ἐστιν ἡ δύναμις τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡ µεγάλη.ϊ τὸ ἱκανῷ χρόνω ταῖς µαγείαις 3 ἐξεστακέναι αὐτούς.
Il. προσεῖχον δὲ αὐτῷ, διὰ 12. Ὅτε δὲ
1 ῃ μεγαλη HLP, Sah., Syr. Pesh., Aethpp., Chrys. ; η καλουµενη µεγαλη SABCDE, Vulg., Boh., Syr. Harcl., Arm., Aethr., Irint., Orig., so Tisch., W.H., R.V., Blass,
Weiss, Hilg.
2 payerats BLP, so Blass, Weiss, Hilg.; µαγιαις SACDEH, so Tisch., W.H.
(see Winer-Schmiedel, p. 44).
Ant., xviii., 4, I, but ver. 14 points toa definite title, and it is likely enough that the people would repeat what Simon had told them of himself. His later followers went further and made him say, ‘‘ Ego sum sermo Dei, ego sum speciosus, ego paraclitus, ego omnipotens, ego omnia Dei” Jerome, Commentar. in Matt., c. xx., 24 (Neander, Geschichte der Pflan- zung, cf. i., 85, ποίς).---ἑαυτὸν: contrast Philip’s attitude; he preached Christ, not himself (cf. Rev. ii. 20).
Ver. το. ἡ δύναµις τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡ µεγάλη: in R.V. the power of God which is called (καλουμένη) Great, see above, critical notes. Τ.Ε. may have omitted the word because it appeared unsuitable to the context; but it could not have been used in a depreciatory sense by the Samaritans, as if to intimate that the person claimed was the so-called “' Great,’’ since they also gave heed to Simon. On the other hand it has been argued that the title ‘«‘Great” is meaningless in this relation, for every divine power might be described by the same epithet (so Wendt, in loco, and Blass: ‘‘ mirum maxime 7 καλ. quasi Svvapis Θ. µικρά quoque esse possit”’. This difficulty leads Blass in his notes to introduce the solution proposed by Klos- termann, Probleme im Afosteltexte, pp. 15-20 (1883), and approved by Wendt, Zockler, Spitta, and recently by Zahn, Einleitung in das N. Τ., ii. 420; see also Salmon’s remarks in Hermathena, xxi., Pp. 232), viz., that µεγάλη is not a trams-
lation of the attribute “great”? A"), but rather a transcription of the Samaritan
word aban or sar meaning qui revelat (cf. Hebrew ra, Chaldean
52 sda, to reveal). The explana-
tion would then be that in contrast to the hidden essence of the Godhead, Simon was known as its revealing power. Nestle however (see Knabenbauer ix loco) objects on the ground that καλουμένη is not read at all in many MSS. But apart from Klostermann’s explanation
the revised text might fairly mean that amongst the “powers” of God (cf. the N.T. use of the word δυνάµεις in Rom. viii. 38, 1 Peter iii. 22, and cf. Book of Enoch Ἱχὶ. 10) Simon was emphatically the one which is called great, i.e., the one prominently great or divine. The same title was assigned to him in later accounts, cf. Irenzeus, i., 23 (Clem. Hom., ii., 22; Clem. Recog., i., 72; ii., 7; Tertul- lian, De Prescr., xlvi. ; Origen, ο. Celsum, v.). But whatever the claims made by Simon himself, or attributed to him by his followers, we need not read them into the words before us. The expression might mean nothing more than that Simon called himself a great (or reveal- ing) angel of God, since by the Samaritans. the angels were regarded as δυνάµεις,. powers of God (cf. Edersheim, ¥esus the Messiah, i., 402, note 4, and De Wette, Apostelgeschichte, p. 122, fourth edition). Such an explanation is far more probable than the attribution to the Samaritans of later Gnostic and philosophical beliefs, while it is a complete answer to Overbeck, who argues that as the patristic literature about Simon presupposes the emanation theories of the Gnostics so the expression in the verse before us must be explained in the same way, and that thus we have a direct proof that the narrative is in- fluenced by the Simon legend. Wemay however readily admit that Simon’s. teaching may have been a starting-point for the later Gnostic developments, and’ so far from ver. to demanding a Gnostic system as a background, we may rather see in it a glimpse of the genesis of the beliefs which afterwards figure so pro- minently in the Gnostic schools (Nésgen, A postelgeschichte, in loco, and p. 186, and see McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 99, and “* Gnosticism,” Dict. of Christ. Biog., ii., 680). On the close connection between the Samaritans and Egypt and the wide- spread study of sorcery amongst the Egyptian Samaritans see Deissmann, Bibelstudien, pp. 18, 19. In Hadrian’s letter to Servianus we find the Samaritans in Egypt described, like the Jews and Christians there, as all astrologers, sooth-