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Simon Magus (Greek Σίμων ὁ μάγος, Latin: Simon Magus), was an early-1st century AD Samaritan, likely born in Gitta, Samaria, a village not far from Flavia Neapolis, modern Nablus. He was a contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth, John the Baptist, and the early Christian apostles. Almost all information about him is from Christian sources, where he is depicted as a sorcerer or magician with a substantial following in Samaria, as the founder of heresies, and as an antagonist of the apostles.
According to the Acts of the Apostles, Simon converted to Christ, and was baptised by Philip the Evangelist, later clashing with Saint Peter, after attempting to buy for money the power to invoke the Holy Spirit.
Simon becomes the subject of fantastic legends regarding his opposition to the apostles in apocryphal Christian texts. He appears in 2nd-century texts of Church Fathers such as Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Hippolytus, and Epiphanius, where he is often described as the founder of the sect of Simonians and Gnosticism, generally. He is often called the "father of all heresies". These descriptions have been accepted by some modern scholars. Others reject claims that he was a Gnostic, maintaining that he was merely considered to be one by the Church Fathers. The crime in canon law of simony, which is the buying and selling of church offices, is named after him, because in the Acts account, Simon attempts to purchase for money the power of conferring the Holy Spirit from the apostles.
Justin, who was himself a 2nd-century native of Flavia Neapolis in Samaria, wrote that by his time, nearly all the Samaritans were adherents of Simon of Gitta. Irenaeus believed him to have been the founder of the sect of Simonians, and the originator of Gnosticism . Hippolytus quotes from a work he attributes to Simon or the Simonians, Apophasis Megale, or Great Declaration. Simon is also supposed to have written several lost treatises, two of which bear the titles The Four Quarters of the World and The Sermons of the Refuter.
In apocryphal works, including the Acts of Peter, the Pseudo-Clementines, and the Epistle of the Apostles, Simon appears as a formidable sorcerer with the ability to levitate and fly at will. He is sometimes referred to as "the Bad Samaritan" due to his malevolent character. The Apostolic Constitutions also accuses him of "lawlessness" (antinomianism). In the Pseudo-Clementines he is portrayed as a leader within the John the Baptist movement, which evolved into the Simonians. Other modern scholars argue that in the Pseudo-Clementines, Simon is a stalking-horse for Paul the Apostle, with the writers masking their attacks on Paul as attacks on Simon.
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