CHAPTER XVII

THE RECOGNITIONS OF CLEMENT AND SIMON MAGUS The Pseudo-Clementines—Was Rufinus the sole medieval version?—Previous Greek versions—Date of the original version—Internal evidence—Resemblances to Apuleius and Philostratus—Science and religion—Interest in natural science—God and nature—Sin and nature—Attitude to astrology—Arguments against genethlialogy—The virtuous Seres—Theory of demons—Origin of magic—Frequent accusations of magic—Marvels of magic—How distinguish miracle from magic?—Deceit in magic—Murder of a boy—Magic is evil—Magic is an art—Other accounts of Simon Magus: Justin Martyr to Hippolytus—Peter’s account in the _Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum_—Arnobius, Cyril, and Philastrius—Apocryphal _Acts of Peter and Paul_—An account ascribed to Marcellus—Hegesippus—A sermon on Simon’s fall—Simon Magus in medieval art. “_The Truth herself shall receive thee a wanderer and a stranger, and enroll thee a citizen of her own city._” —_Recognitions_ I, 13. [Sidenote: The Pseudo-Clementines.] The starting-point and chief source for this chapter will be the writings known as the _Pseudo-Clementines_ and more particularly the Latin version commonly called _The Recognitions_. We shall then note other accounts of its villain-hero, Simon Magus, in patristic literature.[1725] The _Pseudo-Clementines_, as the name implies, are works or different versions of one work ascribed to Clement of Rome, who is represented as writing to James, the brother of the Lord, an account of events and discussions in which he and the apostle Peter had participated not long after the crucifixion. This Pseudo-Clementine literature has a double character, combining romantic narrative concerning Peter, Simon Magus, and the family of Clement with long, argumentative, didactic, and doctrinal discussions and dialogues in which the same persons participate but Peter takes the leading and most authoritative part. Not only the authorship, origin, and date, but even the title or titles and the make-up and arrangement of the various versions and their original are doubtful or disputed matters. The versions now extant and published seem by no means to have been the only ones, but we will describe them first. In Greek we have the version known as _The Homilies_ in twenty books, in which the didactic element preponderates. It is extant in only two manuscripts of the twelfth and fourteenth centuries at Paris and Rome,[1726] but is also preserved in part in epitomes. Different from it is the Latin version in which the narrative element plays a greater part. [Sidenote: Was Rufinus the sole medieval version?] This Latin version, now usually referred to as _The Recognitions_, because the main point in its plot is the successive bringing together again of, and recognition of one another by, the members of a family long separated, is the translation made by Rufinus, who is last heard from in 410. It is usually divided into ten books. Numerous manuscripts of this version attest its popularity and influence in the middle ages, when we early find Isidore of Seville quoting Clement several times as an authority on natural science.[1727] Arevalus, however, thought that Isidore used some other version of the Pseudo-Clementines than that of Rufinus,[1728] and in the medieval period another title was common, namely, _The Itinerary of Clement_, or _The Itinerary of Peter_.[1729] William of Auvergne, for instance, in the first half of the thirteenth century cites the _Itinerarium Clementis_ or “Book of the disputations of Peter against Simon Magus.”[1730] This _Itinerary of Clement_ also heads the list of works condemned as apocryphal by Pope Gelasius at a synod at Rome in 494,[1731] a list reproduced by Vincent of Beauvais in his _Speculum naturale_ in the thirteenth century[1732] and in the previous century rather more accurately by Hugh of St. Victor in his _Didascalicon_.[1733] In all three cases the full title is given in practically the same words, “The Itinerary by the name of the Apostle Peter which is called Saint Clement’s, an apocryphal work in eight books.”[1734] Here we encounter a difficulty, since as we have said _The Recognitions_ are in ten books. We find, however, that in another passage[1735] Vincent correctly cites the ninth book of _The Recognitions_ as Clement’s ninth book, and that the number of books into which _The Recognitions_ is divided varies in the manuscripts, and that they, too, more often call it _The Itinerary of Clement_ or even apply other designations. Rabanus Maurus in the ninth century quotes an utterance of the apostle Peter from _The History of Saint Clement_, but the passage is found in _The Recognitions_.[1736] Vincent of Beauvais also quotes “the blessed apostle Peter in a certain letter attached to _The Itinerary of Clement_.” No letter by Peter is prefaced to the printed text of _The Recognitions_, nor does Rufinus mention such a letter, although he does speak in his preface of a letter by Clement which he has already translated elsewhere. Prefixed to the printed _Homilies_, however, and in the manuscripts found also with _The Recognitions_, are letters of Peter and Clement respectively to James. But the passage quoted by Vincent does not occur in either, but comes from the tenth book of _The Recognitions_.[1737] It would seem, therefore, despite variations in the number of books and in the arrangement of material, that the Latin version by Rufinus was the only one current in the middle ages, but we cannot be sure of this until all the extant manuscripts have been more carefully examined.[1738] [Sidenote: Previous Greek versions.] The version by Rufinus differed from previous ones not only in being in Latin but also in various omissions which he admits he made and perhaps other changes to suit it to his Latin audience. That there was already more than one version in Greek he shows in his preface by describing another text than that upon which his translation or adaptation was based. Neither of these two Greek texts appears to have been the same as the present _Homilies_.[1739] Yet _The Homilies_ were apparently in existence at that time, since a Syriac manuscript of 411 A. D. contains four books of _The Homilies_ and three of _The Recognitions_,[1740] thus in itself furnishing an illustration of the ease with which new versions might be compounded from old. Both _The Homilies_ and _The Recognitions_ as they have reached us would seem to be confusions and perversions of this sort, as their incidents are obviously not arranged in correct order. For instance, when the story of _The Recognitions_ begins Christ is still alive and reports of His miracles are reaching Rome; the same year Barnabas pays a visit to Rome and Clement almost immediately follows him back to Syria, making the passage from Rome to Caesarea in fifteen days;[1741] but on his arrival there he meets Peter who tells him that “a week of years” have elapsed since the crucifixion and of other intervening events involving a considerable lapse of time. Or again, in the third book of _The Recognitions_ Simon is said to have sunk his magical paraphernalia in the sea and gone to Rome, but as late as the tenth and last book we find him still in Antioch and with enough paraphernalia left to transform the countenance of Faustus. [Sidenote: Date of the original version.] Yet this late and misarranged version on which Rufinus bases his text must have been already in existence for some time, since he confesses that he has been a long while about his translation. The virgin Sylvia who “once enjoined it upon” him to “render Clement into our language” is now spoken of as “of venerable memory,” and it is to Bishop Gaudentius that Rufinus “after many delays” in his old age “at length” presents the work. We might thus infer that the original and presumably more self-consistent Pseudo-Clementine narrative, which Rufinus evidently does not use, must date back to a much earlier period. We hear from other sources of _The Circuits_ or _Periodoi of Peter_ by Clement, but this may have been the version translated by Rufinus.[1742] Conservative Christian scholars regard as the oldest unmistakable allusion to the Pseudo-Clementines that by Eusebius early in the fourth century, who, without giving any specific titles, speaks of certain “verbose and lengthy writings, containing dialogues of Peter forsooth and Apion,” which are ascribed to Clement but are really of recent origin. As for the date of the original work from which _Homilies_ and _Recognitions_ are derived,[1743] from 200 to 280 A. D. is suggested by Harnack and his school, who take middle ground between the extreme contentions of Hilgenfeld and Chapman. But the original Pseudo-Clement is supposed to have utilized _The Teachings of Peter_ and _The Acts of Peter_, which Waitz would date between 135 and 210 A. D.[1744] [Sidenote: Internal evidence.] The work itself, even in the perverted form preserved by Rufinus, makes pretensions to the highest Christian antiquity. Not only is it addressed to James and put into the mouth of Clement, but Paul is never mentioned, and no book of the New Testament is cited by name, while sayings of Jesus are cited which are not found in the Bible. Christ is often alluded to in a veiled and mystic fashion as “the true prophet,” who had appeared aforetime to Abraham and Moses, and interesting and vivid incidental glimpses are given of what purports to be the life of an early Christian community and perhaps is that of the Ebionites, Essenes, or some Gnostic sect. Emphasis is laid upon the purifying power of baptism, upon Peter’s practice of bathing early every morning, preferably in the sea or running water, upon secret prayers and meetings, a separate table for the initiated, esoteric discussions of religion at cock-crow and in the night, and upon power over demons. All this may be mere clever invention, but there certainly is an atmosphere of verisimilitude about it; and it is rather odd that a later writer should be “very careful to avoid anachronisms,” in whose account as it now stands are such glaring chronological confusions as those already noted concerning Clement’s voyage to Caesarea and Simon’s departure for Rome. But, as in the case of the New Testament Apocrypha, the exact date of composition makes little difference for our purpose, for which it is enough that the _Pseudo-Clementines_ played an important part in the first thirteen centuries of Christian thought viewed as a whole. Eusebius and Epiphanius may find them unpalatable in certain respects and reject them as heretical, but Basil and Gregory utilize their arguments against astrology. Gelasius may classify them as apocryphal, but Vincent of Beauvais justifies a discriminating use of the apocryphal books in general and cites this one in particular more than once as an authority, and the incidents of its story were embodied, as we shall see, in medieval art. [Sidenote: Resemblances to Apuleius and Philostratus.] The same resemblance to the works of Apuleius and Philostratus that we noted in the case of an apocryphal gospel is observable in the _Pseudo-Clementines_. We see in _The Recognitions_ the same mixed interest in natural science and in magic combined with religion and romantic incident that characterized the variegated and motley page of the author of the _Metamorphoses_ and the biographer of Apollonius of Tyana. It is probably only a coincidence that two of the works of Apuleius are dedicated to a Faustinus whom he calls “my son,” while Clement’s father is named Faustus or Faustinianus, and the legend of Faust is believed to originate with him and the episodes in which he is concerned.[1745] Less accidental may be the connection between Peter’s religious sea-bathing and that purification in the sea by which the hero of the _Metamorphoses_ began the process by which he succeeded in regaining his lost human form. More considerable are the detailed parallels to the work of Philostratus.[1746] Peter corresponds roughly to Apollonius and Clement to Damis, while the wizards and _magi_ are ably personified by the famous Simon Magus. If Apollonius abstained from all meat and wine and wore linen garments, Peter lives upon “bread alone, with olives, and seldom even with pot-herbs; and my dress,” he says, “is what you see, a tunic with a pallium: and having these, I require nothing more.”[1747] Like Philostratus the Pseudo-Clement speaks of bones of enormous size which are still to be seen as proof of the existence of giants in former ages;[1748] and the accounts of the Brahmans and allusions to the Scythians in the _Life of Apollonius of Tyana_ are paralleled in _The Recognitions_ by a series of brief chapters on these and other strange races.[1749] Peter is, of course, a Jew, not a Hellene like Apollonius, but in his train are men who are thoroughly trained in Greek philosophy and capable of discussing its problems at length. They also are not without appreciation of pagan art and turn aside, with Peter’s consent, to visit a temple upon an island and “to gaze earnestly” upon “the wonderful columns” and “very magnificent works of Phidias.”[1750] Just as Apollonius knew all languages without having ever studied them, so Peter is so filled with the Spirit of God that he is “full of all knowledge” and “not ignorant even of Greek learning”; but to descend from his usual divine themes to discuss it is considered to be rather beneath him. Clement, however, felt the need of coaching Peter up a little in Greek mythology.[1751] This mingled attitude of contempt for “the babblings of the Greeks” when compared to divine revelation, and of respect for Greek philosophy when compared with anything else is, it is hardly necessary to say, a very common one with Christian writers throughout the Roman Empire. [Sidenote: Science and religion.] The same attitude prevails toward natural science. At the very beginning of the Clementines the curiosity of the ancient world in regard to things of nature is shown by the question which someone propounded to Barnabas when he began to preach, at Rome according to _The Recognitions_, at Alexandria according to _The Homilies_, of the Son of God. The heckler wanted to know why so small a creature as a fly has not only six feet but wings in addition, while the elephant, despite its enormous bulk, has only four feet and no wings at all. Barnabas did not answer the question, although he asserted that he could if he wished to, making the excuse that it was not fitting to speak of mere creatures to those who were still ignorant of their Creator.[1752] [Sidenote: Interest in natural science.] This unwillingness to discuss natural questions by no means continues characteristic of the Clementines, however. Not only does Peter explain to Clement the creation of the world and propound the extraordinary[1753] doctrine that after completing the process of creation God “set an angel as chief over the angels, a spirit over the spirits, a star over the stars, a demon over the demons, a bird over the birds, a beast over the beasts, a serpent over the serpents, a fish over the fishes,” and “over men a man who is Christ Jesus.”[1754] Not only does he later in public defend baptism with water on the ground that “all things are produced from waters” and that waters were first created.[1755] We also find Niceta accepting the Greek hypothesis of four elements, of the sphericity of the universe, and of the motions of the heavenly bodies “assigned to them by fixed laws and periods,” citing Plato’s _Timaeus_, mentioning Aristotle’s introduction of a fifth element,[1756] disputing the atomic theory of Epicurus,[1757] and alluding to “mechanical science.”[1758] He further discusses the generation of plants, animals, and human beings as evidences of divine design and providence,[1759] in which connection he collects a number of examples of marvelous gen eration of animals such as moles from earth and vipers from ashes, and affirms that “the crow conceives through the mouth and the weasel generates through the ear.”[1760] Simon Magus declared himself immortal on the theory, which we shall find cropping out again in the thirteenth century in Roger Bacon and Peter of Abano, that his flesh was “so compacted by the power of his divinity that it can endure to eternity.”[1761] On the other hand, Niceta describes the action of the intestines in a fairly intelligent manner,[1762] and tells how the blood flows like water from a fountain, “and first borne along in one channel, and then spreading through innumerable veins as through canals, irrigates the entire territory of the human body with vital streams.”[1763] A little later on Aquila gives a natural explanation of rainbows.[1764] [Sidenote: God and nature.] There is noticeable, it is true, a tendency, common in patristic literature and found even among those fathers who hold the dualism of the Manichees in the deepest detestation, to make a distinction between God and nature and to attribute any flaws in the universe to the latter.[1765] Niceta cannot agree with “those who speak of nature instead of God and declare that all things were made by nature”; he holds that God created the universe. But Aquila, who supports his brother in the discussion, seems to think that God’s responsibility for the universe ceased, at least in part, after it was once created. At any rate he admits that “in this world some things are done in an orderly and some in a disorderly fashion. Those things therefore,” he continues, “that are done rationally, believe that they are done by Providence; but those that are done irrationally and inordinately, believe that they befall naturally and happen accidentally.”[1766] [Sidenote: Sin and nature.] But even nature sometimes rises up against the sins of mankind according to Peter and his associates. Aquila believes that the sins of men are the cause of pestilences;[1767] that “when chastisement is inflicted upon men according to the will of God, he” (i. e. the Sun, already called “that good servant” and whom the early Christians found it difficult to cease to personify) “glows more fiercely and burns up the world with more vehement fires”;[1768] and that “those who have become acquainted with prophetic discourse know when and for what reason blight, hail, pestilence, and such like have occurred in every generation, and for what sins these have been sent as a punishment.”[1769] Peter gives the impression that nature sometimes acts rather independently of God in thus punishing the wicked. He says: “But this also I would have you know, that upon such souls God does not take vengeance directly, but His whole creation rises up and inflicts punishments upon the impious. And although in the present world the goodness of God bestows the light of the world and the services of the earth alike upon the pious and the impious, yet not without grief does the Sun afford his light and the other elements perform their services to the impious. And, in short, sometimes even in opposition to the goodness of the Creator, the elements are worn out by the crimes of the wicked; and hence it is that either the fruit of the earth is blighted, or the composition of the air is vitiated, or the heat of the sun is increased beyond measure, or there is an excess of rain or cold.”[1770] This is a close approach to the notion of _The Book of Enoch_ that human sin upsets the world of nature, and an even closer approach to the theory of the Brahmans in _The Life of Apollonius of Tyana_ that prolonged drought is a punishment visited by the world-soul upon human sinfulness. [Sidenote: Attitude to astrology.] Such vestiges of the world-soul doctrine, such a tendency to ascribe emotion and will to the elements and planets, to personify them, and to think of God as ruling the world indirectly through them, prepare us to find an attitude rather favorable to astrological theory. Indeed, in the first book of _The Recognitions_[1771] we are told in so many words that the Creator adorned the visible heaven with stars, sun, and moon in order that “they might be for an indication of things past, present, and future,” and that these celestial signs, while seen by all, are “understood only by the learned and intelligent.” Astrology is respectfully described as “the science of mathesis,”[1772] and, as was common in the Roman Empire, astrologers are called _mathematici_.[1773] A defender even of the most extreme pretensions of the art is not abused as a charlatan but is courteously greeted as “so learned a man,”[1774] and all admire his eloquence, grave manners, and calm speech, and accord him a respectful hearing.[1775] Astrology, far from being regarded as necessarily contrary to religion, is thought to furnish arguments for the existence of God, and it is said that Abraham, “being an astrologer, was able from the rational system of the stars to recognize the Creator, while all other men were in error, and understood that all things are regulated by His Providence.”[1776] The number seven is somewhat emphasized[1777] and the twelve apostles are called the twelve months of Christ who is the acceptable year of the Lord.[1778] Somewhat similarly the Gnostic followers of the heretic Valentinus made much of the Duodecad, a group of twelve aeons, and believed, according to Irenaeus, “that Christ suffered in the twelfth month. For their opinion is that He continued to preach for one year only after His baptism.”[1779] Peter, too, has a group of twelve disciples.[1780] Niceta speaks of “man who is a microcosm in the great world.”[1781] It is admitted that the stars exert evil as well as good influence,[1782] and that the astrologer “can indicate the evil desire which malign virtue produces.”[1783] But it is contended that, “possessing freedom of the will, we sometimes resist our desires and sometimes yield to them,” and that no astrologer can predict beforehand which course we will take. [Sidenote: Arguments against genethlialogy.] In fine, astrology is criticized adversely only when it goes to the length of contending that “there is neither any God, nor any worship, neither is there any Providence in the world, but all things are done by fortuitous chance and _genesis_”; that “whatever your _genesis_ contains, that shall befall you”;[1784] and that the constellations force men to commit murder, adultery, and other crimes.[1785] On this point Niceta and Aquila, and finally Clement himself, have long discussions with an aged adept in genethlialogy which fill a large portion of the last three books of _The Recognitions_, and include a dozen chapters which are little more than an extract from _The Laws of Countries_ of Bardesanes. Divine Providence and human free will are defended, and genethlialogy is represented as an error which has received confirmation through the operations of demons.[1786] It is asserted that men can be kept from committing crimes by fear of punishment and by law, even if they are naturally so inclined, and races like the Seres (Chinese) and Brahmans are adduced as examples of entire races of men who never commit the crimes into which men are supposed to be forced by the constellations. The argument is also advanced, “Since God is righteous and since He Himself made human nature, how could it be that He should place _genesis_ in opposition to us, which should compel us to sin, and then that He should punish us when we do sin?”[1787] It is further charged that the constellations are so complicated, that for any given moment one astrologer may infer a favorable and another a disastrous influence,[1788] and that most successful explanations of the effects of the stars are made after the event, like dreams of which men can make nothing at the time, but “when any event occurs, then they adapt what they saw in the dream to what has occurred.”[1789] Finally the aged defender of _genesis_, who believed that his own fate and that of his wife had been accurately prescribed by their horoscopes, turns out to be Faustinianus (called Faustus in _The Homilies_), the long-lost father of Clement, Niceta, and Aquila; is also restored to his wife; and learns that his previous interpretation of events from the stars was quite erroneous.[1790] [Sidenote: The virtuous Seres.] The ideal picture of the Seres or Chinese, “who dwell at the beginning of the world,” which _The Recognitions_ apparently borrows from Bardesanes, is perhaps worth repeating here as an odd admission that a non-Christian people can attain a state of moral perfection and sinlessness, as well as an interesting bit of ancient ethnology. “In all that country which is very large there is neither temple nor image nor harlot nor adulteress, nor is any thief brought to trial. But neither is any man ever slain there.... For this reason they are not chastened with those plagues of which we have spoken; they live to extreme old age, and die without sickness.”[1791] Perhaps these virtuous Seres are the blameless Hyperboreans in another guise. [Sidenote: Theory of demons.] Demons and angels abound in _The Recognitions_. One may be rebuked and scourged at night by an angel of God.[1792] Peter says that every nation has an angel, since God has divided the earth into seventy-two sections and appointed an angel as governor and prince of each.[1793] Once, before beginning to preach, Peter expelled demons from a number of persons in the audience.[1794] In another passage is described the cure of a girl of twenty-seven who for twenty years had been vexed by an unclean spirit and had been shut up in a closet in chains because of her violence and superhuman strength. The mere presence of Peter put this demon to rout and the chains fell off the girl of their own accord.[1795] Besides these personal encounters with demons, the theory of demoniacal possession is discussed more than once, and anything of which the author does not approve, such as the art of horoscopes, heathen oracles, the excesses of pagan rites and festivals, and the animal gods of the Egyptians, is attributed to the influence of demons.[1796] One becomes susceptible to demoniacal possession who eats meat sacrificed to idols or who merely eats and drinks immoderately.[1797] Demons are apt to get into the very bowels of those who frequent drunken banquets.[1798] Incontinence, too, is accompanied by demons whose “noxious breath” produces “an intemperate and vicious progeny.... And therefore parents are responsible for their children’s defects of this sort, because they have not observed the law of intercourse.”[1799] As much care should be taken in human generation as in the sowing of crops. But while demons abound, God has given every Christian power over them, since they may be driven out by uttering “the threefold name of blessedness.”[1800] Moreover, “what is spoken by the true God, whether by prophets or varied visions, is always true; but what is foretold by demons is not always true.”[1801] [Sidenote: Origin of magic.] With demons is associated the origin of the magic art. “Certain angels ... taught men that demons could be made to obey man by certain arts, that is, by magical invocations.”[1802] The first magicians were Ham and his son Mesraim, from whom the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Assyrians are descended, and who tried to draw sparks from the stars[1803] but set himself on fire “and was consumed by the demon whom he had accosted with too great importunity.”[1804] But on this account he was called Zoroaster or “living star” after his death. Moreover, the magic art did not perish but was transmitted to Nimrod “as by a flash.”[1805] With this may be compared the slightly different account of the origin of magic given by Epiphanius in the _Panarion_, written about 374-375 A. D. Magic is older than heresy and was already in existence before the time of Ham or Mesraim in the antediluvian days of Jared, when it coexisted with “pharmacy,” a term here used to cover sorcery and poisoning, licentiousness, adultery, and injustice. After the flood Epiphanius mentions Nimrod (Νεβρώδ) as the first tyrant and the inventor of the evil disciplines of astrology and magic. He states that the Greeks incorrectly confuse him with Zoroaster whom they regard as the founder of magic and astrology. According to Epiphanius, “pharmacy” and magic passed from Egypt to Greece in the time of Cecrops.[1806] [Sidenote: Frequent accusations of magic.] In _The Recognitions_ everyone, Christian, heretic, pagan, and philosopher, condemns or professes to condemn magic, and reference is made to the laws of the Roman emperors against it.[1807] But Christians, pagans, and heretics, while claiming divine power and protection for themselves, freely accuse one another of the practice of magic. An unnamed person, by whom Paul is perhaps meant, stirs up the people of Jerusalem to persecute the apostolic community there as “most miserable men, who are deceived by Simon, a magician.”[1808] The guards at the sepulcher, unable to prevent the resurrection, said that Jesus was a magician, a charge which is repeated by one of the scribes and by Simon Magus. Simon also calls Peter a magician on more than one occasion.[1809] Peter, of course, makes similar charges against Simon; he had been especially sent by James to Caesarea in order to refute this magician who was giving himself out to be the _Stans_ or Christ.[1810] The gods of Greek mythology, too, are accused of having resorted to magic transformations and sorcery.[1811] Philosophy, however, escapes the accusation of magic in _The Recognitions_,[1812] and it was a philosopher who deterred Clement, before the latter had become a Christian, from his plan of investigating the problem of the immortality of the soul by hiring an Egyptian magician to evoke a soul from the infernal regions by the art of necromancy.[1813] The philosopher condemned such an attempt as unlawful, impious, and “hateful to the Divinity.”[1814] [Sidenote: Marvels of magic.] But while magic is condemned, its great powers are admitted. Simon Magus makes great boasts of the marvels which he can perform. These include becoming invisible, boring through rocks and mountains as if they were clay, passing through fire without being burned, flying through the air, loosing bonds and barriers, transformation into animal shapes, animation of statues, production of new plants or trees in a moment, and growing beards upon little boys.[1815] He also asserted that he had formed a boy by turning air into water and the water into blood, and then solidifying this into flesh, a feat which he regarded as superior to the creation of Adam from earth. Later Simon unmade him and restored him to the air, “but not until I had placed his image and picture in my bedchamber as a proof and memorial of my work.”[1816] Not only does Simon himself make such boasts; Niceta and Aquila, who had been his disciples before their conversion by Zaccheus, also bear witness to his amazing feats. “Who would not be astonished at the wonderful things which he does? Who would not think that he was a god come down from heaven for the salvation of men?”[1817] He can fly through the air, or so mingle himself with fire as to become one body with it, he can make statues walk and dogs of brass bark. “Yea, he has also been seen to make bread of stones.”[1818] When Dositheus tried to beat Simon, the rod passed through his body as if it had been smoke.[1819] The woman called Luna who goes about with Simon was seen by a crowd to look out of all the windows of a tower at the same time,[1820] an illusion possibly produced by mirrors. When Simon fears arrest, he transforms the face of Faustinianus into the likeness of his own, in order that Faustinianus may be arrested in his place.[1821] [Sidenote: How distinguish miracle from magic?] So great, indeed, are the marvels wrought by Simon and by magicians generally that Niceta asks Peter how they may be distinguished from divine signs and Christian miracles, and in what respect anyone sins who infers from the similarity of these signs and wonders either that Simon Magus is divine or that Christ was a magician. Speaking first of Pharaoh’s magicians, Niceta asks, “For if I had been there, should I not have thought, from the fact that the magicians did like things (to those which Moses did), either that Moses was a magician, or that the feats displayed by the magicians were divinely wrought?... But if he sins who believes those who work signs, how shall it appear that he also does not sin who has believed on our Lord for His signs and occult virtues?” Peter’s reply is that Simon’s magic does not benefit anyone, while the Christian miracles of healing the sick and expelling demons are performed for the good of humanity. To Antichrist alone among workers of magic will it be permitted at the end of the world to mix in some beneficial acts with his evil marvels. Moreover, “by this means going beyond his bounds, and being divided against himself, and fighting against himself, he shall be destroyed.”[1822] Later in _The Recognitions_, however, Aquila states that even the magic of the present has found ways of imitating by contraries the expulsion of demons by the word of God, that it can counteract the poisons of serpents by incantations, and can effect cures “contrary to the word and power of God.” He adds, “The magic art has also discovered ministries contrary to the angels of God, placing the evocation of souls and the figments of demons in opposition to these.”[1823] [Sidenote: Deceit in magic.] But while the marvels of magic are admitted, there is a feeling that there is something deceitful and unreal about them. The teachings of the true prophet, we are told, “contain nothing subtle, nothing composed by magic art to deceive,”[1824] while Simon is “a deceiver and magician.”[1825] Nor is he deceitful merely in his religious teaching and his opposition to Peter; even his boasts of magic power are partly false. Aquila, his former disciple, says, “But when he spoke thus of the production of sprouts and the perforation of the mountain, I was confounded on this account, because he wished to deceive even us, in whom he seemed to place confidence; for we knew that those things had been from the days of our fathers, which he represented as having been done by himself lately.”[1826] Moreover, not only does Simon deceive others; he is himself deceived by demons as Peter twice asserts:[1827] “He is deluded by demons, yet he thinks that he sees the very substance of the soul.” “Although in this he is deluded by demons, yet he has persuaded himself that he has the soul of a murdered boy ministering to him in whatever he pleases to employ it.” [Sidenote: Murder of a boy.] This story of having sacrificed a pure boy for purposes of magic or divination was a stock charge, which we have previously heard made against Apollonius of Tyana and which was also told of the early Christians by their pagan enemies and of the Jews and heretics in the middle ages. Simon is said to have confessed to Niceta and Aquila, when they asked how he worked his magic, that he received assistance from “the soul of a boy, unsullied and violently slain, and invoked by unutterable adjurations.” He went on to explain that “the soul of man holds the next place after God, when once it is set free from the darkness of the body. And immediately it acquires prescience, wherefore it is invoked in necromancy.” When Aquila asked why the soul did not take vengeance upon its slayer instead of performing the behests of magicians, Simon answered that the soul now had the last judgment too vividly before it to indulge in vengeance, and that the angels presiding over such souls do not permit them to return to earth unless “adjured by someone greater than themselves.”[1828] Niceta then indignantly interposed, “And do you not fear the day of judgment, who do violence to angels and invoke souls?” As a matter of fact, the charge that Simon had murdered or violently slain a boy is rather overdrawn, since the boy in question was the one whom he had made from air in the first place and whom he simply turned back into air again, claiming, however, to have thereby produced an unsullied human soul. According to _The Homilies_, however, he presently confided to Niceta and Aquila that the human soul did not survive the death of the body and that a demon really responded to his invocations.[1829] [Sidenote: Magic is evil.] Nevertheless, the charge of murder thus made against Simon illustrates the criminal character here as usually ascribed to magic. Simon is said to be “wicked above measure,” and to depend upon “magic arts and wicked devices,” and Peter accuses him of “acting by nefarious arts.”[1830] Simon in his turn calls Peter “a magician, a godless man, injurious, cunning, ignorant, and professing impossibilities,” and again “a magician, a sorcerer, a murderer.”[1831] [Sidenote: Magic is an art.] A further characteristic of magic which comes out clearly in _The Recognitions_ is that it is an art. Demons and souls of the dead may have a great deal to do with it, but it also requires a human operator and makes use of materials drawn from the world of nature. It was by anointing his face with an ointment which the magician had compounded that the countenance of Faustinianus was transformed into the likeness of Simon, while Appion and Anubion, who anointed their faces with the juice of a certain herb, were thereby enabled still to recognize Faustinianus as himself.[1832] In another passage one of Simon’s disciples who has deserted him and come to Peter tells how Simon had made him carry on his back to the seashore a bundle “of his polluted and accursed secret things.” Simon took the bundle out to sea in a boat and later returned without it.[1833] Simon not only employed natural materials in his magic, but was regarded as a learned man, even by his enemies. He is “by profession a magician, yet exceedingly well trained in Greek literature.”[1834] He is “a most vehement orator, trained in the dialectic art, and in the meshes of syllogisms; and what is most serious of all, he is greatly skilled in the magic art.”[1835] And he engages with Peter in theological debates. It is also interesting to note as an illustration of the connection between magic and experimental science that Simon, in boasting of his feats of magic, says, “For already I have achieved many things by way of experiment.”[1836] [Sidenote: Other accounts of Simon Magus: Justin Martyr to Hippolytus.] In the Pseudo-Clementines we are told that Simon intended to go to Rome, but _The Recognitions_ and _The Homilies_ deal only with the conflicts between Peter and Simon in various Syrian cities and do not follow them to Rome, where, as other Christian writers tell us, they had yet other encounters in which Simon finally came to his bitter end. Justin Martyr, writing about the middle of the second century, states that Simon, a Samaritan of Gitto, came to Rome in the reign of Claudius and performed such feats of magic by demon aid that a statue was erected to him as a god. In this matter of the statue Justin is thought to have confused Semo Sancus, a Sabine deity, with Simon. Justin adds that almost all Samaritans and a few persons from other nations still believe in Simon as the first God, and that a disciple of his, named Menander, deceived many by magic at Antioch. Justin complains that the followers of these men are still called Christians and on the other hand that the emperors do not persecute them as they do other Christians, although Justin charges them with practicing promiscuous sexual intercourse as well as magic.[1837] Irenaeus gives a very similar account.[1838] Origen, as we have seen, denied that there were more than thirty of Simon’s followers left,[1839] but his contemporary Tertullian wrote, “At this very time even the heretical dupes of this same Simon are so much elated by the extravagant pretensions of their art, that they undertake to bring up from Hades the souls of the prophets themselves. And I suppose that they can do so under cover of a lying wonder.”[1840] But Origen and Tertullian add nothing to the story of Simon Magus himself. Hippolytus, too, implies that Simon still has followers, since he devotes a number of chapters to stating and refuting Simon’s doctrines and to “teaching anew the parrots of Simon that Christ ... was not Simon.”[1841] But Hippolytus also gives further details concerning Simon’s visit to Rome, stating that he there encountered the apostles and was repeatedly opposed by Peter, until finally Simon declared that if he were buried alive he would rise again upon the third day. His disciples buried him, as they were directed, but he never reappeared, “for he was not the Christ.” [Sidenote: Peter’s account in the _Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum_.] Peter himself is represented as briefly recounting his struggle at Rome with Simon Magus in the _Didascalia Apostolorum_, an apocryphal work of probably the third century, extant in Syriac and Latin, and more fully in the parallel passage of the Greek _Constitutiones Apostolorum_, written perhaps about 400 A. D.[1842] Peter found Simon at Rome drawing many away from the church as well as seducing the Gentiles by his “magic operation and virtues,” or, in the Greek version, “magic experiments and the working of demons.”[1843] In the Syriac and Latin account Peter then states that one day he saw Simon flying through the air. “And standing beneath I said, ‘In the virtue of the holy name, Jesus, I cut off your virtues.’ And so falling he broke the arch (thigh?) of his foot (leg?).”[1844] But he did not die, since Peter goes on to say that while “many then departed from him, others who were worthy of him remained with him.” In the longer Greek version Simon announced his flight in the theater. While all eyes were turned on Simon, Peter prayed against him. Meanwhile Simon mounted aloft into mid-air, borne up, Peter says, by demons, and telling the people that he was ascending to heaven, whence he would return bringing them good tidings. The people applauded him as a god, but Peter stretched forth his hands to heaven, supplicating God through the Lord Jesus to dash down the corrupter and curtail the power of the demons. He asked further, however, that Simon might not be killed by his fall but merely bruised. Peter also addressed Simon and the evil powers who were supporting him, requiring that he might fall and become a laughing-stock to those who had been deceived by him. Thereupon Simon fell with a great commotion and bruised his bottom and the soles of his feet. It will be noted that here, as in the accounts by some other authors, Peter alone struggles with Simon Magus, lending color to the Tübingen theory once suggested in connection with the Pseudo-Clementines, that Simon Magus is meant to represent the apostle Paul. [Sidenote: Arnobius, Cyril, and Philastrius.] Arnobius, writing about 300 A. D., gives a somewhat different account of Simon’s mode of flight and fall. He says that the people of Rome “saw the chariot of Simon Magus and his four fiery horses blown away by the mouth of Peter and vanish at the name of Christ. They saw, I say, him who had trusted false gods and been betrayed by them in their fright precipitated by his own weight and lying with broken legs. Then, after he had been carried to Brunda, worn out by his shame and sufferings, he again hurled himself down from the highest ridge of the roof.”[1845] Cyril of Jerusalem, 315-386 A. D., also speaks of Simon’s being borne in air in the chariot of demons, “and is not surprised that the combined prayers of Peter and Paul brought him down, since in addition to Jesus’s promise to answer the petition of two or three gathered together it is to be remembered that Peter carried the keys of heaven and that Paul had been rapt to the third heaven and heard secret words.”[1846] Philastrius, another writer of the fourth century, describes Simon’s death more vaguely, stating that after Peter had driven him from Jerusalem he came to Rome where they engaged in another contest before Nero. Simon was worsted by Peter on every point of argument, and, “smitten by an angel died a merited death in order that the falsity of his magic might be evident to all men.”[1847] But it is hardly worth while to pile up such brief allusions to Simon in the writings of the fathers.[1848] [Sidenote: Apocryphal _Acts of Peter and Paul_.] Other fuller accounts of Simon’s doings at Rome are contained in the Syriac _Teaching of Simon Cephas_[1849] and in the apocryphal _Acts of Peter and Paul_.[1850] In the former Peter urges the people of Rome not to allow the sorcerer Simon to delude them by semblances which are not realities, and he raises a dead man to life after Simon has failed to do so. In the latter work Simon opposes Peter and Paul in the presence of Nero and as usual they charge one another with being magicians. Simon also as usual affirms that he is Christ, and we are told that the chief priests had called Jesus a wizard. Simon had already made a great impression upon Nero by causing brazen serpents to move and stone statues to laugh, and by altering both his face and stature and changing first to a child and then to an old man. Nero also asserts that Simon has raised a dead man and that Simon himself rose on the third day after being beheaded. It is later explained, however, that Simon had arranged to have the beheading take place in a dark corner and through his magic had substituted a ram for himself. The ram appeared to be Simon until after it had been decapitated, when the executioner discovered that the head was that of a ram but did not dare report the fact to Nero. When Simon met the apostles in Nero’s presence, he caused great dogs to rush suddenly at Peter, but Peter made them vanish into air by showing them some bread which he had been secretly blessing and breaking. As a final test Simon promised to ascend to heaven if Nero would build him a tower in the Campus Martius, where “my angels may find me in the air, for they cannot come to me upon earth among sinners.” The tower was duly provided, and Simon, crowned with laurel, began to fly successfully until Peter, tearfully entreated by Paul to make haste, adjured the angels of Satan who were supporting Simon to let him drop. Simon then fell upon the _Sacra Via_ and his body was broken into four parts.[1851] Nero, however, chose to regard the apostles as Simon’s murderers and put them to death, after which a Marcellus, who had been Simon’s disciple but left him to join Peter, secretly buried Peter’s body. [Sidenote: An account ascribed to Marcellus.] To this Marcellus is ascribed a very similar narrative which is found in an early medieval manuscript and was perhaps written in the seventh or eighth century.[1852] Fabricius and Florentinus give its title as, _Of the marvelous deeds and acts of the blessed Peter and Paul and of Simon’s magic arts_.[1853] I have read it in a Latin pamphlet printed at some time before 1500, where the full title runs: _The Passion of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and their disputation before the emperor Nero against Simon, a certain magician, who, when he saw that he could not resist the utterances of St. Peter, cast all his books of magic into the sea lest he be adjudged a magician. Then when the same Simon Magus presumed to ascend to heaven, overcome by St. Peter he fell to earth and perished most miserably._ At its close occurs the statement, “I, Marcellus, a disciple of my lord, the apostle Peter, have written what I saw.” When this Marcellus began to desert his former master, Simon, to follow Peter, Simon procured a big dog to keep Peter away from Marcellus, but at Peter’s order the dog turned upon Simon himself. Peter then humanely forbade the beast to do Simon any serious bodily injury, but the dog tore the magician’s clothing off his back, and Simon was chased from town by the mob and did not venture to return until after a year’s time.[1854] [Sidenote: Hegesippus.] A chapter is devoted to Simon Magus in the _History of the Jewish War_ of the so-called Hegesippus, a name which is thought to be a corruption of Josephus, since the work in large measure reproduces that historian. At any rate it was not written until the fourth century and is probably a translation or adaptation by Ambrose. Its account of Simon Magus combines the story of his competition with Peter in raising the dead, “for in such works Peter was held most celebrated,” with that of his flight and fall. He is represented as launching his flight from the Capitoline Hill and leaping off the Tarpeian rock. The people marveled at his flight, some remarking that Christ had never performed such a feat as this. But when Peter prayed against him, “straightway his propeller was tangled up in Peter’s voice, and he fell, nor was he killed, but, weakened by a broken leg, withdrew to Aricia and died there.”[1855] [Sidenote: A sermon on Simon’s fall.] Finally, passing over other Latin accounts of the contest between the apostles and Simon Magus to be found in the _Apostolic Histories_ of the Pseudo-Abdias[1856] and in a work ascribed to Pope Linus,[1857] we may note a sermon which has been variously ascribed in the manuscripts and printed editions to Augustine, Ambrose, and Maximus.[1858] This sermon, intended for the anniversary of the day of martyrdom of Peter and Paul, proceeds to inquire the cause of their death and finds it in the fact that among other marvels they “prostrated by their prayers that magician Simon in a headlong fall from the empty air. For when the same Simon called himself Christ and asserted that as the Son he could ascend unto the Father by flying, and, suddenly raised up by magic arts, began to fly, then Peter on his knees prayed the Lord, and by sacred prayer overcame the magical levitation. For the prayer ascended to the Lord before the flier, and the just petition arrived ere the iniquitous presumption. Peter, I say, though placed on the ground, obtained what he sought before Simon reached the heaven towards which he was tending. So then Peter brought him down like a captive from high in air, and, falling precipitately upon a rock, he broke his legs. And this in contumely of his feat, so that he who just before had tried to fly, of a sudden could not even walk, and he who had assumed wings lost even his feet. But lest it appear strange that, while the apostle was present, that magician should fly through the air even for a while, let it be explained that this was due to Peter’s patience. For he let him soar the higher in order that he might fall the farther; for he wished him to be carried aloft where everyone could see him, in order that all might see him when he fell from on high.” The preacher then draws the moral that pride goes before a fall. [Sidenote: Simon Magus in medieval art.] The struggle of Peter and Paul with Simon Magus at Rome appears in _The Golden Legend_, compiled by Jacopo de Voragine in the thirteenth century, and was likewise a favorite theme of Gothic stained glass. At Chartres and Angers Peter may be seen routing Simon’s dogs by blessing bread; at Bourges and Lyons Simon and Peter compete in raising the dead; while windows at Chartres, Bourges, Tours, Reims, and Poitiers show the apostles praying and Simon falling and breaking his neck.[1859] This last scene and also the disputation before Nero are represented in the earlier mosaics of the eleventh or twelfth century which the Norman rulers of Sicily had executed in the cathedral of Monreale and the royal chapel of their castle at Palermo.[1860]