Jesus and Simon Magus
In this extract from my
book Barbelo, the Story of Jesus Christ,
I discuss the relationship between Jesus Christ (JC) and Simon Magus (SM), the
Egyptian magician who parroted Christ in almost every respect. Simon Magus is
an enigmatic character who appears mostly in apocryphal works, but is also
mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles.
In the words of Clement,
And sometimes imitating that he
is Christ, he styles himself the Standing One.…Instead of our Christ, he
proclaims himself.
By comparing their statements
and claims, their deeds and their personalities, my conclusion is that these
two individuals must have been one and the same person. In fact, Hippolytus
felt obliged to refute direct accusations that Christ and Simon Magus were the
same person,
In this way we must think
concerning Simon the Magician…let us endeavour to teach anew the parrots of
Simon, that Christ, who stood, stands, and will stand, (that is, was, is, and
is to come,) was not Simon.
Simon
Magus was supposed to have appeared on the scene directly after the crucifixion
and ascension of Christ. Curiously, though, the Pistis Sophia relates that
Christ continued to teach his disciples for 11 years after his resurrection.
This is also the premise of Barbelo, that
Christ had survived his crucifixion and continued to instruct his disciples
afterwards. Could Christ and Simon Magus have existed in parallel, both
conversing with Christ’s disciples? Of course not.
1. Their
sayings …
SM: I am the Standing One … who stands,
has stood, and will stand
JC: was born of a virgin
SM: ‘for before my mother Rachel and he
came together, she, still a virgin, conceived
me’
JC: created ‘all things in heaven and on
earth … the heavens are the work of his hands’
SM: the universe had been originated by
his angels
JC: instructed his disciples to baptise
in his name
SM: ‘none could possibly have salvation
without being baptised in his name’
JC: promised his followers eternal life
SM: ‘who that would believe in him, he
would make them perpetual’
JC: taught that the
sins of those who believe in him are forgiven, … who gave himself for our sins
to rescue us from the present evil age
SM: ‘taught that those who
put their trust in him and his consort Helen, as being free, live
as they please; for men are saved through
his grace’
JC: told the parable of
the lost sheep
SM: referred to Helen as
the lost sheep, on whose account he had descended to earth
JC: Nothing will be impossible for you
SM: that nothing to him was impossible
JC: for I came from God … those who were
in the boat worshipped him
SM: he said that he should be worshipped
of all men as God
JC: linked to the Father, who can do
whatever he wants
SM: that he might do all that he would
JC: Still other seed fell
on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than what was
sown
SM: I commanded the
sickle to reap by itself alone, and it reaped ten times more than any other
JC: In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God
SM: I am the Word of
God
JC: the Father, the
Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one
SM: appeared in Samaria
as the Father, in Judea as the Son, and amongst the heathen as the Holy Ghost
JC: The Son is the
radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being
SM: I am Almighty, I am
all that is of God
JC: Do
not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to
bring peace, but a sword
SM: And therefore desire no peace but
battle
JC: multiplied loaves of bread to feed
thousands
SM: I can … turn stones into bread
JC: The Christ will suffer and rise from
the dead on the third day
SM: command my head to be smitten off and
I shall arise again the third day
2. The
return from Egypt
4. Statues
of Christ and Simon Magus
Both Christ and Simon Magus had the
dubious honour of statues of them having been put on display by the
authorities.
5. Confrontation
with Simon Peter
In the Clementine texts, Simon Magus is
depicted as being involved with Peter in lengthy arguments on a variety of
religious topics. From the Gospels it is clear that Christ and Simon Peter often
discussed or even argued about religion (Christ even referred to him as
‘Satan’), and Peter objected to Christ about Mary Magdalene’s domination of
their discussions.
Bystanders would have remembered these
presumably public discussions as having occurred between Simon Magus and Peter,
while the disciples recorded them as between Christ and Peter.
6. Preaching
on the slopes of the Mount of Olives
Both Christ and Simon Magus (Josephus’
Egyptian) preached to ‘common people’ on the slopes of the Mount of Olives.
7. Accused
of being magicians
Christ and his followers were often
accused of being magicians. Simon Magus’ name means Simon, the Magician. In Barbelo I show that Christ’s so-called
miracles were nothing but carefully orchestrated illusions. Peter’s ‘miracle’
of the coin in the fish is the first trick any aspiring illusionist has to
master.
8. Flew
into the air
Simon Magus attempted to prove his divinity
by flying up above the Forum, but the prayers of Peter and Paul caused him to
fall down to the earth. Yeshu (Christ) and Judas Iscariot flew up towards the
heavens, but both fell down after Judas had defiled Christ in mid-air.
According
to the Talmud, Yeshu stole the shem
(the letters of God’s Ineffable Name) from the Holy of Holies. Yeshu knew that
the barking of the bronze dogs at the entrance would make him forget these
letters, so he hid a parchment with the sacred letters written upon it inside a
cut he had made into his hip. Once he had passed the dogs and their barking had
wiped the letters from his memory, he reopened the cut, retrieved the
parchment, and so remembered the letters, which he used to perform miracles.
Simon Magus likewise ‘lost the words with which he was deceiving those who
stood by’ when a dog with a human voice confronted him. Christ had indeed
stormed the Temple with 310 of his men, looted all its holy objects, defiled
the Holy of Holies and tore the temple curtain in half.
10. Rejected
Jerusalem
Simon Magus rejected Jerusalem, as did
Christ.
11. Heresies
and sexual conduct
Simon Magus and his followers were
accused of excessive baseness and lewdness. Various Christian sects were known
for their sexual depravity and the Gnostics claimed that Christ himself had
revealed those obscenities to them.
12. Brought
magic from Egypt, knowledge of Greek (remote) culture
JC: Accusation brought against Christ: “Jesus
was a Magician. He effected all these things by secret arts. From the shrines
of the Egyptians He stole the names of the angels of might, and the religious system
of a remote country.” Ben Stada (Christ) brought his magic from Egypt.
SM: During a stay in Egypt, he acquired
a large measure of Greek culture and attained to an extensive knowledge of
magic and ability in it.
13. Eloquence
Simon Magus was a ‘most vehement orator, trained in the dialectic art,’ matching Christ’s ability to entertain crowds.
14. A subtle clue in his nameWhy was Simon Peter renamed to Cephas? Most
likely because Simon Magus had become irritated by the constant confusion as to
which one of him or Simon Peter was being addressed.
In Chapter 7 of Barbelo I discuss the likelihood that Christ had adopted the alias
Paul of Tarsus following his staged crucifixion. Some scholars have already
identified Simon Magus with Paul, who was, in fact, Jesus Christ. Possibly the
most unambiguous proof that these three names belonged to the same person is
presented by the accusations brought against the Templar Knights (Chapter 8),
that they had worshipped an idol in the form of a severed head with three
faces. Christian legend relates that Paul was beheaded, and for what other
conceivable reason would anyone have claimed that the head had three faces?
To conclude, it is an
absurd notion that two different
persons could have been present in Judea in the same time frame and physical
location, and be involved with the same group of people, one of whom
practically repeated word for word what the other was saying or had said
earlier, and to top it all, claiming to be the other. How could Simon Magus
have possessed such intimate knowledge of what Christ had taught his disciples?
The only logical conclusion that can be made is that they had to be one and the
same person. Outsiders knew him as Simon Magus, while his followers and inner
circle referred to him as Jesus Christ, the anointed one, or the Messiah.
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