Simonians
Simonians
A Gnostic, Antinomian sect of the second century which regarded Simon Magus as its founder and which traced its doctrines back to him. The Simonians are mentioned by Hegesippus (in Eusebius, “Hist. eccl.”, IV, xxii); their doctrines are quoted and opposed in connection with Simon Magus by Irenaeus (“Adv. haer.”, I, xxiii), by the “Philosophumena” (VI, ix-xx; X, xii), and later by Epiphanius (“Haer.”, xxii). In the “Philosophumena” Simon’s doctrine is described according to his reputed work, “The Great Declaration”; it is evident that we have here the doctrinal opinions of the Simonians as they had developed in the second century. According to these there was a perfect, eternal ungenerated being (fire), that contained an invisible, hidden element and a visible, manifest element; the hidden is concealed in the manifest; the action of both is similar to that of the intelligible and the sensible in Plato. From that which remains concealed of the ungenerated being six roots (powers) emanated in pairs and these pairs correspond at the same time to heaven and earth, sun and moon, air and water. In their potentiality is contained the entire power. This unlimited power is the “Standing One” (estos), the seventh root (power) corresponding to the seventh day after the six days of creation. This seventh power existed before the world, it is the Spirit of God that moved upon the face of the waters (Genesis 1:2). When it does not remain in the six roots (in potentiality), but is actually developed in the world, it is then in substance, magnitude, and perfection the same as the unlimited power of the ungenerated being (pantheistic emanation). As the female side of the original being appears the “thought” or “conception” (ennoia), which is the mother of the aeons. The “Standing One” is regarded as containing both sexes. The first six “powers” are followed by other less important emanations: archangels, angels, the demiurge who fashions the world, who is also the God of the Jews. The jealousy of the inferior spirits seems to have forced the “Ennoia” to take female forms and to migrate from one body into another, until Simon Magus, the great power sent forth by the original being, discovered her in Helena and released her. The deliverance was wrought by his being recognized as the highest power of God, the “Standing One”. Men are also saved by accepting Simon’s doctrine, by recognizing him as the great power of God. The Old Testament and its law, by which mankind was only brought into bondage, was opposed (antinomianism) as the work of the inferior god of the Jews (the Demiurge). The Simonians used magic and theurgy, incantations, and love-potions; they declared idolatry a matter of indifference that was neither good nor bad, proclaimed fornication to be perfect love, and led very disorderly, immoral lives. In general, they regarded nothing in itself as good or bad by nature. It was not good works that made men blessed, in the next world, but the grace bestowed by Simon and Helena on those who united with them. The Simonians venerated and worshiped Simon under the image of Zeus, and Helena under that of Athene. The sect flourished in Syria, in various districts of Asia Minor and at Rome. In the third century remnants of it still existed (Origen, “Contra Cels.”, I, 57; VI, 11), which survived until the fourth century. Eusebius (“Hist. eccl.”, II, xiii) calls the Simonians the most immoral and depraved of mankind. Closely connected with them were the Dositheans and Menandrians, who should be regarded probably as branches of the Simonians. Their names came from Dositheus and Meander, of whom the first, a Samaritan, was originally the teacher and then the pupil of Simon Magus, while Menander was a pupil and, after Simon’s death, his most important successor. Dositheus is said to have opposed antinomianism, that is, the rejection of Old Testament law. As late as the beginning of the seventh century Eulogius of Alexandria (in Photius, “Bibliotheca cod.”, 230) opposed Dositheans who regarded Dositheus as the great prophet foretold by Moses. Dositheus died a tragic death from starvation (“Pseudo-Clemen. Recognitions,” I, 57, 72; II, 11; Origen, “Contra Cels.”, I, 57; VI, 11; “De principiis”, IV, 17; “In Matth. Comm.”, XXXII, P.L., XIII, 1643; “In Luc. Hom.”, XXV, ibid., 1866; Epiphanius, “Haer.”, XX). Like Simon, Menander also proclaimed himself to be the one sent of God, the Messias. In the same way he taught the creation of the world by angels who were sent by the Ennoia. He asserted that men received immortality and the resurrection by his baptism and practiced magical arts. The sect named after him, the Menandrians, continued to exist for a considerable length of time.
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See the bibliography to SIMON MAGUS.
J.P. KIRSCH Transcribed by Joseph E. O’Connor
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIIICopyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, February 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, D.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Simonians
a heretical sect which arose in the 2d century, and owed its origin to the antichristian influence and teaching of SIMON MAGUS. SEE SIMON MAGUS (q.v.). The recent discovery of The Refutation of All Heresies, a work written by Hippolyttus early in the 3d century, gives a summary of a work by Simon Magus, called The Great Announcement, a Revelation of the Voice and Name Recognizable by means of Intellectual Apprehension of the Great Indefinite Power, in which his system was set forth. That system is one of thorough and unflinching pantheism. He introduced into his very definition of the Divine Nature that its substance is exhibited in material things. He ascribes the formation of the world to certain portions of the divine fulness (eons). The originating principle of the universe is fire, of which is begotten the Logos, in which exists the indefinite power, the power of the godhead, the image of which power is the spirit of God. These eons, called roots, are in pairs mind and intelligence, voice and name, ratiocination and reflection. In them resides, coexistently, the entire indefinite power, potentially with regard to these secret portions of the divine substance, actually when the images of these portions are formed by material embodiment. For mind and intelligence becoming manifest are heaven and earth; voice and name are sun and moon; ratiocination and reflection are air and water. The indefinite power becomes then the seventh actual power, the spirit of God wafted over the water, which reduces all things to order.
The Logos employs the divine roots or eons, which are both male and female. To the first pair of eons is assigned the first three days’ work of the creation; to the second pair is referred the fourth day’s; to the third pair the fifth and sixth days’. Every man may become an embodiment of the Logos; an image, that is, of the Logos, a conversion of the secret portion of the divine power into the manifest. In this system the persons of the Trinity are confused, and Simon professed himself to be the Power of God, with the right of assuming the name of any of the three Simon taught that Jesus was a man, and suffered only in appearance. Such, in brief, is the system of Simon, a heresy not properly classed with those that bear the name of Christ (Epiph. Hoer. 21:1). The Simonians pretended to be Christianas that they might insinuate themselves into the Church; and many convicted of this heresy were excommunicated (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 2, 1, 13). The pretensions of Simon were supported by magic, and magic in several forms was practiced by the sect. Many see nothing unreasonable or unscriptural in supposing that supernatural agencies, the power of evil spirits, may have been permitted to enter into those delusions. Irenaeus accuses the sect of lewdness, and his statement is confirmed by the Great Announcement itself, which speaks of promiscuous intercourse of the sexes as sanctifying one another (Hippolytus, Refut. Hoer. 6, 14). Of the number of this sect Justin Martyr writes that almost all the Samaritans, and a few even of other nations, worshipped Simon. Simon had been much honored at Rome, but his influence fell before the preaching of Peter; and Origen writes, about A.D. 240, that not thirty of Simon’s followers could be found in the whole world (Contr. Cels. 1, 57). By almost universal consent Simon is regarded as the first propagator in the Church, but acting from without, of principles which developed into Gnosticism. Indeed, there are many points in common: i.e. both reject the notion of absolute creation; both hold the unreality of the Lord’s body. See Bunsen, Hippolytus, 1, 47, 48; Burton, Bampton Lectures; Blunt, Dictionary of Sects, s.v.