Last time we talked about a lot of old Greek dudes. Today we're gonna talk about an old Samaritan dude. Not a "good Samaritan" like a person who does a nice thing, but literally a guy from Samaria.
Simon Magus was alive during the first century CE. He was worshipped in Samaria because of his powers. The early Christian church hated this guy. He joined the Christian church but got expelled because my dude tried to buy the Holy Spirit. They named the sin simony after him as a result. You ever had a sin named after you? That's pretty impressive.
Simon Magus could do all kinds of stuff - he cured diseases, he made statues come to life to sing and dance, he even created a man from thin air once. Saint Peter was a total buzzkill, though, He kept exposing Simon's magic as simple tricks and outperformed him by doing real miracles. The two had this crazy rivalry. One time, Simon Magus sent some ghost dogs to rip Peter apart, but Peter just prayed until they disappeared. Eventually Simon was like, "screw this, I'm gonna ascend to Heaven" and he started to float away but then Peter was like, "nuh uh" and he prayed so hard that Simon stopped in midair and fell to his death.
This is a short post, but man, Simon was a character. Go read up on him a bit.
Stay safe!
- me