Simon Magus
The Life of the Samaritan Who Converted to Christianity and Confronted Peter the Apostle in the 1st Century
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Narrated by:
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Colin Fluxman
About this listen
“Simon, the Samaritan magician, was the first minister of the demon's evil practices who arose. Who having rushed to the height of sorcery, at first persuaded many, by the wonder-working he wrought, to attend his school, and call him some divine Power.” (Theodoretus, Hæreticarum Fabularum Compendium)
He appears once in the New Testament, mentioned only in passing in the Acts of the Apostles; only a few verses in the canon, but for the primitive Church, there is a whole corpus about Simon Magus, its most formidable antagonist, an enemy of such colossal proportions that he deserved to be called "the father of all heresies." His only mention in the Bible occurs at the beginning of the second volume of Luke the Evangelist where he had a minor confrontation with Saint Peter which nonetheless had a happy ending. Simon recants and asks Peter to pray for him. Nothing else about the miracle maker of Samaria who called himself “A Great Power” could penetrate the authorized scriptures. But unlike many other characters who, once the canon was closed, vanished forever, never to be mentioned again by the ancient sources - Pilate being the archetypical example, Simon Magus survived in the treatises against heresies and popular legend to become the greatest apostate of all times, evil personified, a sorcerer responsible for the greatest corruption in the Church, a kind of demon with powers so spectacular that, according to the apocryphal Passion of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the joint prayer of the two pillars of Christianity was required in order to defeat him because Simon was surrounded by demons. It was without a doubt the most spectacular exorcism of all time.
This was not, however, the end of Simon Magus. After the first three to four centuries of Christianity, when many theologians of antiquity devoted pages to disapprove and refute his doctrines - which they often do not even mention, his figure and legend continued to grow. In the Middle Ages, stories were still circulating about his life, as a companion of the Prophet Muhammad; with a powerful Irish druid named Mug Ruith, who was responsible for a curse falling on the Irish, not to mention images of how he was suffering for all eternity in hell, buried upside down with the legs in the air. Although the final confrontation in Rome between the apostles Peter and Paul against Simon Magus, who flew over the eternal city aided by demons, is not narrated in the Bible, the battle was represented in countless works of art. This is a sign that the episode was well known and practically enjoyed a canonical status. Numerous illustrations in ancient manuscripts, paintings and reliefs can be seen in the Old World, and one church, with a stain on the floor, claims to be the exact place where this powerful magician fell to his death and found his end.
If there is something worth noticing in ancient sources about Simon Magus, it is the virulence the Church Fathers display - bordering on fear - when they refer to him. Simon's doctrine does not survive, nor his follower's treaties, if there ever was any; what little we know about him is thanks to Origen, Irenaeus, Eusebius, and other Church Fathers who quote his teachings, if only to ridicule them, to intimate about non mentioned crimes, and charge him with all kinds of moral perversions. This unanimity in painting Simon Magus with the darkest colors is precisely what leads one to wonder what exactly the Christian heresiologists saw and were attacking; what was on the other side, the side we can no longer hear; what his followers would respond to the epithets, and above all, it leads us to imagine what formidable figure could have provoked such repulsion to the old theologians. Possibly the historic Simon would offer us another version.
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Story
Based on a careful analysis of the earliest Christian documents and recent archaeological discoveries, The Jesus Dynasty offers a bold new interpretation of the life of Jesus and the origins of Christianity. The story is surprising, controversial, and exciting as only a long-lost history can be when it is at last recovered.
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Provocative book
- By Dan on 08-27-06
By: James D. Tabor
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Desire of the Everlasting Hills
- The World Before and After Jesus
- By: Thomas Cahill
- Narrated by: Brian F. O'Byrne
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In his subtle and engaging investigation into the life and times of Jesus, Thomas Cahill shows us Jesus from his birth to his execution through the eyes of those who knew him and in the context of his time—a time when the Jews were struggling to maintain their beliefs under overlords who imposed their worldview on their subjects. Here is Jesus the loving friend, itinerate preacher, and quiet revolutionary, whose words and actions inspired his followers to journey throughout the Roman world and speak the truth he instilled.
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Desire Delivers
- By David on 04-18-03
By: Thomas Cahill
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How God Became God
- What Scholars Are Really Saying About God and the Bible
- By: Richard M. Smoley
- Narrated by: Richard M. Smoley
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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This epic, thrilling journey through Bible scholarship and ancient religion shows how much of Scripture is historically false - yet the ancient writings also resound with theologies that crisscrossed the primeval world and that direct us today toward a deep, authentic inner experience of the truly sacred.
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Just Okay.
- By Thom on 10-28-21
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Revelations
- Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation
- By: Elaine Pagels
- Narrated by: Lorna Raver
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Elaine Pagels explores the surprising history of the most controversial book of the Bible. In the waning days of the Roman Empire, militant Jews in Jerusalem had waged anall-out war against Rome’s occupation of Judea, and their defeat resulted in the desecration of the Great Temple in Jerusalem. In the aftermath of that war, John of Patmos, a Jewish prophet and follower of Jesus, wrote the Book of Revelation, prophesying God’s judgment on the pagan empire that devastated and dominated his people.
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Revealing "Revelations"
- By Diane on 05-13-12
By: Elaine Pagels
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Christ
- A Crisis in the Life of God
- By: Jack Miles
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Jack Miles's book is a provocative and revisionary look at the life of Jesus, in which many of the most well-worn truths about Christ are recontextualized and revisited. It does not look for the historical Jesus, but takes the Gospels as the sole source about his life.
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Missed a lot of stuff
- By Wintertao on 01-08-21
By: Jack Miles
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God and Empire
- Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now
- By: John Dominic Crossan
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In contrast to the oppressive Roman military occupation of the first century, Crossan examines the meaning of the non-violent Kingdom of God prophesized by Jesus and the equality advocated by Paul to the early Christian churches. Crossan contrasts these messages of peace with the misinterpreted apocalyptic vision from the Book of Revelation, which has been misrepresented by modern right-wing theologians and televangelists to justify US military actions in the Middle East.
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Smart Book
- By Wesley Bishop on 07-01-22
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Jesus
- Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium
- By: Bart D. Ehrman
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In this highly accessible discussion, Bart Ehrman examines the most recent textual and archaeological sources for the life of Jesus, along with the history of first-century Palestine, drawing a fascinating portrait of the man and his teachings. Ehrman shows us what historians have long known about the Gospels and the man who stands behind them. Through a careful evaluation of the New Testament (and other surviving sources, including the more recently discovered Gospels of Thomas and Peter), Ehrman proposes that Jesus can be best understood as an apocalyptic prophet.
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I must read for those whose wanting to expand their insight from a single perspective (devotional) to include historical
- By RGO on 11-25-19
By: Bart D. Ehrman
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The Origin of Satan
- How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics
- By: Elaine Pagels
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 8 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Who is Satan in the New Testament, and what is the evil that he represents? In this groundbreaking book, Elaine Pagels, Princeton's distinguished historian of religion, traces the evolution of Satan from its origins in the Hebrew Bible, where Satan is at first merely obstructive, to the New Testament, where Satan becomes the Prince of Darkness, the bitter enemy of God and man, evil incarnate. In The Origin of Satan, Pagels shows that the four Christian gospels tell two very different stories.
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Must read for all practicing Christians
- By Venusian Incognito on 09-06-19
By: Elaine Pagels
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The Bible's Cutting Room Floor
- The Holy Scriptures Missing from Your Bible
- By: Joel M. Hoffman
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Bible’s Cutting Room Floor, acclaimed author and translator Dr. Joel M. Hoffman gives us the stories and other texts that didn’t make it into the Bible even though they offer penetrating insight into the Bible and its teachings. The Book of Genesis tells us about Adam and Eve’s time in the Garden of Eden, but not their saga after they get kicked out or the lessons they have for us about good and evil.
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Good content, rather poor presentation by narrator
- By J_T on 12-28-16
By: Joel M. Hoffman
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The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross
- A Study of the Nature and Origins of Christianity Within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East
- By: John M. Allegro
- Narrated by: Martyn Swain
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Where did God come from? What do the bible stories really tell us? Who or what was Jesus Christ? This audiobook challenges everything we think we know about the nature of religion.
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Hated it,
- By Troy Sunde on 12-22-22
By: John M. Allegro
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Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea
- Why the Greeks Matter
- By: Thomas Cahill
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Best selling history writer Thomas Cahill continues his series on the roots of Western civilization with this volume about the contributions of ancient Greece to the development of contemporary culture. Tracing the origin of Greek culture in the migrations of armed Indo-European horsemen into Attica and the Peloponnesian peninsula, he follows their progress into the creation of the Greek city-states, the refinement of their machinery of war, and the flowering of intellectual and artistic culture.
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Super super
- By Richard on 12-28-03
By: Thomas Cahill
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Creating Christ
- How Roman Emperors Invented Christianity
- By: James S. Valliant, C. W. Fahy
- Narrated by: Chris MacDonnell
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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This explosive work of history unearths clues that finally demonstrate the truth about one of the world's great religions: that it was born out of the conflict between the Romans and messianic Jews who fought a bitter war with each other during the first century. The Romans employed a tactic they routinely used to conquer and absorb other nations: they grafted their imperial rule onto the religion of the conquered.
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life is one big lie
- By Anonymous User on 12-25-19
By: James S. Valliant, and others
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The Apocryphal Gospels
- The History of the New Testament Apocrypha Not Included in the Bible
- By: Charles River Editors, Gustavo Vazquez-Lozano
- Narrated by: Mark Norman
- Length: 2 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Between 50 and 90 CE, the various writings that comprise the New Testament were written, including the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles of Paul, and other letters to more general communities of the early Church. But what is recognized as the 26 books of the New Testament today, in literally hundreds of English translations, actually took several more centuries to be determined as "canonical" by the Church.
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Very Interesting information.
- By KP on 12-11-16
By: Charles River Editors, and others