Simonians

[1][2] Justin Martyr wrote in his Apology (152 AD) that the sect of the Simonians appeared to have been formidable, as he speaks four times of their founder, Simon.

[3][4] The Simonians are mentioned by Hegesippus;[5] their doctrines are quoted and opposed in connection with Simon Magus by Irenaeus,[6] by the Philosophumena,[7] and later by Epiphanius of Salamis.

[9][10] According to John D. Turner, the Simonians originated as a local Hebrew cult in the first century CE, which centered on a Samaritan holy man.

"[12] Dositheus, a Samaritan who died from starvation,[14] is said to have originally been the "Standing One," or leader, of John the Baptist's sect, but stepped aside in favor of Simon Magus.

[note 1] As late as the beginning of the 7th century, Eulogius of Alexandria opposed Dositheans, who regarded Dositheus as the great prophet foretold by Moses.

Simonian influences continued through Menander's own followers who included Saturninus of Antioch and Basilides, the latter identified by Ireneus with the further development of his predecessors ideas.

[18] Carpocrates practised in the tradition of Basildes, and his own follower, Marcellina, became one of the few female leaders of early Christianity in 2nd century Rome.

As Hippolytus himself in more than one place[19] points out, it is an earlier form of the Valentinian doctrine, but there are things reminiscent of Aristotelian and Stoic physics.

There is a remarkable physiological interpretation of the Garden of Eden that evinces a certain amount of anatomical knowledge on the part of Simon or his followers.

And the air-ducts, which we said were channels for breath, embracing the bladder on either side in the region of the pelvis, are united at the great duct which is called the dorsal aorta.

The whole (of the foetus) is wrapped up in an envelope, called the amnion, and is nourished through the navel and receives the essence of the breath through the dorsal duct, as I have said.The five books of Moses are made to represent the five senses: As the female side of the original being appears the "thought" or "conception" (ennoia), which is the mother of the Aeons.

[23]The Simonians were variously accused of using magic and theurgy, incantations and love-potions; declaring idolatry a matter of indifference that was neither good nor bad, proclaiming all sex to be perfect love, and altogether leading very disorderly, immoral lives.

Eusebius of Caesarea, in his 4th century Historia Ecclesiastica, writes that 'every vile corruption that could either be done or devised, is practised by this most abominable heresy'.

The writer does not dispute this claim, but questions whether it was bit of jugglery, a natural phenomenon, a piece of self-deception, or an effect of magic.

[9] Outside of these patristic sources, the Simonians are briefly mentioned in the Testimony of Truth (58,1-60,3) from the Nag Hammadi Library, wherein the Gnostic author seems to include them among a long list of "heretics":[26] They do [not] agree with each other.

For the Si[mo]nians get married and produce children, but the ...ans abstain from their ... nature ... [to passion] ... the drops of ... smear themselves ... we ... [they agree] with each other ... him ... they say ... [about 16 lines missing] ... [there is] no judgment ... for these because of ... them ... the heretics ... schisms ... with males ... are men ... they will belong [to the world rulers of] darkness ... of the world ... they have ... the [archons ... power] ... [1 line missing] ... judge [them] ....

... speak ... [they will] become ... in [unquenchable] fire ... they are punished.Translator Birger A. Pearson notes that these passages probably deal with the practices of libertine Gnostic sects, but from the fragmentary state of the text, it is impossible to know to what groups are being referred.