10. Simon Magus. In the eighth chapter of the Acts we read that Philip the Evangelist, while preaching the Gospel in a city of Samaria, came in contact with a person of the name of Simon, who had formerly exercised immense power over the minds of the people by his skill in the re sources of magic. So high were the pretensions of this impostor, and so profound the impression he had made on the minds of the multitude, that they not only received with readiness all he taught, but admitted his claim to be regarded as an incar nation of the demiurgic power of God.
(1) Preaching of Philip. The doctrines of Philip, however, concerning Christ as the true and only incarnation of Deity, supported by the un paralleled and beneficent miracles which he per formed, had the effect of dispelling this delusion, and inducing the people to renounce their alle giance to Simon and receive baptism as the dis ciples of Christ. On the mind of Simon himself so deep an impression was also produced, that he professed himself a disciple of Jesus, and as such was baptized by Philip.
(2) Simon Desires to Purchase the Holy Spirit. On the news of Philip's success reaching Jerusalem, Peter and John went down to Samaria to confer upon the new converts the spiritual gifts which were vouchsafed to the primitive churches. During their visit Simon discovered that by means of prayer and the imposition of hands the Apostles were able to dispense the power of the Holy Ghost ; and supposing probably that in this lay the much-prized secret of their superior power, he at tempted to induce the Apostles to impart to him this power by offering them money. This, which for such a man was a very natural act, intimated to the Apostles at once his true character (or rather, to express more accurately our conviction, it enabled them to manifest to the people and pub licly to act upon what their own power of dis cerning spirits must have already taught them of his true character) ; and accordingly Peter indig nantly repudiated his offer, proclaimed his utter want of all true knowledge of Christian doctrine, and exhorted him to repentance and to prayer for forgiveness. The words of Peter on this occasion,
it is justly remarked by Neander, 'present the doc trine of the Gospel, which so expressly intimates the absolute necessity of a right state of mind for the reception of all that Christianity conveys, in direct opposition to the Magianism, which denies all necessary connection between the state of mind and that which is divine and supernatural, brings down the divine and supernatural within the sphere of ordinary nature, and imagines that di vine power may he appropriated by means of something else than that which is allied to it in man's nature, and which supplies the only point of union between the two' (Apastol. Zeitalt. i, 82). The solemn and threatening words of the Apostle struck dread into the bosom of the impostor, who besought the Apostle to pray for him that none of the things he had threatened might come upon him —an entreaty which shows that his mind still labored under what Neander above describes as the chief error of the Magian doctrine.
After this we read no more of Simon Nlagus in the New Testament.
(3) The Magian Philosophy. Simon's doc trines were substantially those of the Gnostics, and he is not without reason regarded as the first who attempted to engraft the theurgy and egotism of the Magian philosophy upon Christianity. He represented himself, according to Jerome (In Matt., Opp. iv, 114), as the Word of God, the Per fection, the Paracletc, the Almighty, the All of Deity ; and Iremcus (i, 20) tells us he carried with him a beautiful female named Helena, whom he set forth as the first idea of Deity. If this be not exaggerated fable on the part of his enemies, we must suppose that such modes of speech and rep resentation were adopted by him as suited to the highly allegorical character of Orientalism ip his day; for were we to suppose him to have meant such utterances to be taken literally, we should be constrained to look upon him in the light of a madman. (A. D. 30.) (See Burton's Heresies of the A ('ostolie Age, Lect. iv ; Milman, Hist. of Christianity, vol. ii, p. 96, sq., etc.). \V. L. A.