Peter is told to leave on a boat the next day. And so that you may know this in a few words, all who had believed in me have fallen away through the craftiness and effort of Satan, whose power he has proven to be ( cuius virtutem se adprobat esse).’ Thus, although Simon claims to work by the power of God ( magnam virtutem esse Dei), he is in fact empowered by Satan ( satanas cuius virtutem). Peter is in Jerusalem and receives a vision from God of his approaching confrontation with Simon: ‘Peter, the one you convicted and threw out of Judea, Simon the sorcerer, has again become a hindrance to all of you in Rome. Simon's followers soon attack the authority of Paul: ‘Many of them were daily calling Paul a sorcerer, Footnote 8 and others a deceiver and from so great a multitude that had been established in the faith, many fell away.’ The few remaining believers beseech God to send Paul back to Rome, or to send ‘someone else who could visit his servants, because the devil had led them away by his wickedness’. His fame grows, and neither Paul nor Timothy nor Barnabas is in the city to counter him. Simon is invited to come to Rome, and he arrives (or so it appears) by flying over the city gate. Many believers are confused, because Simon's deeds appear to equal those of Paul, so they begin to ask: ‘Is he not the Christ?’ Footnote 7 They also added that he was saying that he was a great power of God and did nothing without God.’ Simon earns a reputation for performing deeds of power and claims that this power comes from God ( se diceret magnam virtutem esse Dei et sine deo nihil facere). ‘But after a few days there was great turmoil in the midst of the church, because some said that they had seen miraculous deeds done by a certain man, named Simon, who was at Aricia. Soon after Paul's departure for Spain, Simon becomes more of a direct threat to the Roman church. In the Acts of Peter, Simon is in Rome seemingly at the same time as Paul, although Simon is outside the city in Aricia. We will begin by examining the major plot points involving Simon in these various texts, and will then move into attempting to identify possible sources of these traditions. He also plays a prominent role in the later joint martyrdom accounts of Peter and Paul. Simon's first apocryphal appearance is in the Acts of Peter, a collection of traditions about Peter that are typically dated to the late-second century in literary form. In this article I will propose that we understand the literary Simon of late antiquity as a composite character, forged in the fires of reception, refraction and memory primarily from two separate villains in the Acts of the Apostles: Simon himself and the sorcerer who opposes Paul, Elymas/Bar-Jesus. Yet over the years of studying the figure of Simon, I have been harassed by a nagging question: where does this narrative Simon come from? The Simon of the Acts of Peter, and certainly the Simon of the combined Peter and Paul martyrdom accounts, seems quite far from the Simon of the Acts of the Apostles.
Footnote 6 To put it simply, Simon seems to be everywhere, and he is always up to no good. Many elements of this universe are familiar to scholars: (1) Simon's place in the history of heresiology: authors such as Irenaeus created a family tree of heresy, the roots of which often go back to Simon himself – accusations of being the father of Gnosticism are particularly notable in this regard Footnote 1 (2) Simon's connection to accusations of magic and sorcery Footnote 2 (3) Simon in the Pseudo-Clementine literature either as a stand-in for Paul Footnote 3 or as a liminal figure Footnote 4 (4) the narrative character of Simon in a broader context of ancient philosophy and literature, pointing to connections, for example, to Platonic dialogue and the concepts of the ‘divine man’ or the ‘true prophet’ Footnote 5 (5) Simon's role in the apocryphal acts, in particular the martyrdom accounts of initially Peter but later of both Peter and Paul together, including Simon's alleged claims to be the true Christ. From a fairly brief account in the Acts of the Apostles, early Christian authors created an expanded universe of Simonian thought and influence.
The villain par excellence, Simon appears in numerous places and is assigned various roles of wickedness. Simon the sorcerer (Simon Magus) is one of the most famous characters in early Christian literature.
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