JOSEPH W. TKACH
PASTOR GENERAL

October 1987

Dear Friend:

Thank you for your recent request for information about Simon Magus.

Simon was the Samaritan sorcerer who professed conversion to Christianity and sought to buy an apostleship. The Bible records this historic event in Acts 8:9-24.

In spite of Peter's stinging rebuke (verses 20-23), Simon presented himself as an apostle. He invented a new religion by blending his own version of the doctrine of grace with elements of the old Babylonian mysteries and attaching Christ's name to it. This false religion swept the world and became the visible "Christian" church -- incredible as that may seem.

There are veiled references to Simon's false Christianity in the New Testament. Jude 4, for example, is rather pointed against Simon's principal doctrine -- the heresy that one does not have to obey God's laws after conversion. John, the apostle who completed the Bible, placed great emphasis on Christians keeping God's commandments (I John 2:3-6).

John's phrase about those "which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie" (Rev. 3:9) clearly identifies Simon's Samaritan counterfeit of true Christianity. Josephus, a Jewish historian of the first century, mentions that it was the Samaritans who falsely claimed to be Jews when they thought it was to their advantage to do so ("Antiquities" IX, 14, 3; XI, 8, 6).

Additional information about Simon Magus can be found in these reference works: The eleventh edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," Schaff's "History of the Church;" Hastings' "Dictionary of the Apostolic Church;" Hastings' "Dictionary of the Bible"; "Dictionary of Christian Biography"; and the "Encyclopaedia Biblica."

We appreciate this opportunity to be of assistance. It is our pleasure to serve you.

PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE DEPARTMENT