Simon Magus Series

Apocrypha

Acts of Peter

The apocryphal Acts of Peter gives a more elaborate tale of Simon Magus' death. Simon is performing magic in the Forum, and to prove himself to be a god; he levitates up into the air above the Forum. The apostle Peter prays to God to stop his flying, and he stops mid-air and falls into a place called "the Sacra Via" (meaning "Holy Way" in Latin), breaking his legs "in three parts.". Now gravely injured, he had some people carry him on a bed at night from Rome to Ariccia and was brought from there to Terracina to a person named Castor, who, on accusations of sorcery, was banished from Rome. The previously non-hostile crowd then stones him. The Acts then continue to say that he died "while being sorely cut by two physicians."

Acts of Peter and Paul

Another apocryphal document, the Acts of Peter and Paul, gives a slightly different version of the above incident, which was shown in the context of a debate in front of Emperor Nero. In this version, Paul the Apostle is present along with Peter; Simon levitates from a high wooden tower made upon his request and dies "divided into four parts" due to the fall. Nero put Peter and Paul in prison while ordering Simon's body be kept carefully for three days (thinking he would rise again).

Pseudo-Clementine literature

The Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions and Homilies give an account of Simon Magus and some of his teachings regarding the Simonians. They are of uncertain date and authorship and seem to have been worked over by several hands in the interest of diverse forms of belief.

Simon was a Samaritan and a native of Gitta. The name of his Father was Antonius, and that of his mother, Rachel. He studied Greek literature in Alexandria and, having in addition to this great power in magic, became so ambitious that he wished to be considered the highest power, higher even than the God who created the world. Moreover, sometimes he "darkly hinted" that he was Christ, calling himself the Standing One. Which name he used to indicate that he would stand forever and had no cause in him for bodily decay. He did not believe that the God who created the world was the highest nor that the dead would rise. He denied Jerusalem and introduced Mount Gerizim in its stead. In place of the Christ of the Christians, he proclaimed himself and the Law he allegorized by his preconceptions. He did indeed preach righteousness and judgment to come.

There was one John the Baptist, who was the forerunner of Jesus by the Law of parity; and as Jesus had twelve Apostles, bearing the number of the twelve solar months, so had he thirty leading men, making up the monthly tale of the moon. One of these thirty leading men was a woman called Helen, and the first and most esteemed by John was Simon. However, on the death of John, he was away in Egypt for the practice of magic, and one Dositheus, by spreading a false report of Simon's death, succeeded in installing himself as head of the sect. Simon, on coming back, thought it better to dissemble and, pretending friendship for Dositheus, accepted the second place. Soon, however, he began to hint to the thirty that Dositheus was not as well acquainted as he might be with the school's doctrines.