Simon Magus
Simon Magus West AsiaThe Gnostic teachings of this Canaanite sorcerer exercised the minds of Christian theologians. While in Jerusalem St Peter had to rebuke Simon the Samaritan for attempting to buy the magical powers which he supposed the apostles had received from the Holy Spirit; the legendary encounter between the two men took place in Rome, where the apocryphal Acts of Peter tell how the Samaritan tried to fly heavenwards. Perhaps Simon should have been called magnus, ‘the great’, rather than magus, ‘the magician’, since he told the Romans that he would forsake them, ‘impious sinners, and fly up to God whose Power’ he was. When he soared and ‘was lifted up on high, and all beheld him flying above Rome and its temples and hills’, the faithful turned to Peter, who was disturbed by the impression that the spectacle made on their minds. ‘Hasten thy grace, O Lord,’ implored the evangelist, ‘and let him fall from the...
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