Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

..."a distinctly "Simonian" version of Christianity between the second and fourth centuries CE.

..."Anti-Simon(ian) stories and reports began to appear in the early to mid-second century CE."
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"So much did divine grace cooperate with Philip than even Simon the magus, with many others, were drawn by his words. At that time, so great was Simon's popularity among the dupes he controlled by sorcery that he was considered 'the Great Power of God'* [Acts 8:10]. On this occasion, even Simon was truck by the unexpected wonders accomplished by the divine power of Philip. He [Simon] insinuated himself and played an act even as far as baptism into faith in Christ."

• The online Catholic Encyclopaedia notes here:
  [According to Eusebius here, Simon Magus was called τὴν μεγ€λην δύναμιν τοῦ θεοῦ. In Acts 8:10, he was called ἡ δύναμις τοῦ θεοῦ ἡ καλουμένη. According to Irenæus (A.H. I.23.1) he was called "the loftiest of all powers, that is, the one who is father over all things" (sublissimam virtutem, hoc est, eum qui sit nuper omnia Pater). According to Justin Martyr (Apology I.26), he was called τὸν πρῶτον θεόν. According to the Clementine Homilies (II.22) he wished to be called "a certain supreme power of God" (ἀ νωτ€τη τις δύναμις). According to the Clementine Recognitions (II.7) he was called the "Standing One" (hinc ergo Stans appellatur).]

12. "And what is surprising, the same thing is done even to this day by those who follow his most impure heresy. For they, after the manner of their forefather, slipping into the Church, like a pestilential and leprous disease, greatly afflict those into whom they are able to infuse the deadly and terrible poison concealed in themselves. The most of these have been expelled as soon as they have been caught in their wickedness, as Simon himself, when detected [by Peter] for what he was, received the 'merited' punishment."

13.1 ... the enemy of human salvation, scheming to pillage the imperial city beforehand, led the previously mentioned Simon there, aided him in his deceitful arts, [having[ led many of the inhabitants of Rome astray, and thus brought them into his power.

2 This is attested by Justin...who, in his first Apology [26]...writes:
3. And after the ascension of the Lord into heaven the demons put forward certain men who said they were gods, and who were not only allowed by you to go unpersecuted, but were even deemed worthy of honors. One of them was Simon, a Samaritan of the village of Gitto, who, in the reign of Claudius Cæsar, performed in your imperial city some mighty acts of magic by the art of demons operating in him, and was considered a god, and, as a god, was honored by you with a statue, which was erected in the river Tiber, between the two bridges, and bore this inscription in the Latin tongue, Simoni Deo Sancto, that is, 'To Simon the Holy God.'

4. And nearly all the Samaritans and a few even of other nations confess and worship him as the first God. And there went around with him at that time a certain Helena who had formerly been a prostitute in Tyre of Phœnicia; and her they call the first idea that proceeded from him.

5. Justin relates these things, and Irenæus also agrees with him in the first book of his work, Against Heresies, where he gives an account of the man and of his profane and impure teaching ...

6. We have understood that Simon was the author of all heresy. From his time down to the present those who have followed his heresy have feigned the sober philosophy of the Christians, which is celebrated among all on account of its purity of life. But they nevertheless have embraced again the superstitions of idols, which they seemed to have renounced; and they fall down before pictures and images of Simon himself and of the above-mentioned Helena who was with him; and they venture to worship them with incense and sacrifices and libations.

1. The evil power, who hates all that is good and plots against the salvation of men, constituted Simon at that time the father and author of such wickedness, as if to make him a mighty antagonist of the great, inspired apostles of our Saviour ...

4. Immediately the above-mentioned impostor was smitten in the eyes of his mind by a divine and miraculous flash, and after the evil deeds done by him had been first detected by the apostle Peter in Judea, he fled and made a great journey across the sea from the East to the West, thinking that only thus could he live according to his mind.

5. And coming to the city of Rome, by the mighty co-operation of that power which was lying in wait there, he was in a short time so successful in his undertaking that those who dwelt there honored him as a god by the erection of a statue.

6. But this did not last long. For immediately, during the reign of Claudius, the all-good and gracious Providence, which watches over all things, led Peter, that strongest and greatest of the apostles, and the one who on account of his virtue was the speaker for all the others, to Rome against this great corrupter of life. Clad in divine armor like a noble commander of God, He carried the costly merchandise of the light of the understanding from the East to those who dwelt in the West, proclaiming the light itself, and the word which brings salvation to souls, and preaching the kingdom of heaven.

1. And thus, when the divine word had made its home among them, the power of Simon was quenched and immediately destroyed, together with the man himself. And so greatly did the splendor of piety illumine the minds of Peter's hearers that they were not satisfied with hearing once only, and were not content with the unwritten teaching of the divine Gospel, but with all sorts of entreaties they besought Mark, a follower of Peter, and the one whose Gospel is extant, that he would leave them a written monument of the doctrine which had been orally communicated to them. Nor did they cease until they had prevailed with the man; and had thus become the occasion of the written Gospel which bears the name of Mark.

2. And they say that Peter — when he had learned, through a revelation of the Spirit, of that which had been done — was pleased with the zeal of the men, and that the work obtained the sanction of his authority for the purpose of being used in the churches. ... Peter makes mention of Mark in his first epistle which they say that he wrote in Rome itself, as is indicated by him, when he calls the city, by a figure, Babylon, as he does in the following words: "The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, salutes you; and so does Marcus my son" [1 Peter 5:13].

5. Thebuthis, because he was not made bishop, began to corrupt it. He also was sprung from the seven sects among the people, like Simon, from whom came the Simonians, and Cleobius, from whom came the Cleobians, and Dositheus, from whom came the Dositheans, and Gorthæus, from whom came the Goratheni, and Masbotheus, from whom came the Masbothæans. From them sprang the Menandrianists, and Marcionists, and Carpocratians, and Valentinians, and Basilidians, and Saturnilians. Each introduced privately and separately his own peculiar opinion. From them came false Christs, false prophets, false apostles, who divided the unity of the Church by corrupt doctrines uttered against God and against his Christ.

6. The same writer [Hegesippus] also records the ancient heresies which arose among the Jews, in the following words: "There were, moreover, various opinions in the circumcision, among the children of Israel. The following were those that were opposed to the tribe of Judah and the Christ: Essenes, Galileans, Hemerobaptists, Masbothæans, Samaritans, Sadducees, Pharisees."

Another indication of an early date for the [Great] Declaration Commentary is its failure to agree with the earliest anti-Simon reports. The earliest of these reports is Acts, which depicts the pre-Christian Simon venerated as “the Power of God called Great” (8:10). The Declaration Commentary, by contrast, identifies the Great Power with the Mind of the Universe, and this divine Mind is never identified with Simon.

Probably the author of Acts was trying to align Simon with a tradition of self-deifiers (compare Herod in Acts 12:20-23). Justin Martyr and the Refutator [Litwa's name for the unknown author of Refutation of All Heresies] both attacked Simon as a man who deified himself.²⁰

The Declaration Commentary undermines these reports. Simon did not deify himself. The speaker in the Commentary never called himself or Simon “God” or “the Great Power.” If the author of Acts knew the distinctive title, “Great Power,” from the Declaration, then the Declaration preceded Acts [which Litwa here dates to 135 CE at the earliest].

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20 Justin, 1 Apology 1.26.1; Refutation of All Heresies. 6.14.1; 6.18.1.