Simon Magus (Part II)
What Did Simon and the Samaritans Believe?
Church historians state that long before the appearance of 
Christianity, combinations of religion had taken place in Syria and Palestine, ESPECIALLY IN SAMARIA, insofar as the ASSYRIAN and BABYLONIAN religious philosophy with its manifold interpretations, had penetrated as far as the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. Babylonian religion had come ESPECIALLY TO SAMARIA, therefore, Samaritans were largely Babylonian by race. The Bible tells us in II Kings 17:24 that most of the Samaritans had been taken to Samaria from Babylon and adjacent areas. Later on, Ezra informs us that others who were mainly of Babylonian stock came to Samaria (Ezra 4:9-10). These people amalgamated their Babylonian religious beliefs with some of the teachings from the Old Testament. But they NEVER DEPARTED basically from their own Babylonian-Chaldean religious teachings.
If anyone doubts that these Samaritans practiced outright paganism under the guise of YHVH worship, let him read the extraordinarily clear indictments recorded in the inspired Word of God (II Kings 17:24-41).A Brief History of the Samaritans. There were originally five Babylonian tribes who had been transported to the area where Northern Israel once lived before Israel’s inglorious defeat and captivity by the Assyrians. When these five tribes moved INTO the vacant land of Samaria, they brought their Babylonian and Assyrian gods with them.
After a short while in their new country, they were ravaged by lions. They interpreted this punishment as coming upon them because they failed to honour the god of the new land — not realizing that there is only One Great GOD, who is not confined to any one land. These Samaritans didn’t have sense enough to realize that the True God of the land had sent Israel into captivity because of their calf-worship and their introduction of Phoenician religion. They asked the Assyrian king to send back one of the priests of Israel to teach them the former religion in order that the plague of lions would be stayed.
The Israelites priest who was sent to them taught the religion of Northern Israel. Remember that the priests of Northern Israel were NOT Levites. At the time of Jeroboam, the true priests of God were forced to flee to Jerusalem and Judea (II Chron. 11:14). Jeroboam had as well set up his own form of religion with the calves at Dan and Bethel (I Kings 12:28-30). He moved the Holy Days from the seventh to the eighth month. He made priests of the lowest of the people, those who were NOT of Levi (I Kings 12:31).
All of these acts of Jeroboam were outright violations of God’s law. It was from the time of Jeroboam down to the time of Israel’s captivity, that the majority of Israel was NOT worshipping the True God at all! Jerusalem and God’s temple had been repudiated, and paganism had been introduced on a grand scale. When these transplanted Babylonians who were being afflicted by lions in Samaria asked for a priest of the former people — THEY GOT ONE! But that priest was one of the former calf-worshipping priests of the rebel Israelites. He was almost as pagan as the Babylonians themselves.
This priest of Israel taught the Babylonians (now called Samaritans) to adopt the former worship of the Northern Israelites. The priest taught them to revere YHVH as the “God of the Land.” Thus, these Samaritans finally took upon themselves the NAME: The People of YHVH; but their religion was outright paganism — a mixture of Israelitish calf-worship and Babylonianism — just as Simon Magus later was eager to appropriate Christ’s NAME, but continue his pagan abominations!
Notice what God says about the final condition of these Samaritans. “So these nations feared the Lord [calling themselves God’s people], AND served their graven images, both their children, and their children’s children: as did their fathers [the Babylonians], so do they unto this day” (II Kings 17:41). These people called themselves the worshippers of the True God, but were actually Babylonian idolaters.
What Deities Did the Samaritans Worship?
It will pay us to notice the gods and goddesses that these forefathers of Simon Magus brought with them to Samaria. The people from the City of Babylon adored SUCCOTH-BENOTH; the Cuthites: NERGAL; the Hamathites: ASHIMA; the Avites: NIBHAZ and TAR-TAK; the Sepharvites: ADRAM-MELECH and ANAM-MELECH. The first deity is SUCCOTH-BENOTH, a goddess. It was Semiramis in the form of Venus. The book Proper Names of the O.T., p. 348. says the name signifies “Tabernacles of daughters.” It means: “Chapels made of green boughs, which the men of Babylon, who had been transported into Samaria, erected in honor to Venus, and where their daughters were PROSTITUTED by the devotees of that abominable goddess. It was the custom of Babylon, the mother of harlots, and therefore HER SONS DID THE SAME THING IN SAMARIA.”
About the god NERGAL of Cuth, We are informed by McClintock and Strong’s Encyclopedia that the name signifies “the great man,” “the great hero” or “the god of the chase,” or the Hunter. In other words, as the Encyclopedia further points out, he was a form of NIMROD. This Hunter-god was honored by the people of CUTH for Arabian tradition tells us that CUTH was the special city of NIMROD (vol. VI, p. 950). The next god was that of Hamath: ASHIMA. He was the great pagan god of propitiation. This god was the pagan REDEEMER (Christ) — the OSIRIS of Egyptian fame or the dying NIMROD. The Avites worshipped NIBHAZ (masc. — the god of HADES) and TAR-TAK, “the mother of the gods”. This last-mentioned goddess was supposedly the mother of the Assyrian race, also known as SEMIRAMIS.
The fifth Babylonian tribe worshiped pre-eminently two gods. ADRAM-MELECH and ANAM-MELECH. The first was the “god of fire,” the Sun or the Phoenician Baal, the second was “the god of the flocks” or the Greek HERMES, the Good Shepherd. (It is self-evident that these gods and goddesses were the major Babylonian deities, and at the same time, the very gods and goddesses which the Roman Catholic Church deifies today as Christ, Mary, etc.)
Simon Magus grew up in this mixed-up society. The Samaritans called themselves the people of the True God, but religiously were practicing Babylonians. Simon himself was a priest of these people (the word “Magus” is the Chaldean/Persian word for “priest”). Thus, in the encounter of Peter with Simon Magus, we find the first real connection of true Christianity with the Chaldean priest who was prophesied to bring in its false counterpart.
This was the type of religious environment in which Simon Magus was born. This was the environment in which he commenced his own ministry and was finally proclaimed the “great one or the great power of God” — that is, God Himself (Acts 8:9-10). He so swayed the whole of the Samaritan nation that all gave heed to him — they did for a very long time (Verses 9-11). As we saw, Simon saw the potential of Christianity; he endeavoured to buy an apostleship in the Church. Simon Magus can be classified among the major group of so-called Christians (and Simon called himself such) who were decidedly anti-Jewish. They advance 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. Simon rather connected his [universal] religion with the cults-wisdom of BABYLON and SYRIA”. With this background, we can understand why Peter so strongly rebuked Simon for his Babylonian ideas. The Bible shows he had been working through demons. And yet, he finally called himself a “Christian. Simon’s 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.
When Simon broke with the Christians and lead to Rome, HE DID NOT RENOUNCED ALL HE HAD LEARNED, but carried some of the Christian ideas he had learnt with the Apostles with him and wove these into a system of his own. This religious system founded by Simon, a blending of Paganism with Christianity, perhaps nominally Christian, and certainly using some of the Christian terminology, was in reality anti-Christian and exalting Simon himself to the central position which Christianity was giving to Jesus Christ” (Ibid). Simon Magus
“Evidently the Simonian heresy always had a Christian tinge. This made it more dangerous to Christians than a Gnostic which did not affect any Christian influence. Luke therefore would be anxious to disclose the true circumstances that accounted for the origin of the sect. The reason Luke recorded this encounter with Simon was its far-reaching effects. Luke’s well-known plan of describing THE FIRST MEETING between Christianity and rival systems, give in detail the principal character who established the so-called Christian counterpart of the Truth in the Apostles’ days. This is the reason the Apostles in their Church letters many times mention the false system as ALREADY IN EXISTENCE, but fail to describe its origin. They didn’t have to. That was already done RIGHT AT THE FIRST by Luke.
Who History Says This Simon Became.
When Justin Martyr wrote [152 A.D.] his Apology, the sect of the Simonians appears to have been formidable, for he speaks four times of their founder, Simon; and we need not doubt that he identified him with the Simon of the Acts. He states that he was a Samaritan, adding that his birthplace was a village called Gitta; he describes him as a formidable magician, and tells that he came to ROME in the days of Claudius Caesar (45 A.D.), and made such an impression by his magical powers, THAT HE WAS HONORED AS A GOD, a statue being erected to him on the Tiber, between the two bridges, bearing the inscription ‘Simoni deo Sancto’ (i.e., the holy god Simon).Dictionary of Christian Biography, Vol. 4, p. 682).
That these things actually happened CANNOT BE DOUBTED. Justin was writing to the Roman people at the time and they could certainly have exposed Justin’s credulity if what he said was not so. And, that a statue of Simon was actually erected is definite, for Justin asks the authorities in Rome to destroy it. There are many writers, who lived in Rome itself, who afterwards repeated Justin’s account. Those who want to reject these clear statements have nothing in their favor. Justin is clearly giving us fact.
Hasting’s Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, Vol 2, p. 496, states that there is “very slight evidence on which to reject so precise a statement as Justin makes; a statement he would scarcely have hazarded in an apology addressed to Rome, where every person had the means of ascertaining its accuracy. If he made a mistake, it must have been at once exposed, and other writers would not have frequently repeated the story as they have done.” At the time of Claudius, it was illegal to erect a statue to any man as a god or greatly honored person unless the permission of the Emperor and the Senate had been secured. The statue was still standing in Justin’s day (152 A.D.), people were still giving regard to it. There are many other accounts of Simon’s traveling to Rome and becoming one of the great gods to the city and to the people of Rome. There are records which show that Simon “prophesies that Rome will be the scene of his crowning glory, when he will be adored as a god” Dictionary of Religion & Ethics, Vol. 11, p. 522). Simon Peter NOT With Simon Magus in Rome.
It can be Biblically shown that the Apostle Peter the Apostle was NEVER in Rome as the Catholic Church claims. It was NOT Simon Peter who went to Rome to become Apostle to the Gentiles, but the SIMON in Rome was SIMON MAGUS. That Peter the Apostle was not with Simon Magus. The “Stone” over which, the Church of Jesus Christ was founded was not the Apostle Peter – as the they want it to be understood – but Jesus Christ, the Son of God Himself.
Continuing with the Encyclopedia Biblica about Justin’s reference to SIMON MAGUS: “One part of this tradition — that about Simon’s presence in Rome — he [Justin] found himself able to accept [in fact he held it to be confirmed by the statue, which he brought into connection with Simon]; the other — that about Peter’s presence in Rome — he was unable to accept” (col. 4555).Of course Justin was unable to accept the latter teaching. The fact is, Simon Peter was NOT in Rome. It was another Simon who went there — SIMON MAGUS, the one bringing “Christianity” to them in the guise of the old Babylonian mystery religions. Simon came to Rome with the grand idea of e establishing a UNIVERSAL RELIGION in the NAME of Christianity and, what is remarkable, he did just that.
But, how did Simon Magus become later confuse with Simon Peter and how he cleverly brought into “Christianity” the mystery religions of Babylon. The Apostle Peter Was NOT The First Pope of the Catholic Church. Here are TEN solid, Biblical proofs that Peter was not at Rome. Mark each in your Bible and understand them well, so YOU will not be deceived.
THE PRIMACY of the Roman Catholic Church depends upon one fundamental doctrine: the claim that Peter was the first Bishop of Rome and the founder of the Roman Church. The teaching of Catholic historians tells us that Simon Peter went to Rome at the same time as Simon Magus in order to thwart his evils. This was during the reign of Claudius. After successfully combating the Magus, they tell us, Peter assumed the Roman bishopric and ruled it until the Neronian persecutions of 68 A.D., during which Peter was supposed to have been crucified upside down on Vatican hill.