Eu.irhius (c. 324 A.D., IIE ii. 13. 14) gives on account of Siinon drawn from Justin Martyr and Irena'us, and embellished with somewhat strong vitujierativo langua''e. He then goes on to refer to a contest with Peter, first in Juda>a, then in Rome.
•Forthwith,* he says, 'the above-mentioned impostor was smitten in the eyes of his mind by a Divine and wonderful light, and when "flrst he had been convicted in Judiea by llie Apostle Peter of the evil deeds he \\vkA committed, he departed ill (light on a great Journey over the sea from the lOiust u> the West, thinking in this way only he would be able to live as be wished.* Ue tells us that he come to Homo, was assisted there
• The writer is indebted for these extracts to the Rev. W. C Allen of Kxeter College, Oxford, who Is engaged on a translation of the Syriac. The passage is also contoiueu in the \auu Frag nient, x'xxii.
522
SIMOX MAGUS
SIMON MAGUS
by the devil, obtained freat influence, and waa honoured by a Btatue. But during; the rei;^ of Claudius, Peter himself name there. *And when the Divine word thus made its dwellinff there, the power of Simoa and the man himself were immedi- ately quenched.'
Eusebius and the author of the Syriac Didaar.alia quoted above are tlie lirst writers who speak of both a contest in Judiea and also one in Home ; but there does not seem to be any reason for thinking that either of them had any other source for the former tlian the Acts of the Apostles. We do not know Eusebius' source for the overthrow of Simon by Peter, and his Kaiigua^e is curiously ambiguous. Probably he is giving tne common story, drawn from mere apocryphal writing, the wortldessuoss of which he knows quite well. This makes him avoid botli a quotation and direct details.
Cyril of Jerus.ilem (c. 347, Cat. vi. 14, 15) gives an account based upon the Acts and Justin. He also gives an account of the destruction of Simon ■when he attempted to fly. It is interesting, as we shall see, to notice that he ascribes the final catastrophe to the joint agency of Peter and Paul, showing that he possessed a story which contained the names of them both.
The work de excidio Hierosolym. iii. 2 (A.D. 368), ascribed to Hegesippus, but probably by Ambrose, gives an account of a contest at Rome of Peter and Paul with Simon. It narrates a con.siderable number of incidents contained in the Latin Acts.
Philaster (c. 380 A.D.), in his account of heresies {fftnr. xxix.), knows of the contest at Rome with Peter before Nero. He tells tis that Simon fled from .Jerusalem to escape Peter, and came to Rome, and then narrates the contest. If this came from his source, the early treatise of Hippolylus, it would throw the evidence for it into the 2nd cent. ; but as it is absent in the parallel passage of Epiphanius, and as Hippolytus in liis later treatise knows the story in anotlier form, it is not prob- able that it did.
Jerome {in Matt. 24') (387 A.D.) tells us that Simon said, ' Ego sum sernio Dei, ego sum spe- ciosus, ego paracletus, ego omnipotens, ego omnia Dei.'
Tlie Apostolic Constitutions, which date from Antioch about the year 400, give the legend of Simon Magus in what we may call its complete form (vi. 7-9) —
The source of all heresy is Simon of Gitta. First of all, the story in the Acts is given. Then comes an account of all the false teachers who went forth into the world. Then of the contest between Simon and Peter at Caisarea, where the companions of Peter were Zaccheous the publi(^n, and Barnabas, and Nicetas and Aquila, brothers of Clement, 'bishop and citizen of Home, who ha<i been the disciple of Paul and co-apostle and helper in the gospel.' They discoursed for three days con- cernin;; prophecy and the unity of the Godliead. Then Simon, bein;; defeated, fled into Italy. Then comes an account of the contest at Rome of the same character aa we shall come across shortly in the Apocrj-phal Acts.
This account is very much fuller than the narra- tive contained in the Syriac Didascalia, A\Titten probably rather more than a century earlier, and seems to imply a considerable grov/th of the legend. As will shortly be seen, it implies a knowledge of the Clementine literature in some form, and of the Apocryphal Acts.
In reviewing this catena of passages certain points become clear. During the 2nd cent, all the information, as far as we know, that existed about Simon, is derived from the Acts of the Apostles and the writings of Justin. Tliere seems to be no knowledge of the contest with Peter at Rome, although Justin believed that Simon had visited Rome. In the 3rd cent, we begin to get an account of the contest with Peter, which we lind in Hippolytns, Commodian, the authors of the Syriac Didascidin, and Auielius. Eusebius and the Did- ascalia con\.«k\ji this legend, with an account of a
contest in Palestine, but do not imply anjahing beyond the narrative of the Acts of the Apo.stles ; Cyril's account seems of much the same character. It is not until Ave reach the close of the 4th cent, that we find in the Apostolic Constitutions what we may call the completed legend, combining tha stories which, as we shall see, are derived from the Clementine liteiature with those derived from the Apocryphal Acts and the narrative in the Acta of the Apostles. The contrast between the earlier Didascalia and the later Constitutions is from this point of view most instructive. We are now in a position to study the fuller legends.