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Simon Magus
Sign in to savereligious figure who confronted Peter
OverviewAI-generated
Simon Magus was a male spiritual teacher, magi, and heretic who lived during the Roman Empire. Born in Samaria with citizenship in Judaea, he is identified in the Greek language as Σίμων ὁ μάγος. His religious worldview was associated with gnosticism, and he was convicted of heresy. He died in Rome in 65, having been born in 50.
He is present in several works, including the Acts of the Apostles, Acts of Peter, Golden Legend, and Epistle of the Apostles. A significant event in his life was his baptism. He is described in sources such as the Jewish Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron, the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, the Bible Encyclopedia of Archimandrite Nicephorus, and the Enciclopedia Dantesca.
Synthesized by Vinony from 30 facts across 6 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, Open Library, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Key facts
- Title
- Magus
- Nationality
- Samaritan
- Known for
- Early Christian and proto-Gnostic figure; sometimes referred to as the 'founder' of Gnosticism, though this is incorrect
- Religion
- Early Christianity/proto-Gnosticism
- Founder of
- Simonianism (polemic)
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- Simon
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- Judaea
- Place of birth
- Samaria
- Place of death
- Rome
- Occupation
- magi
- Religion
- gnosticism
- Image
- Basilica Saint-Sernin - Simon Magus.jpg
- Convicted of
- heresy
- Significant event
- baptism
Show 9 more facts
- Commons category
- Simon Magus
- date of death
- 0065-00-00
- described by source
- Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition
- time period
- Roman Empire
- date of birth
- 0050-00-00
- present in work
- Epistle of the Apostles
- floruit
- 0100-00-00
- name in native language
- Σίμων ὁ μάγος
- not found in
- Pauly–Wissowa
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~28 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Simon Magus (Greek Σίμων ὁ μάγος, Latin: Simon Magus), also known as Simon the Magician, was a religious figure whose confrontation with Peter is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. The act of simony, or paying for position, is named after Simon, who tried to buy his way into the power of the Apostles.
According to Acts, Simon was a Samaritan magus or religious figure of the 1st century AD and a convert to Christianity, baptised by Philip the Evangelist. Simon later clashed with Peter. Accounts of Simon by writers of the second century exist, but are not considered verifiable. Surviving traditions about Simon appear in traditional texts, such as those of Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Hippolytus, and Epiphanius, where he is often described as the founder of Gnosticism, which has been accepted by some modern scholars, while others reject claims that he was a Gnostic, maintaining that he was merely considered to be one by the Church Fathers.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Simon Magus” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.