Note 20 — THE MYTH OF SIMON MAGUS

But all this connects decisively with Samaria. It is not improbable that the name Samaria itself was derived from the name of the Sun-God, it being very much more likely that the mountain would be named from the God who was worshipped on it than from a man Shemer.20 The last is obviously a worthless gloss. A reasonable alternative view is that as the God-name Asshur is identified with the name of the Assyrian country and people, whether giving or following their race-name, so the Semitic God-name Shem is bound up with the name Samaria, as that of Athênê with Athens. It is at all events clear that, as is claimed by Volkmar,21 Sem or Simon was the chief God of the Samaritans. They declared to Antiochus, according to Josephus,22 that their temple on Mount Gerizim had no name, but was that of “the greatest God”; and this squares with the other evidence, whether or not it be true that they offered, as Josephus states, to dedicate the temple to Zeus of the Hellenes. For, S(h)em being “the high,” Sem-on would be the Great High One or Greatest God, just as Êl Êlyon was the great Êl, the Great Power, Greatest of Powers. And as Sem-on was also the Great Name, the God was in that sense without a name, which circumstance is the explanation of the otherwise pointless phrase of the Johannine Jesus (John iv, 22) to the Samaritan woman, “Ye worship that which ye know not what.” And all the ideas converge in the phrases in the Acts (viii, 9–10), that Simon claimed to be “some great one” (ἑαυτὸν μέγαν) and was spoken of as “that power of God which is called Great.” In fine, Simon Magus, the Mage, is just a version of Simon Megas, Great Simon.