Deceit in magic.
But while the marvels of magic are admitted, there is a feeling that there is something deceitful and unreal about them. The teachings of the true prophet, we are told, “contain nothing subtle, nothing composed by magic art to deceive,”[1824]while Simon is “a deceiver and magician.”[1825]Nor is he deceitful merely in his religious teaching and his opposition to Peter; even his boasts of magic power are partly false. Aquila, his former disciple, says, “But when he spoke thus of the production of sprouts and the perforation of the mountain, I was confounded on this account, because he wished to deceive even us, in whom he seemed to place confidence; for we knew that those things had been from the days of our fathers, which he represented as having been done by himself lately.”[1826]Moreover, not only does Simon deceive others; he is himself deceived by demons as Peter twice asserts:[1827]“He is deluded by demons, yet he thinks that he sees the very substance of the soul.” “Although in this he is deluded by demons, yet he has persuaded himself that he has the soul of a murdered boy ministering to him in whatever he pleases to employ it.”
Murder of a boy.
This story of having sacrificed a pure boy for purposes of magic or divination was a stock charge, which we have previously heard made against Apollonius of Tyana and which was also told of the early Christians by theirpagan enemies and of the Jews and heretics in the middle ages. Simon is said to have confessed to Niceta and Aquila, when they asked how he worked his magic, that he received assistance from “the soul of a boy, unsullied and violently slain, and invoked by unutterable adjurations.” He went on to explain that “the soul of man holds the next place after God, when once it is set free from the darkness of the body. And immediately it acquires prescience, wherefore it is invoked in necromancy.” When Aquila asked why the soul did not take vengeance upon its slayer instead of performing the behests of magicians, Simon answered that the soul now had the last judgment too vividly before it to indulge in vengeance, and that the angels presiding over such souls do not permit them to return to earth unless “adjured by someone greater than themselves.”[1828]Niceta then indignantly interposed, “And do you not fear the day of judgment, who do violence to angels and invoke souls?” As a matter of fact, the charge that Simon had murdered or violently slain a boy is rather overdrawn, since the boy in question was the one whom he had made from air in the first place and whom he simply turned back into air again, claiming, however, to have thereby produced an unsullied human soul. According toThe Homilies, however, he presently confided to Niceta and Aquila that the human soul did not survive the death of the body and that a demon really responded to his invocations.[1829]
Magic is evil.
Nevertheless, the charge of murder thus made against Simon illustrates the criminal character here as usually ascribed to magic. Simon is said to be “wicked above measure,” and to depend upon “magic arts and wicked devices,” and Peter accuses him of “acting by nefarious arts.”[1830]Simon in his turn calls Peter “a magician, a godless man, injurious, cunning, ignorant, and professing impossibilities,” and again “a magician, a sorcerer, a murderer.”[1831]
Magic is an art.
A further characteristic of magic which comes out clearly inThe Recognitionsis that it is an art. Demons and souls of the dead may have a great deal to do with it, but it also requires a human operator and makes use of materials drawn from the world of nature. It was by anointing his face with an ointment which the magician had compounded that the countenance of Faustinianus was transformed into the likeness of Simon, while Appion and Anubion, who anointed their faces with the juice of a certain herb, were thereby enabled still to recognize Faustinianus as himself.[1832]In another passage one of Simon’s disciples who has deserted him and come to Peter tells how Simon had made him carry on his back to the seashore a bundle “of his polluted and accursed secret things.” Simon took the bundle out to sea in a boat and later returned without it.[1833]Simon not only employed natural materials in his magic, but was regarded as a learned man, even by his enemies. He is “by profession a magician, yet exceedingly well trained in Greek literature.”[1834]He is “a most vehement orator, trained in the dialectic art, and in the meshes of syllogisms; and what is most serious of all, he is greatly skilled in the magic art.”[1835]And he engages with Peter in theological debates. It is also interesting to note as an illustration of the connection between magic and experimental science that Simon, in boasting of his feats of magic, says, “For already I have achieved many things by way of experiment.”[1836]
Other accounts of Simon Magus: Justin Martyr to Hippolytus.
In the Pseudo-Clementines we are told that Simon intended to go to Rome, butThe RecognitionsandThe Homiliesdeal only with the conflicts between Peter and Simon in various Syrian cities and do not follow them toRome, where, as other Christian writers tell us, they had yet other encounters in which Simon finally came to his bitter end. Justin Martyr, writing about the middle of the second century, states that Simon, a Samaritan of Gitto, came to Rome in the reign of Claudius and performed such feats of magic by demon aid that a statue was erected to him as a god. In this matter of the statue Justin is thought to have confused Semo Sancus, a Sabine deity, with Simon. Justin adds that almost all Samaritans and a few persons from other nations still believe in Simon as the first God, and that a disciple of his, named Menander, deceived many by magic at Antioch. Justin complains that the followers of these men are still called Christians and on the other hand that the emperors do not persecute them as they do other Christians, although Justin charges them with practicing promiscuous sexual intercourse as well as magic.[1837]Irenaeus gives a very similar account.[1838]Origen, as we have seen, denied that there were more than thirty of Simon’s followers left,[1839]but his contemporary Tertullian wrote, “At this very time even the heretical dupes of this same Simon are so much elated by the extravagant pretensions of their art, that they undertake to bring up from Hades the souls of the prophets themselves. And I suppose that they can do so under cover of a lying wonder.”[1840]But Origen and Tertullian add nothing to the story of Simon Magus himself. Hippolytus, too, implies that Simon still has followers, since he devotes a number of chapters to stating and refuting Simon’s doctrines and to “teaching anew the parrots of Simon that Christ ... was not Simon.”[1841]But Hippolytus also gives further details concerning Simon’s visit to Rome, stating that he there encountered the apostles and was repeatedly opposed by Peter, until finally Simon declared that if he were buried alive he would rise again upon the third day.His disciples buried him, as they were directed, but he never reappeared, “for he was not the Christ.”
Peter’s account in theDidascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum.
Peter himself is represented as briefly recounting his struggle at Rome with Simon Magus in theDidascalia Apostolorum, an apocryphal work of probably the third century, extant in Syriac and Latin, and more fully in the parallel passage of the GreekConstitutiones Apostolorum, written perhaps about 400 A. D.[1842]Peter found Simon at Rome drawing many away from the church as well as seducing the Gentiles by his “magic operation and virtues,” or, in the Greek version, “magic experiments and the working of demons.”[1843]In the Syriac and Latin account Peter then states that one day he saw Simon flying through the air. “And standing beneath I said, ‘In the virtue of the holy name, Jesus, I cut off your virtues.’ And so falling he broke the arch (thigh?) of his foot (leg?).”[1844]But he did not die, since Peter goes on to say that while “many then departed from him, others who were worthy of him remained with him.” In the longer Greek version Simon announced his flight in the theater. While all eyes were turned on Simon, Peter prayed against him. Meanwhile Simon mounted aloft into mid-air, borne up, Peter says, by demons, and telling the people that he was ascending to heaven, whence he would return bringing them good tidings. The people applauded him as a god, but Peter stretched forth his hands to heaven, supplicating God through the Lord Jesus to dash down the corrupter and curtail the power of the demons. He asked further, however, that Simon might not be killed by his fall but merely bruised. Peter also addressed Simon and the evil powers who were supporting him, requiring that he might fall and become a laughing-stock to those who had been deceived by him. Thereupon Simon fell with a great commotion and bruisedhis bottom and the soles of his feet. It will be noted that here, as in the accounts by some other authors, Peter alone struggles with Simon Magus, lending color to the Tübingen theory once suggested in connection with the Pseudo-Clementines, that Simon Magus is meant to represent the apostle Paul.
Arnobius, Cyril, and Philastrius.
Arnobius, writing about 300 A. D., gives a somewhat different account of Simon’s mode of flight and fall. He says that the people of Rome “saw the chariot of Simon Magus and his four fiery horses blown away by the mouth of Peter and vanish at the name of Christ. They saw, I say, him who had trusted false gods and been betrayed by them in their fright precipitated by his own weight and lying with broken legs. Then, after he had been carried to Brunda, worn out by his shame and sufferings, he again hurled himself down from the highest ridge of the roof.”[1845]Cyril of Jerusalem, 315-386 A. D., also speaks of Simon’s being borne in air in the chariot of demons, “and is not surprised that the combined prayers of Peter and Paul brought him down, since in addition to Jesus’s promise to answer the petition of two or three gathered together it is to be remembered that Peter carried the keys of heaven and that Paul had been rapt to the third heaven and heard secret words.”[1846]Philastrius, another writer of the fourth century, describes Simon’s death more vaguely, stating that after Peter had driven him from Jerusalem he came to Rome where they engaged in another contest before Nero. Simon was worsted by Peter on every point of argument, and, “smitten by an angel died a merited death in order that the falsity of his magic might be evident to all men.”[1847]But it is hardly worth while to pile up such brief allusions to Simon in the writings of the fathers.[1848]
ApocryphalActs of Peter and Paul.
Other fuller accounts of Simon’s doings at Rome are contained in the SyriacTeaching of Simon Cephas[1849]and in the apocryphalActs of Peter and Paul.[1850]In the former Peter urges the people of Rome not to allow the sorcerer Simon to delude them by semblances which are not realities, and he raises a dead man to life after Simon has failed to do so. In the latter work Simon opposes Peter and Paul in the presence of Nero and as usual they charge one another with being magicians. Simon also as usual affirms that he is Christ, and we are told that the chief priests had called Jesus a wizard. Simon had already made a great impression upon Nero by causing brazen serpents to move and stone statues to laugh, and by altering both his face and stature and changing first to a child and then to an old man. Nero also asserts that Simon has raised a dead man and that Simon himself rose on the third day after being beheaded. It is later explained, however, that Simon had arranged to have the beheading take place in a dark corner and through his magic had substituted a ram for himself. The ram appeared to be Simon until after it had been decapitated, when the executioner discovered that the head was that of a ram but did not dare report the fact to Nero. When Simon met the apostles in Nero’s presence, he caused great dogs to rush suddenly at Peter, but Peter made them vanish into air by showing them some bread which he had been secretly blessing and breaking. As a final test Simon promised to ascend to heaven if Nero would build him a tower in the Campus Martius, where “my angels may find me in the air, for they cannot come to me upon earth among sinners.” The tower was duly provided, and Simon, crowned with laurel, began to fly successfully until Peter, tearfully entreated by Paul to make haste, adjured the angels of Satan who were supporting Simon to let him drop. Simon then fell upon theSacra Viaand his body was broken intofour parts.[1851]Nero, however, chose to regard the apostles as Simon’s murderers and put them to death, after which a Marcellus, who had been Simon’s disciple but left him to join Peter, secretly buried Peter’s body.
An account ascribed to Marcellus.
To this Marcellus is ascribed a very similar narrative which is found in an early medieval manuscript and was perhaps written in the seventh or eighth century.[1852]Fabricius and Florentinus give its title as,Of the marvelous deeds and acts of the blessed Peter and Paul and of Simon’s magic arts.[1853]I have read it in a Latin pamphlet printed at some time before 1500, where the full title runs:The Passion of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and their disputation before the emperor Nero against Simon, a certain magician, who, when he saw that he could not resist the utterances of St. Peter, cast all his books of magic into the sea lest he be adjudged a magician. Then when the same Simon Magus presumed to ascend to heaven, overcome by St. Peter he fell to earth and perished most miserably.At its close occurs the statement, “I, Marcellus, a disciple of my lord, the apostle Peter, have written what I saw.” When this Marcellus began to desert his former master, Simon, to follow Peter, Simon procured a big dog to keep Peter away from Marcellus, but at Peter’s order the dog turned upon Simon himself. Peter then humanely forbade the beast to do Simon any serious bodily injury, but the dog tore the magician’s clothing off his back, and Simon was chased from town by the mob and did not venture to return until after a year’s time.[1854]
Hegesippus.
A chapter is devoted to Simon Magus in theHistory of the Jewish Warof the so-called Hegesippus, a name which is thought to be a corruption of Josephus, since the work in large measure reproduces that historian. At any rate it was not written until the fourth century and is probably a translation or adaptation by Ambrose. Its account of Simon Magus combines the story of his competition with Peter in raising the dead, “for in such works Peter was held most celebrated,” with that of his flight and fall. He is represented as launching his flight from the Capitoline Hill and leaping off the Tarpeian rock. The people marveled at his flight, some remarking that Christ had never performed such a feat as this. But when Peter prayed against him, “straightway his propeller was tangled up in Peter’s voice, and he fell, nor was he killed, but, weakened by a broken leg, withdrew to Aricia and died there.”[1855]
A sermon on Simon’s fall.
Finally, passing over other Latin accounts of the contest between the apostles and Simon Magus to be found in theApostolic Historiesof the Pseudo-Abdias[1856]and in a work ascribed to Pope Linus,[1857]we may note a sermon which has been variously ascribed in the manuscripts and printed editions to Augustine, Ambrose, and Maximus.[1858]This sermon, intended for the anniversary of the day of martyrdom of Peter and Paul, proceeds to inquire the cause of their death and finds it in the fact that among other marvels they “prostrated by their prayers that magician Simon in a headlong fall from the empty air. For when the same Simon called himself Christ and asserted that as the Son he could ascend unto the Father by flying, and, suddenlyraised up by magic arts, began to fly, then Peter on his knees prayed the Lord, and by sacred prayer overcame the magical levitation. For the prayer ascended to the Lord before the flier, and the just petition arrived ere the iniquitous presumption. Peter, I say, though placed on the ground, obtained what he sought before Simon reached the heaven towards which he was tending. So then Peter brought him down like a captive from high in air, and, falling precipitately upon a rock, he broke his legs. And this in contumely of his feat, so that he who just before had tried to fly, of a sudden could not even walk, and he who had assumed wings lost even his feet. But lest it appear strange that, while the apostle was present, that magician should fly through the air even for a while, let it be explained that this was due to Peter’s patience. For he let him soar the higher in order that he might fall the farther; for he wished him to be carried aloft where everyone could see him, in order that all might see him when he fell from on high.” The preacher then draws the moral that pride goes before a fall.
Simon Magus in medieval art.
The struggle of Peter and Paul with Simon Magus at Rome appears inThe Golden Legend, compiled by Jacopo de Voragine in the thirteenth century, and was likewise a favorite theme of Gothic stained glass. At Chartres and Angers Peter may be seen routing Simon’s dogs by blessing bread; at Bourges and Lyons Simon and Peter compete in raising the dead; while windows at Chartres, Bourges, Tours, Reims, and Poitiers show the apostles praying and Simon falling and breaking his neck.[1859]This last scene and also the disputation before Nero are represented in the earlier mosaics of the eleventh or twelfth century which the Norman rulers of Sicily had executed in the cathedral of Monreale and the royal chapel of their castle at Palermo.[1860]