethus's father is later made High Priest, a rather extraordinary thing to do, and in a context where there had only recently been a dearth of Hasmoneans to fill the role. The consensus hypothesis is that he had the hots for Mary but the marriage was untenable unless her family's position was raised, so Boethus was made High Priest for this purpose. Actually, this is Josephus's explanation and I do believe that Josephus's history is designed to deliberately conceal a particular narrative which would be the reality of what happened with the Jewish War and what you might call the true history of Christian origins. In general, the idea is to isolate Jews and Herodians from embarrassment and association with certain factions.

In this nexus of hypotheses, I perceive that there is an unaccounted for Egyptian temple faction. The Oniad temple would have its own treasury, and its High Priest has the sort of antiquity and lineage which only the Hasmoneans possessed previously. The juxtaposition of Maccabee and Oniad parallels the Talmudic juxtaposition of Sadducee and Boethusian, and so I have assumed the Boethusians might be Oniads. Two supporting reasons: one, "House of Onias" is Beit Honniyo, which becomes Bethaniyah or Baytos (Boethus), pseudonymically. Second, that the patron of Ptolemy IV who might have worked with the Oniads when they built their temple was a Boethus. I assume there was a quite deliberate adoption of this patron's name both as an honorific but also for the linguistic convenience of the name being a reasonable transliteration of the Hebrew name.

If Boethus is the Oniad High Priest, that makes him a prime candidate for a prominent Egyptian with relevance to anti-Sadducee Jewish fundamentalists. It also means he has money which provides a better explanation for Herod's marriage to his daughter and use of him to replace the Hasmoneans at the Jerusalem temple.

In the end, if Simon Boethus is Simon Magus, the impostor Egyptian magician high priest, then we have him gaining the position by offering his family's wealth to Herod. He purchases his station, a precursor narrative to that of Simon Magus and Marcion.

Thus, the legend of Marcion, in my opinion, comes from people who were once patronized by Marcion (happy to take his money, in what we might call a gospel writing roundtable, Rome 135). Now seeking to assert their authority over his, they discredit him using a commonly known villain. Simon Magus, not yet the character of Acts, but rather the Egyptian false priest who bought his station, the champion of the Simonians and one predecessor to the defunct James sect.

While I think the Pauline doctrines are derived from the cosmopolitan Jews who allied with Herodians and briefly held sway over the Flavian household (these doctrines being very Aesclipian in part due to the silphium trade being a major reason for a Jewish diaspora in Asia), I have heard brilliant arguments placing the generation of the Pauline literature around Cyprus, among the last Herodians, shortly after the Kitos War. In my own narrative, it would be that this Pauline literature is a reaction to the Kitos War, which I interpret as a forgotten last gasp of the James cult's version of Christianity.

So, the villain of Magus is a key element of the Pauline perspective. You have 115-135, a solid intellectual generation, for the Kitos War to paint Jamesian and Simonian ideas as wicked.

Thus, the archetype of Simon Magus is employed by the Roman Christians to discredit Marcion and drive him from town. In later reckoning, he wanted to "purchase" the "Papacy". Clearly anachronistic.
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MrMacSon
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Re: Simon Magus = Marcion: Who has suggested this?

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from A Separate God, pp.234-5:


Almost all the ideas attributed to Simon by the heresiologists have links with those of Saint Paul. We have seen that the myth of the Mother can be understood on the basis of some of Paul's ideas. There is even more of a link between the Simonian doctrine of salvation, as Irenaeus describes it, and the Pauline doctrine. According to Irenaeus, the angels whom Simon had spoken of were not simply powers dominating the world, they were also the authors of the Law. This is why Simon's disciples did not have to obey the Law, but had to think of themselves as free to do what they wished, ut liberos agere quae velint. And Irenaeus adds: Secundum enim ipsius gratiam salvari homines, sed non secundum operas justas, "for men are saved by grace and not by just works" (Adv. haer. I,23, 3). This is, in a sense, the Pauline doctrine, with the exception that for Paul one is saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. Must it therefore be held that Simon claimed to save by his own grace? This claim is not very likely, especially since in Irenaeus's account characteristics are attributed to Simon that are manifestly those of Christ ...

... one can suppose that it was [Simon's] disciples who placed him on the same level as Christ, rather than that he placed himself there ...

... Some of the Pseudo-Clementine works show that in certain Jewish-Christian circles the name of Simon could cover that of Paul. The latter was attacked under the name of Simon. In some parts of the Clementine novel, Simon represents Paul; in others, he represents Marcion, who wished to be a disciple of Paul.

This leads us to ask whether the confusion of Simon with Paul (and sometimes with Marcion) is not also found in Irenaeus. On the subject of Irenaeus's account, R. M. Grant has written:

Does all this information really refer to the Simonians or does it come from Ebionites who used the figure of Simon in order to attack Paul? Strange though it may seem, such use [of the figure of Simon] is actually found in the Clementine Homilies and Recognitions and in their sources, which go back to the second century. And we must regretfully add that Irenaeus seems to be acquainted with something like these sources when he tells us that, after the incident described in Acts, Simon "eagerly proceeded to contend with the apostles." In other words, are parts of his account of Simonianism simply derived from Ebionite attacks on Paul? No certainty is attainable, but to me it appears more likely that the Simonians actually were radical Paulinists, at least in some measure, and that at a later point the Ebionites recognized this fact and attacked Paul through Simon.

Thus, for Grant it is likely that the doctrine Irenaeus attributes to Simon was in fact taught in the Simonian School; but that it was there because in fact Simonianism was a radical Paulinism.


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Re: Simon Magus = Marcion: Who has suggested this?

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yakovzutolmai wrote: Thu Oct 13, 2022 9:32 pm. . . I have heard brilliant arguments placing the generation of the Pauline literature around Cyprus, among the last Herodians, shortly after the Kitos War. In my own narrative, it would be that this Pauline literature is a reaction to the Kitos War, which I interpret as a forgotten last gasp of the James cult's version of Christianity.

So, the villain of Magus is a key element of the Pauline perspective. You have 115-135, a solid intellectual generation, for the Kitos War to paint Jamesian and Simonian ideas as wicked.
Can you point me to what you consider to be the better sources for these Kitos War connections?
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MrMacSon
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Re: Simon Magus = Marcion: Who has suggested this?

Post by MrMacSon »

from A Separate God

p.245:


3. How Justin's Image of Simon Can Be Explained
....< . . omitted . . >
Although a Samaritan, Justin seems to have known little from a tradition derived directly from the Simonians, or even from the traditions preserved in Samaria. Most of what he says about Simon he draws from the Acts of the Apostles.18 ...

... he says that almost all the Samaritans held Simon as the first God ...

... there are differences between what he says about Helen and what the pseudo-Clementines say about her.
Even so far as Simon is concerned, there are differences, for the pseudo-Clementines depict him less as claiming to be a god than as claiming to be the Savior. But if Justin knew other traditions than the authors of the Clementine novel ...

And finally, what exactly does Justin say? First he says (Apol. I, 26): "The demons raise up men who claim to be gods."
Then he speaks of Simon, of Menander, and Marcion, who are apparently the men who claimed to be gods. But in the paragraph he then dedicates to each of them, he does not repeat this accusation, even so far as Simon is concerned. He simply says of Simon that he was taken for a god, which agrees with the account in Acts. Similarly in the other passages in which he speaks of him (Apol. 1, 56; Dialogue 120). Here again Simon is taken to be a god but does not himself claim to be such. Even less does Justin say of Menander and Marcion that they claimed to be, or were even taken to be, gods. Thus his first statement becomes doubtful when one compares it with the rest of his text and with his other texts on the same subject. It is later heresiologists who, using what he says, exaggerate it and neglect the difference between what he suggests once, in a general, vague sentence, and what he then states more constantly and in texts more precise. Thus they amplify the legends.

18 cf. K. Beyschlag, Simon Magus und die christliche Gnosis (Tübingen, 1974), 10, n. 10.


It's possible that, on the contrary, the Acts of the Apostles draws from Simonian texts or thought


p.315:


1. Menander and the Fourth Gospel

Menander not only brought the Simonian schism to Antioch, he seems to have had his own ideas, quite different from those of Simon; otherwise Justin would not present him together with Simon and Marcion as the three main heretics with whom he is particularly indignant.


ie. Justin presented Menander, Simon and Marcion as the three main heretics with whom he is particularly indignant.


pp. 319-20:


3. Doubts Concerning Some of Irenaeus's Statements

In Irenaeus we read that Menander claimed to be the one sent, the Savior, and that the baptism by which he claimed to give eternal life was a baptism in eum, "in himself"; that is, that the name spoken over the baptized would have been the name of Menander. But it must be noted that Justin, who is earlier than Irenaeus, says nothing of this, at least in what is preserved of his work. Justin, it is true, seems to number Menander among the men who "claimed to be gods," but although he speaks in this general and vague way at the beginning of the passage in which he attacks Simon, Menander, and Marcion, he does not repeat this accusation later in the paragraphs he devotes to each of them. In speaking of men who claimed
to be gods, in reality Justin is thinking only of Simon, and we have seen why he might think thus.



p. 321:


... did Menander really believe that the world was made by the angels, as Irenaeus states? We have shown in the first part of this work that the angels Menander speaks of, like those Simon mentions, were perhaps only the "administering" angels, those which figure in Judaism and early Christianity. One of the reasons for assuming this is that Justin does not attribute a heretical doctrine of Creation to either Simon or Menander. It is Marcion whom he blames for having introduced such a doctrine.


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Re: Simon Magus = Marcion: Who has suggested this?

Post by davidmartin »

Simonianism being similar to Paulinism also has the possibility they were those who didn't accept Pauline teaching. His opponents within the same larger movement
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: Simon Magus = Marcion: Who has suggested this?

Post by Leucius Charinus »

neilgodfrey wrote: Thu Oct 13, 2022 9:05 pm
Leucius Charinus wrote: Sun Oct 09, 2022 5:47 pm
neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 7:08 pm Can anyone direct me to works that have raised the possibility that Simon Magus was a cipher for, or in some way confused with, Marcion?
Has anyone written "On the Historicity of Simon Magus"?

Was Simon was a purely literary creation?

Or did Simon Magus "appear in the flesh" as an historical figure?
The idea that Simon Magus did not exist but was a caricature of Paul goes back to good old Ferdinand Christian Baur.

Baur rested his ideas about the New Testament on the Clementines, and his ideas about the Clementines on St. Epiphanius, who found the writings used by an Ebionite sect in the 4th century. This Judeo-Christian sect at that date rejected St. Paul as an apostate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand ... s_and_Paul

The problem as I see it is that FC Bauer and all who followed him, right through to Detering and Price; have accepted a traditional date for the Clementina somewhere in the 2nd century. This I believe was an error pointed out in the early 20th century but never updated or followed up by American scholarship.

Harnack gave a very complete summary of all the literary parallels on the Patristic side, and his work is a standard of reference for those who approach the subject. He made, however, one bad mistake is supposing, as others had done, that the Recognitions were quoted by Origen, thus determining a literary terminus ad quem for their composition; and it fell to the lot of Dr. Armitage Robinson to show that the supposed reference in the Philocalia of Origen was not Origen's at all, but was to be credited to the editorial hands of Basil and Gregory.

Notes on the Clementine Romances
Author(s): Rendel Harris
Source: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 40, No. 3/4 (1921), pp. 125-145
Published by: The Society of Biblical Literature
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3259292

Modern European scholarship place the authorship of the Recognitions during the rule of Constantine c.330 CE. For example see:

https://www.acaemia.edu/41260382/Annett ... 08_173_216

“Jewish Christianity” as Counterhistory?
The Apostolic Past in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History
and the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies
by ANNETTE YOSHIKO REE

This supports the proposition that the Arian controversy was also involved with a massive controversy over the appearance of many NT apocryphal texts. The Clementine literature being one example. With Origen's attestation gone the next witness is Eusebius.


I asked Robert Price -- who openly follows FC Bauer - whether this changes his theories which intersect with Simon Magus but have received no detailed response

Much scholarship appears to relegate the NT Apocryphal sources to "legend" while at the same time trying to reconcile the story of Simon Magus in Acts with what the heresiologists have to say about the whole situation. Invariably more authority is generally reserved for the heresiological sources.
Simone Pétrement in A Separate God (the book I was reading that prompted this thread) raises the question -- pages 236-239.

After all, what reasons are there for holding that Simon existed other than in the legend and as the mask of another person? F. Chr. Baur judged that he was never anything but a caricature of Paul. The main reason for believing in his existence is doubtless that by the first century Simon was known to Luke, the author of the Acts of the Apostles, and that Luke's description does not seem to be applicable to Paul. Luke describes a Samaritan magician who, converted by Philip, had tried to buy the power of giving the Holy Spirit from the apostles. How could this story have been invented if it referred to Paul? It seems impossible, and yet, when one thinks about it, one notices at least a number of features in this description that could have been applied to Paul by those who opposed him. Was Simon a Samaritan? But for the Jews "Samaritan" was synonymous with heretic or sinner. In the Fourth Gospel Christ is treated as a Samaritan by his enemies (8:48). Was Simon a magician? Paul, who performed miracles, could have been thought of as a magician, just as Christ was. Did Simon wish to buy the right of giving the Holy Spirit? This may mean that he wished to be the head of his Church and to be able to put new converts in the way of receiving the Spirit, without having to refer to Jerusalem every time. He may have promised in exchange to send his gifts to the "poor" (ebionim), as the Jewish-Christian community at Jerusalem called itself. This is exactly what Paul did. Was there a disagreement between Simon and Peter? But there was also a disagreement between Peter and Paul, though on a different subject (Gal. 2:1114). Was Simon converted by Philip, whereas Philip does not seem to have played any role in Paul's conversion? Philip was a "Hellenist," as Ananias, who introduced Paul into the Christian community at Damascus, probably was, to and as the Christians at Antioch among whom Paul must have received instruction in Christianity were. (These Christians had in fact left Jerusalem at the time of the persecution against the Hellenists.) After Stephen's death Philip was perhaps the most well known of the Hellenists, and conversions could have been attributed to him that were the work of his group.

Certainly, if Philip himself told Luke that he had baptized Simon, Luke could not be mistaken on this point and Simon definitely existed. But is it certain that Luke owes this account to Philip? It is simply a possibility.

I realize that these suspicions go too far. But the resemblance between the accusation implied in the account about Simon in Acts, the accusation of having wished to buy the right to give the Holy Spirit, and the promise made by Paul to send money to the ebionim-this promise being part of the agreement whereby Paul was left at liberty to organize his Churches as he wished (Gal. 2:10), and among the rights Paul exercised was the imposition of hands to bring about participation in the Spirit (Acts 19:6)-this resemblance leads one to ask if the confusion of Simon with Paul is not found already in the account of Acts. . . .

Reasons can nevertheless be found for believing in Simon's existence. First his name: how did he come to be called Simon? Could the Simonians referred to by the heresiologists have only got their name from a fictional character whom they simply knew from Acts? Moreover, Justin and the Clementine works mention his place of birth. If Justin was the only one to give this detail, one might ask if it is worth more than what he says about the statue he thought to be of Simon and which was in fact that of Semo Sancus. This error would never have been suspected if the statue had not been rediscovered. But the agreements between the two traditions seem to give them a certain value (even though it is not impossible that one of them is drawn from the other, or that they come from a common legendary source).

But to doubt Simon's existence is perhaps to push skepticism too far. It is doubtless easier to think that he existed.

Given that he existed, what do we know about him and especially about his doctrine? . . . .

We therefore think it possible that Simon, if he existed, was of a schismatic tendency rather than a heresiarch properly speaking.


Trying to make sense of Simon Magus

I am inclined to explore the option that Simon Magus was a purely literary construct who first appears in the canonical Acts. The authors of the Acts of Peter, the Clementines, etc then used the figure of Simon Magus from Acts to construct their fantastic but highly entertaining narratives. So Simon in both the NT canonical literature and the NT Apocryphal literature is just a literary creation.

As you may know I reserve no great historical authority with the heresiologists. I suspect that the heresiological narratives - even though they supply names and dates (in contrast with the NT canonical and NT apocryphal literature which do NOT) - are pseudo-historical fabrications and as such are just as fictional as the NT canonical literature and the NT apocryphal literature.

Trying to make sense of Simon Magus is a good exercise. If we can't make sense of SImon Magus how are we supposed to make sense of Jesus H. Christ?
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