Who was Simon Magus?

Simon Magus was born in Samaritan town of Gitta, he was later the founder of the Simonian sect of Gnostics, and was contemporary with the Apostles in the first century. His writings and almost all direct sources of information were destroyed by hostile early Christian in the first five centuries. Only distorted facts and legends are available. Why this situation?

The important discovery of a Coptic library found accidentally at Nag Hammadi by two farmers in December 1945 brings some light into early centuries of Christianity and Simon Magus's believes.

By the time Simon Magus comes into the light of recorded history, he is already an accomplished teacher of extraordinary influence. He had thirty close disciples and gathered large followings in every city he visited. He is said to have possessed the ability to levitate and fly at will.

What early Christian authors say?

Simon Magus was a great magician

The early Church Fathers made no attempt to deny them. Rather, they argued that since such things could be done only in the name of Jesus – and their own performances often left something to be desired – or through demonic means. They could not but agree, nevertheless, that he fully deserved the title Magus, for he was a magician of the highest order.

The fall of Simon Magus Legend

Tradition holds that he engaged in debates with Peter – recorded in the "Clementine Homilies" and preserved in Christian literature – in which Peter's orthodox dogmatism was easily outshone by Simon's philosophical genius and esoteric interpretation of Jesus' sayings.

History, on the other hand, offers some evidence that Peter feared to enter Rome while Simon was there. Legend also pretends that Peter challenged Simon to fly through the air, and that when he easily did so, Peter caused him to fall to earth by a prayer.

According to one version, Simon broke his legs and retired in shame, dying in ignominy some time later. According to another, Simon was killed on the spot by the fall. Yet a third version, not favored by Christian authors held that Peter, and not Simon, broke his legs in the attempt to imitate the great Mag.

Naturally we know that the history is rewritten later by victorious and the most aggressive party.

Here is coming my story about the Pompeo Batoni's painting "The fall of Simon Magus" asked by Vatican for Saint Peter Cathedral altar in Rome.

"Simon Magus and Peter and Paul competition in Rome"

What Simon Magus was preaching?

Simon taught that every being that attains divine knowledge through self-discipline and meditation upon the divine is a Son of God and gets superhuman powers and knowledge.

This entire staff is very complex even for me. Simon was a very powerful first gnostic and the first heretic target for Christian Church period.

The written works Simon left behind have been destroyed by clerics who found his gnosis too metaphysical to comprehend and too threatening to tolerate.

The church writers dismissed his vital message, which is the ageless teaching of all Adepts of the mysteries of man and nature – that each human being has within him the power to redeem himself through his own purified and sanctified thought, for it comes from and is nourished by the One Fire, which is the source of all that exists.

The answer to spiritual questions are to be found within not outside. The Gnostic path does not require the intermediation of a church for salvation.

The recent book "Pompeo Batoni: Prince of Painters in Eighteenth-Century Rome" by Edgar Peters Bowron and Peter Bjorn Kerber (2007) contains "The Fall of Simon Magus" picture discussed in my article. The price is very good.

This page was worked with info sourcing from en/wikipedia.org, themystica.com, and gnosis.org

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