Simon Magus, flourished c. 35 AD
A Gnostic mage with a large following including many of the disciples of John the Baptist. Blavatsky wrote of Simon Magus describing his abilities and stating that he lived in the 2nd Century AD rather than the time of Yeshua, and was so famous that the Romans erected a statue of him. Simon Magus was another prominent miracle-worker of the second century, and no one denied his power. Even Christians were forced to admit that he performed miracles. Allusion is made to him in the Acts of the Apostles, viii: 9-10. His fame was world-wide, his followers in every nation, and in Rome a statue was erected in his honor. He had frequent contests with Peter, what we in this day would call miracle-matches in order to determine which had the greater power. It is stated in 'The Acts of Peter and Paul' that Simon made a brazen serpent to move, stone statues to laugh, and himself to rise in the air; to which is added: 'as a set-off to this, Peter healed the sick by a word, caused the blind to see, &c.' Simon, being brought before Nero, changed his form: suddenly he became a child, then an old man; at other times a young man. 'And Nero, beholding this, supposed him to be the Son of God.' "In 'Recognitions,' a Petrine work of the early ages, an account is given of a public discussion between Peter and Simon Magus. |
| Many of the Baptist's disciples joined Yeshua's school, but many more stayed with Simon Magus as their leader because Yeshua couldn't take them all. There is no evidence that Yeshua and Simon ever "fought" over students, and they were probably friends. Simon was later accused of sorcery and heresy by the Church and some rather fantastic tales were made up about him. He is mentioned in Acts Chapter 8. Supposedly he was baptized and even traveled with Philip for a time. The practice of Simony was named after him because he supposedly asked to "buy" the magical tricks of the Apostle Peter and John. One account of the time, however, says it was Paul who tried to buy these "powers" from Yeshua's direct disciples, not Simon. When the Paulists later reconciled with the rest of the early Christians---when indeed, Paulanity became the central teaching of christianity---Simon Magus' name was inserted in the story in place of Paul's. This makes sense because Simon would not have asked for another baptism by one of Yeshua's disciples when he himself had already been baptized by none other than John the Baptist. Paul never met Yeshua and had to overcome his bad name as a killer of christians and somehow bring legitimacy to the form of christianity he was espousing (inventing?). Paul wanted to be called an Apostle, but the word was reserved for only those who had studied under Yeshua, or at least met him in person. One wonders if the story of his "meeting" Yeshua on the road to Damascus was made up by him to satisfy this requirement. At any rate, many of the early christians sure thought Paul was a fraud, they were called anti-Paulists, and it was a long time before they were wiped out and the church had to find a fall guy for the story in Acts. Simon Magus ticked off certain church "fathers" because his Simonianism was big competition for their new version of christianity, a patriarchal state run church. The Roman's had loved Simon, even erected a statue of him, but the church "fathers" (more like hijackers) hated anything gnostic and wanted to label anything that was not their idea as heresy. So Simon got a bad name and new stories were made up about him such as he fell to his death during a flying bout during a battle of the sorcerers between St. Peter and Simon. To this day fundamentalist christians call Simon the "perfect example of a Satanic believer." Poor Simon got seriously bad press, but it was all after his death, so hopefully he didn't mind. It is unclear how he died and there are even theories that two or three Simon Maguses existed, thus the stories of him living in 200 AD as well as at the time of the Apostles. Here is a good link for more about him: Biographical sketch of Simon Magus |