Note 621 — Chapter VI · PRE-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: SIMON MAGUS

Ibid. § 20, p. 267, Cruice. The story here told is in direct contradiction to the received tradition of the Church, that Simon met his death when attempting to fly heavenward before the Emperor Nero. That given in the text seems to be taken from the doings of some Indian Yogi, and the idea of Simon teaching “sitting under a plane tree” is distinctly Buddhistic. It is mentioned by no other writer than Hippolytus; but Justin Martyr (First Apolog. c. 26) says that he persuaded his followers that he would never die, and that some in Justin’s day still believed this. A sort of echo of it appears in the Acts of Peter and Paul, where it is said that the body of Simon after being dashed to pieces was kept by the Emperor Nero for three days “to see whether he would rise again.”