MOVEMENTS PARALLEL TO AND IMITATIVE OF CHRISTIANITY--SIMON
OF GITTO.
We have now arrived at a period when Christianity may be said to
have become established. In the history of religions it is only the
earliest years during which their existence is precarious. If a creed
can triumphantly pass through the severe ordeals which await every
new system, its future is assured. With sounder judgment than other
cotemporary sects, such as the Essenes, the Baptists, and the followers
of Judas the Gaulonite, who clung to and perished with the Jewish
institutions, the founders of Christianity displayed rare prevision
in going forth at an early period to disseminate and root their new
opinions over the broad expanse of the Gentile world. The meagreness
of the allusions to Christianity which are found in Josephus, in the
Talmud, and in the Greek and Latin writers, need not surprise us.
Josephus is transmitted to us by Christian copyists, who have omitted
everything uncomplimentary to their faith. It is possible that he wrote
more at length concerning Jesus and the Christians than is preserved
in the edition which has been handed down to us. The Talmud in like
manner, during the Middle Age, and after its first publication,
underwent much abridgment and alteration.[15.1] This resulted from
the severe criticisms of the text by Christian writers, and from the
burning of a number of unlucky Jews who were found in possession of a
work containing what were considered blasphemous passages. As to the
Greek and Latin writers, it is not surprising that they paid little
attention to a movement which they could not comprehend, and which
was going on within a narrow space foreign to them. Christianity was
lost to their vision upon the dark background of Judaism. It was
only a family quarrel amongst the subjects of a degraded nation;
why trouble themselves about it? The two or three passages in which
Tacitus and Suetonius mention the Christians show that the new sect,
even if generally beyond the visual circle of full publicity, was,
notwithstanding, a prominent fact, since we are enabled at intervals to
catch a glimpse of it defining itself with considerable clearness of
outline through the mist of public inattention.
The relief of Christianity above the general level of Jewish history in
the first century has also been somewhat diminished, by the fact that
it was not the only movement of the kind. At the epoch we have arrived
at, Philo had finished his career, so wholly consecrated to the love of
virtue. The sect of Judas the Gaulonite still existed. This agitator
had left the perpetuation of his ideas to his sons, James, Simon, and
Menahem. The two former were crucified by command of the renegade
procurator Tiberius Alexander.[15.2] Menahem remained, and is destined
to play an important part in the final catastrophe of the nation.[15.3]
In the year 44, an enthusiast by the name of Theudas arose, announcing
the speedy deliverance of the Jews, calling on the people to follow him
to the desert, and promising like a second Joshua to cause them to pass
dry-shod across the Jordan.[15.4] This passage was, according to him,
the true baptism which should admit every believer into the kingdom
of God. More than four hundred persons followed him. The procurator
Cuspius Fadus sent out against him a troop of horse, which dispersed
his disciples and slew him.[15.5] A few years before this Samaria had
been stirred by the voice of a fanatic, who pretended to have had a
revelation of the spot on Mount Gerizim where Moses had concealed the
sacred instruments of worship. Pilate suppressed this movement with
great severity.[15.6]
In Jerusalem, tranquillity was at an end. From the arrival of the
procurator Ventidius Cumanus (A.D. 48), disturbances were
incessant. The excitement reached such a point that it became almost
impossible to live there; the most trifling occurrences brought about
explosions.[15.7] People everywhere felt a strange fermentation, a kind
of mysterious foreboding. Impostors sprang up on every side.[15.8]
That fearful scourge, the society of zealots or _sicarii_, began to
appear. Wretches armed with daggers mingled in the crowds, gave the
fatal thrust to their victims, and were the first to cry murder. Hardly
a day passed that some assassination of this kind was not told of.
An extraordinary terror spread around. Josephus speaks of the crimes
of the zealots as pure wickedness;[15.9] but it cannot be doubted
that they sprang in part from fanaticism.[15.10] It was to defend the
law and the testimony that these wretches drew the poniard. Whoever
was wanting in their view in one of the requirements of the law, was
judged and at once executed. They believed that in so doing they were
rendering a service most meritorious and pleasing to God.
Dreams like those of Theudas occurred everywhere. Men calling
themselves inspired, drew the people after them into the desert, under
the pretext of showing them by manifest signs that God was about to
deliver them. The Roman authorities exterminated the dupes of these
agitators in crowds.[15.11] An Egyptian Jew who came to Jerusalem
about the year 56, succeeded by his devices in drawing after him
thirty thousand persons, among whom were four thousand zealots. From
the desert he was going to lead them to the Mount of Olives, that they
might thence behold the walls of Jerusalem crumble at his command.
Felix, who was at that time procurator, marched against him, and
dispersed his band. The Egyptian escaped and was seen no more.[15.12]
But, as we see in a diseased body one malady succeed another, soon
afterwards there appeared here and there troops of magicians and
robbers, who openly excited the people to revolt, and threatened with
death those who should continue to obey the Roman authorities. Under
this pretext they murdered and pillaged the rich, burned villages, and
filled all Judea with the marks of their outrages.[15.13] A terrible
war seemed impending. A spirit of madness reigned everywhere, and the
imagination of the people was kept in a state bordering on lunacy.
It is not impossible that Theudas may have had an idea of imitating
the acts of Jesus and John the Baptist. At any rate such an imitation
is evident in the accounts of Simon of Gitto, if we may credit the
Christian traditions.[15.14] We have already encountered him in
communication with the apostles on the first mission of Philip to
Samaria. He attained his celebrity during the reign of the Emperor
Claudius.[15.15] His miracles were unquestioned, and all Samaria
regarded him as a supernatural being.[15.16]
Miracles were not, however, the only basis of his renown. He taught
a doctrine, it seems, of which it is difficult for us to acquire a
definite knowledge, in a treatise entitled "The Great Exposition,"
which is ascribed to him, and a few extracts from which have come
down to us, being probably only a modified expression of his
ideas.[15.17] During his sojourn at Alexandria, where he studied the
Grecian philosophy, he appears to have framed a system of syncretic
theology and allegorical exegesis, in many respects analogous to
that of Philo.[15.18] His system is not without sublimity. Sometimes
it reminds us of the Jewish Kabala, sometimes of the pantheistic
theories of Indian philosophy; and in other respects it resembles
that of the Buddhists and the Parsees.[15.19] The primal being is,
"He who is, has been, and shall be,"[15.20] _i.e._ the _Jah-veh_ of
the Samaritans, understood according to the etymological force of the
name, as the eternal and only Being, self-begotten, self-augmenting,
self-seeking, and self-finding--the father, mother, sister, spouse,
and son of himself.[15.21] In this infinite being, all things exist
potentially to all eternity; and pass into action and reality through
human conscience, reason, language, and science.[15.22] The universe
is explained either upon the basis of a hierarchy of abstract
principles like the Æons of Gnosticism and the Sephirotic tree of the
Kabala, or upon that of an order of angels apparently borrowed from
the Persian doctrine. Sometimes these abstractions are presented as
representations of physical and physiological facts. Elsewhere, the
"divine powers," considered as distinct substances, are realized in
successive incarnations, either in the male or female form, whose end
is the emancipation of those beings which are enslaved in the bonds
of material existence. The highest of these "Powers" is called "the
Great," which is the universal Providence, the intelligent soul of this
world.[15.23] It is masculine. Simon passed for an incarnation of this
spirit. In connexion with it is its feminine counterpart, "the Great
Thought." Accustomed to clothe his theories in a strange symbolism, and
to devise allegorical interpretations for the ancient writings both
sacred and profane, Simon, or whoever was the author of "The Great
Exposition," ascribed to this Divine existence the name of "Helena,"
thereby signifying that she was the object of universal pursuit, the
eternal cause of dispute among men, and that she avenged herself on her
enemies by depriving them of sight until the moment they consented to
recant;[15.24]--a strange theory, and one which, imperfectly understood
or designedly travestied, gave rise among the early Fathers of the
Church to the most puerile legends.[15.25] The acquaintance with Greek
literature possessed by the author of "The Great Exposition" is at all
events very remarkable. He contended that, rightly understood, the
heathen writings sufficed for the knowledge of all things.[15.26] His
broad eclecticism embraced all revelations, and sought to combine them
into one sole and universal system of accepted truths.
His plan was essentially quite similar to that of Valentinus, and
to the doctrines in regard to the Divine Persons which are found
in the fourth Gospel, in Philo, and in the Targums.[15.27] The
"Metatronos,"[15.28] which the Jews placed at the side of the Deity,
and almost in his bosom, strongly resembles "The Great Power." In
Samaritan theology we find a Great Angel, who presides over other
angels, and we find also a variety of manifestations or "Divine
Virtues," analogous to those of the Kabala.[15.29] It appears certain,
then, that Simon of Gitto was a theosophist of the type of Philo and
the Kabalists. Perhaps he may have come near to Christianity, but
certainly he did not attach himself to it in any defined way.
Whether he actually borrowed anything from the disciples of Jesus, is
difficult to decide. If "The Great Exposition" is the expression of his
ideas in any degree, it must be admitted that upon several points he is
in advance of the Christian ideas, and that upon others he adopts them
with much fulness.[15.30] He seems to have attempted an eclecticism
similar to that which Mahomet afterwards adopted, and to have based
his religious action upon the preliminary belief in the divine
mission of John and of Jesus.[15.31] He professed to bear a mystic
relation to them. He asserted, it is said, that it was he himself who
appeared to the Samaritans as the Father, to the Jews by the visible
crucifixion of the Son, and to the Gentiles by the inspiration of the
Holy Ghost.[15.32] He also, it would seem, prepared the way for the
doctrine of the "Docetæ." He claimed to have suffered in Judea in the
person of Jesus, but that his suffering was only apparent.[15.33] These
pretensions to Divinity and claims of adoration have probably been
exaggerated by the Christians, who have in every way sought to cover
him with odium.
The doctrine of "the Great Exposition" is that of nearly all the
Gnostic writings; and if Simon really professed that doctrine, it is
with good reason that the Fathers charged him with being the founder of
Gnosticism.[15.34] It is our belief that the "Exposition" has only a
relative authenticity; that it is to the doctrine of Simon very nearly
what the fourth Gospel is to the ideas of Jesus; and that it dates from
the earlier years of the second century, the epoch when the theosophic
notions of the Logos acquired a definite ascendency. These notions, of
which we shall find the germ in the Christian Church about the year
60,[15.35] may, however, have been known to Simon, whose career was
probably prolonged until the close of the century.
The notion then that we obtain of this enigmatic personage is, that
he was a kind of plagiarist of Christianity. Imitation seems to have
been a constant habit of the Samaritans.[15.36] In the same manner as
they had always been imitators of the Jewish ceremonies of Jerusalem,
so these sectaries had also their copy of Christianity, their Gnosis,
their theosophic speculations, and their Kabala. But we shall probably
remain for ever ignorant whether Simon was a respectable imitator, who
just fell short of success, or only an immoral and insincere juggler,
who was working for his own profit and celebrity a doctrine stitched
together out of the rags of other systems.[15.37] He thus assumes in
history a most difficult position; he walks on a tight-rope, where no
hesitation is permitted; in such a case there is no midway path between
ridiculous failure and triumphant success.
We have yet to examine whether the legends relative to Simon's sojourn
at Rome comprise any truth. It is at least certain that the Simonian
sect continued as far down as the third century;[15.38] that it
possessed churches as far as Antioch--perhaps even at Rome; and that
Menander of Capharetes and Cleobius[15.39] sustained the same doctrine,
or at least imitated Simon's performance as theurgist with more or less
recurrence in type to the acts of Jesus and the apostles. Simon and
his followers were in great esteem among their co-religionists. Sects
of the same kind, parallel with Christianity,[15.40] and more or less
tinctured with Gnosticism, continued to spring up among the Samaritans,
until their almost total destruction by Justinian. It was the lot
of this little religious community to receive an impression from
everything that happened in its vicinity, without producing anything
altogether original.
As to Christians, the memory of Simon was amongst them an abomination.
Those illusions of his which so closely resembled their own, were
irritating to them. To have competed with the success of the apostles
was the most unpardonable of crimes. They pretended that the wonders
performed by Simon and his disciples were works of the devil, and they
branded the Samaritan theosophist with the title of "Sorcerer,"[15.41]
which his believers took in high dudgeon. The entire Christian account
of Simon bears the imprint of concentrated hatred. The maxims of
quietism were ascribed to him, with the excesses which are generally
supposed to be their consequence.{15.42} He was considered the father
of all error, the primitive heresiarch. They delighted in recounting
his ludicrous adventures, and his defeats by the apostle Peter,[15.43]
and attributed to the vilest motives his apparent tendency towards
Christianity. They were so preoccupied with his name that they read it
at random upon columns where it did not exist.[15.44] The symbolism in
which he had clothed his ideas was interpreted in the most grotesque
way. The "Helena," whom he identified with "The First Intelligence,"
became a girl of the town purchased by him in the streets of
Tyre.[15.45] His very name, hated nearly as much as that of Judas,
and used as a synonym of _Anti-apostle,_[15.46] became the grossest
word of abuse and a proverbial expression to designate a professional
impostor or adversary of truth whom it was desired to refer to under a
disguise.[15.47] He was the first enemy of Christianity, or rather the
first personage whom Christianity treated as such. It is sufficient
to say that neither pious frauds nor calumny were spared in defaming
him.[15.48] Criticism in such a case need not attempt a rehabilitation;
it has no documents on the other side. All it can do is to show the
physiognomy of the traditions and the set purpose of abuse which they
display.
At least it should prevent the loading of the memory of the Samaritan
theurgist with a resemblance which may be only accidental. In a story
related by Josephus, a Jewish sorcerer named Simon, a native of Cyprus,
plays for the procurator Felix the part of a Pandarus.{15.49} The
circumstances of this story do not accord well enough with what is
known of Simon of Gitto, to make him responsible for the acts of a
person who may have had nothing in common with him but a name borne
by thousands, and a pretension to supernatural powers, which was
unfortunately shared by a crowd of his cotemporaries.