Simon Magus

[RND]

Simon Magus

What were the origins of Catholic-Babylonian Christianity? What was Simons religion before he met Peter? Where did that religion originate? Read in this series of articles the detailed and documented account of Simon Magus and his great COUNTERFEIT CHRISTIANITY!

"...Simon Magus, after his rejection by Peter, began to fashion his own "Christian" church -- a church of which HE was head -- a church designed to completely overthrow the True Church of God. His idea was to blend together Babylonian teaching with some of the teachings of Christ -- especially to take the name of Christ -- and thus create ONE UNIVERSAL CHURCH! But a church with Babylonianism as its basis. Harnack, a church historian, states that Simon Magus "proclaimed a doctrine in which the Jewish faith was strangely and grotesquely mixed with BABYLONIAN myths, together with some Greek additions. The mysterious worship . . . in consequence of the widened horizon and the deepening religious feeling, finally the wild SYNCRETISM [that is, blending together of religious beliefs], whose aim WAS A UNIVERSAL RELIGION, all contributed to gain adherents for Simon" (Vol. 1, p. 244).

"Simon can be classified among the major group of so-called Christians (and Simon called himself such), called by Harnack the: "decidedly anti-Jewish groups . . . . They advanced much further in the criticism of the Old Testament and perceived the impossibility of saving it [that is, the Old Testament] for the Christian UNIVERSAL RELIGION. They rather connected this [universal] religion with the cultus-wisdom of BABYLON and SYRIA" (VoI. 1, p. 246).

"With this background, we can understand why Peter so strongly rebuked Simon for his Babylonian ideas. Peter prophesied that this was the man who was to be the "gall of bitterness, and bond of iniquity" to the True Church. Simon’ s attitude was corrupt in the extreme! The Bible shows he had been working through demons. And yet, he finally called himself a "Christian." Dr. McGiffert, speaking of Simon Magus, says: "His effort to rival and surpass Jesus very likely began after his contact with the Christians that Luke records. His religious system was apparently a SYNCRETISM of Jewish and Oriental elements" (Hasting’s Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, Vol. 2, p. 497)....."

Simon Magus (Greek Σίμων ό μάγος), also known as Simon the Sorcerer and Simon of Gitta, was a Samaritan proto-Gnostic and traditional founder of the Simonians in the first century A.D. The figure appeared prominently in several apocryphal accounts by early Christian writers who regarded him as the source of all heresies.

Simon Magus has been portrayed as both student and teacher of Dositheus, with followers who revered him as the great power of god. He later took a consort unto himself, a prostitute by the name of Helen of Tyre whom he later named Sophia which he considered a female emanation of divine intelligence. Simon was born in the Samarian town of Gitta to parents named Antonius and Rachel. He was brought up in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria, where he was given a Greek education. Simon's cosmology, as best as can be reconstructed, included the axiom that Fire (corresponding to the Orphic Phanês), is the first principle of all things. This Fire, like Phanês, is bisexual, having both sexes within itself. Its male aspect was hidden, and its female aspect was manifested in the name Silence (corresponding to the Orphic Nux).

Gnosticism appeared originally in Syria. It is in Samaria…that we trace it for the first time…“To this Syrian Gnosis…a multitude of systems, anonymous and of a primitive tendency, are probably related, notably the Ophites’ and all those grouped under the name of ‘Adepts of the Mother’ ...According to one rather questionable legend (which is nevertheless taken at face value by the Roman Catholic Church), Simon eventually ended up in Rome where he was .. allegedly flew into the air to demonstrate his power to the Emperor Nero...

Simonian churches persisted until the time of Constantine, mainly in Syria, Phrygia, Egypt and Rome. Simon's followers apparently divided themselves into two schools, one in Syria and one in Alexandria. The Syrian sect seems to have tended towards libertinism, engaged in magical practices, and worshipped Simon and Helena as gods in the traditional pagan sense, associating them with other notable male/female, solar/lunar pairs in religion and mythology, such as Zeus and Athena, and Shamash and Astarte. The Alexandrian sect was apparently of a more philosophic character, and may have influenced Basilides through the teachings of Menander and Satornilos.
.."

The Bible reveals that it was in Samaria where Christianity was infiltrated by Simon Magus the Gnostic.