Simonians

Irenaeus of Lyons in the book “Exposing and refuting falsely known knowledge” about the teaching of the Simonians. Latin manuscript of the 9th century . Berlin State Library

Simonyan , or simonyaty , or simonita ( ancient-Greek. Σιμωνιανοί ; lat. Simoniani ; dr.-rus. simony nє ) - heretics of the first century , named after the founder of their teachings - Simon Volkhv . Another name of these heretics, used by Origen in the book Against Celsus , is Elenian ( ancient-Greek ἑλενιανοὶ ), after the prodigal mistress Simon Volkhva-Helen.

Simonians are described by Epiphanius in Panarion among 80 heresies and by John Damaskin in the book On Old Heresies in Brief , both authors have 21 heresies. The Simonians are described by Augustine in the book “De Haeresibus ad Quodvultdeum Liber Unus” and by the nameless author of the treatise “Predestinat” ( Latin: “Praedestinatus” ); both authors have it 1 heresy. Filustria in the book “Liber de Haeresibus” dedicated chapter 29 to Simon Magus.

Simon Magus was from the village of Gitfon or Gitton ( ancient Greek Γιτθῶν ) in Samaria. After an unsuccessful attempt to purchase the gift of the Holy Spirit and joining the apostles, Simon created his teaching. The teaching of Simon is one of the trends of Gnosticism . He found a harlot named Elena from the city of Tire , bought her out of the fornication (where she was for 10 years) for money and declared her a creative thought ( ancient Greek έπινοια ) of the supreme Deity who gave birth to the archangels and angels who created ours world. Simon Magus made her his mistress and companion. Simon Magus called himself the great power of God, and called his prodigal concubine the Holy Spirit ; he taught about himself that for Helen's sake and he came down from heaven. Simon Magus taught that believers in him receive freedom, which allows them everything. For this reason, his followers, the Simonians, indulged in debauchery and superstition. Simon Magus rejected the resurrection of the dead and claimed that it was not God who created the world. Simon conveyed the images: his, in the form of Zeus , and his companion Helen, in the form of Athena , for the worship of his disciples. He called himself a Samaritan father, and for the Jews Christ . Simon taught that on Mount Sinai he appeared as the Father , at the time of Tiberius - as the Son , and then descended on the apostles in the form of the Holy Spirit. Simon Magus presented himself as the supreme God, as being in the past, present and future ( ancient-Greek ό εστώς, στάς, στσσόμενος ). Applying to Christian terms, Simon Magus declared that he is “father”, “son” and “holy spirit” - three phenomena of a single super-heavenly ( ancient Greek ύπερουράνιος ) God: as a father, he appeared in Samaria in his own face Simon Magus; as a son, in Judea, in the face of Jesus, whom he left before the crucifixion; as a holy spirit, he will enlighten the Gentiles in the whole universe. He told about the inseparable with him thought of God that the cosmic spirits created by her, driven by lust for power and ignorance, did not want to recognize her supremacy and, enclosing her in the chains of sensual and bodily being, were forced to consistently move from one female body to another. She appeared as Homer's Elena, the culprit of the Trojan War , and after 1000 years she found herself a prostitute in Tire, where Simon, who followed all her transformations, picked her up like a good shepherd lost sheep. The news of Simon's journey to Rome and his successes there is absolutely plausible, but these successes, of course, did not reach public honors on the part of the emperor and the senate, as reported by church writers, misled by the erroneous reading of an inscription on a statue dedicated to a Latinized Semitic deity: "Simon, the holy God" ( lat. "Simoni deo sancto" ). - Psevdoklementiny contain a lot of detailed, but inaccurate information about Simon - about his long confrontation with the apostle Peter in Caesarea and in Rome, about his unsuccessful attempt to ascend to heaven, and even more unsuccessful - to rise from the grave, where, at his request, the disciples put him alive, and three days later they were found dead. The main tendency in the fictional depiction of Simon in the Clementines is his identification with the apostle Paul. Although Simon Volkhv was undoubtedly involved in Hellenistic education, the direct belonging to him of the theosophical composition “The Great Explanation” ( ancient Greek. “Μεγάλη απόφασις” ), from which significant passages are cited in the Philosophumen , is questioned; in any case, it is certain that this curious essay, with religious and mystical content and imbued with the philosophical concepts of Heraclitus , Empedocles , Aristotle and the Stoics , came from the closest followers of Simon. The absolute beginning of all possible and real author "Μεγάλη απόφασις". stands for “dual fire - hidden and obvious” ( ancient Greek. "πϋρ διπλουν - το μέν τι κρυπτόν, το δέ τι φανερον" ); the first is hidden in the second, the second arises from the first; In addition to the metaphorical name of “super-heavenly fire” ( ancient Greek. “το πύρ ύπερουράνιον” ), the absolute beginning of Simon is also indicated philosophically by the Aristotelian concepts of “potency and act” ( ancient Greek . The first act of the absolute beginning is a comprehensive "thought" ( ancient Greek. "Επινοια" ), mentally giving birth to which the absolute is defined as the mind and the father. The first pair of syzygy ( ancient Greek. "Συζυγία" ) - mind and thought, turning internally on themselves, develop into two others: sound and name, mind and desire. Hiding in these “six roots of being”, the single absolute origin is in itself “invisible force, incomprehensible silence” (“δύναμις σιγή αορατος, άκαταληπτος”); in its pure potentiality, as an unrevealed bud, or point of being, it is primarily “small” (“το μικρόν”); but, being such only for appearance, it becomes great, defined in itself as mind and thought and eternally deducing from itself all further definitions of the world of the intelligible - and the ego mentally great becomes infinite in the phenomena of the real world, which develops along the same scheme of active-passive , masculine-feminine combinations, as well as the world intelligible. The first syzygy (mind and thoughts) correspond here to heaven and earth, the second (to sound and name) to the sun and moon, the third (to reason and lust) to air and water. A single authentic figure and the engine of all this logical and physical process is the same absolute beginning in its manifestation, or "clear fire", a great creative force, "portrayed" in all visible and invisible - that έστώς οτάς, στησόμενος, with which he identified himself Simon Magus. In Μεγάλη απόφασις, this actual real (ών) god is represented by the pre-eternal or preexisting (προυπάρχουσα) power of the deity (absolute origin as such); “I and you are one, before me you, that which is behind you is me.” This “second god” - or the all-encompassing reality of the absolute - is also called the seventh power, as the completion of all works emanating from the seven roots of being in the high and low world. It is impossible to establish a direct connection between this speculation and the mystical novel of mind and thought, Simon Magus and Helena, probably because “Μεγάλη απόφασις” did not reach us in its entirety. Of the followers of Simon Volkhva and Elena, church historians do not name large names; directly behind Simon the Magus is Menander , who is close to him, but an independent Gnostic.