by
Damien F. Mackey
“There they met a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet …”.
Acts 13:6
Several times have I noticed
biblical critics expressing a certain degree of frustration when a story that
they have been keenly following suddenly peters out, leaving a lot of
unanswered questions. This was most notably the case for me with Andrew E.
Hill, about whose expressed annoyance in this regard I wrote in my article:
Frustration arises for critics when a
gripping biblical drama can seem to end without any hoped-for resolution
He had embarked upon a thrilling
commentary on the devious rôle of the shrewd counsellor, Jonadab, in the 2
Samuel 13 account of the rape of Tamar, only to feel being short-changed in the
end.
In that article I wrote:
Andrew E. Hill had, in the course of his
terrific commentary,
“A Jonadab Connection in the Absalom
Conspiracy?”,
expressed a certain frustration due to what
he called
“the almost annoying paucity of material
for careful analysis” regarding Jonadab.
Both of the two instances of biblical stories
seeming to fall short due to the apparent lack of follow-up material, to be
considered here (there are plenty of others), involve Tamar, the beautiful virginal sister of Absalom, son of
David (2 Samuel 13:1-2).
Just when the story surrounding Jonadab, Absalom,
Amnon and Tamar (2 Samuel 13:1-39), has begun to get really fascinating,
Jonadab, qua Jonadab, disappears abruptly from the scene after making
some Machiavellian comments to King David (vv. 32-33, 35) - these
suggesting that Jonadab was more of an insider in Absalom’s plot than first
thought.
And, secondly, in the same story, we take leave of Tamar in a very miserable state, shattered for having been raped by Amnon
(v. 20): “And Tamar lived in her brother Absalom’s house, a desolate woman”.
Of course, we would
love to know more.
And critics like
Andrew E. Hill can express their frustration for not knowing more. His
brilliant unfolding of the machinations of the shrewd Jonadab must come to an
early halt due to the Bible’s failure to continue with the history of Jonadab, qua
Jonadab, of whom he writes there is “the almost annoying paucity of material for
careful analysis”.
We can feel with Andrew Hill, after he has
done so clever a job of analysing the character of this Jonadab.
And female
commentators in particular, full of sympathy for Tamar and her plight, would
dearly love to know what became of her.
Did her later life
take a turn for the better?
Thankfully, the Bible is more accommodating in this
regard than one might have imagined. For, as we shall find, the history of
Jonadab is carried through, further on in 2 Samuel, right to its bitter end.
And, indeed, it is a bitter end.
And we also come to learn much about the incredible
life story of Tamar after her horrible years of confinement in the house of
Absalom.
The fact is that the drama of, now Jonadab, now
Tamar, as known from 2 Samuel, is taken up and continued in the same book, or
in Kings and Chronicles, in which the two protagonists are re-presented under
different names. ….
I was able to continue that story right through, so
I believe, thanks to my extension of the shrewd counsellor, Jonadab, as the
mirror-image shrewd counsellor, Achitophel.
David L. Eastman has, for his part, “been harassed by a nagging question” regarding the New Testament figure
of Simon Magus.
He
summarises his “nagging question” in the Abstract of his article:
Simon the Composite Sorcerer
(5) Simon the Composite Sorcerer
“….
Yet over the years of studying the figure of Simon,
I have been harassed by a nagging question: where does this narrative Simon
come from? The Simon of the Acts of Peter, and certainly the Simon of the
combined Peter and Paul martyrdom accounts, seems quite far from the Simon of
the Acts of the Apostles”.
My own reaction to
the brief account of Simon Magus in Acts 8:9-24 has been, considering the
significance of the man, once again, to look for his extension elsewhere – this
time in the New Testament.
Well, that is what David L. Eastman, coming from a different
viewpoint, has proposed as a solution to his problem. And he even goes so far
as to identify an extension:
“In this article I will propose that we understand
the literary Simon of late antiquity as a composite character, forged in the
fires of reception, refraction and memory primarily from two separate villains
in the Acts of the Apostles: Simon himself and the sorcerer who opposes Paul,
Elymas/Bar-Jesus”.
This appealed to me
because, as in the case of the Old Testament’s Jonadab, suitably extended into
Achitophel, we may now have a most suitable extension for Simon Magus of Acts 8
in this Elymas of Acts 13 - two sides of the one coin, I would suggest, rather
than David
L. Eastman’s composite of two separate entities.
He will proceed to draw the appropriate comparisons:
….
3. The
Other Sorcerer
After many years of
contemplating my questions about the apocryphal Simon, a rather simple solution
occurred to me that had for some reason eluded me previously: the magus of the
apocryphal acts is not just Simon; he is in some ways a combination of Simon
and another magus that had an encounter with an apostle in Acts, namely Elymas
or Bar-Jesus.
In Acts 13, Paul39 and Barnabas arrive on Cyprus and come to
the city of Paphos. This passage is worth quoting in its entirety:
When they had gone
through the whole island as far as Paphos, they met a certain magician, a
Jewish false prophet, named Bar-Jesus. He was with the proconsul, Sergius
Paulus, an intelligent man, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and wanted to hear
the word of God. But the magician Elymas (for that is the translation of his
name) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul away from the faith. But
Saul, also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him
and said, ‘You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all
deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the
Lord? And now listen– the hand of the Lord is against you, and you will be
blind for a while, unable to see the sun.’ Immediately mist and darkness came
over him, and he went about groping for someone to lead him by the hand. When
the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was astonished at the
teaching about the Lord.40
If we return to the general plot progression surrounding the narrative
Simon in the apocryphal acts, we see a number of parallels.
(1) Elymas is identified as a ‘a certain magician, a Jewish false
prophet’. Like the Simon of the Acts of Peter, Elymas is a ‘sorcerer’ (μάγον).
He is also ‘Jewish’ (Ἰουδαῖον), although at that point he is active on Cyprus. Finally, he is a ‘false
prophet’ (ψϵυδοπροwήτην) who is leading people away from the true message of Christ.41
Like Elymas, Simon uses his sorcery in the apocryphal acts to lure believers
away from the teaching of first Paul, then Peter, in the Acts of Peter, and of
both apostles in the joint accounts.
(2) Elymas has earned the trust, and is a close confidant of, a prominent
member of the Roman government, the proconsul Sergius Paulus. The apocryphal
Simon is in some texts closely attached to the emperor Nero.42
(3) Elymas opposes the messengers of Christ, which leads to a meeting in
the presence of that leader. In the same way, Simon denounces Peter or Peter
and Paul, causing Agrippa or Nero to bring them all together for an in-person
confrontation.
(4) Elymas is identified as ‘a son of the devil’ (υἱὲ διαβόλου), just as Simon is accused of doing the work of Satan or the devil. In
the Acts of Peter, in Peter’s vision when he is still in Jerusalem, God tells
him that Simon is undermining Paul’s preaching ‘by the power of Satan’ (energia
Satanae). Similarly, Pseudo-Marcellus tells the reader that Simon ‘was
raging in the service of the devil’ (diaboli ministerio bachabatur).43
(5) Paul declares that Elymas is ‘full of all deceit and villainy’, and
the apocryphal Simon deceives many by his sorcery and fraudulent so-called
miracles, including a faked resurrection that fools Nero.
(6) Elymas is characterised as ‘making crooked the straight paths of the
Lord’. This is especially true of Simon in the acts, who goes as far as
claiming that he is the Christ. What could be a great perversion than enticing
people to follow a false Christ?
(7) Sergius Paulus is ‘astonished’ (ἐκπλησσόμϵνος) and convinced by the words and actions of Paul. Although Nero
ultimately kills Peter or Peter and Paul out of vengeance for the death of
Simon, the narratives make it clear that the emperor’s
confidence in Simon is severely shaken. In Pseudo-Marcellus’ Passion, Nero is
‘astounded’ (Nero his auditis obstupuit)44 by Paul’s teaching
and even concedes that they are beaten by the apostles.
(8) Paul and Barnabas’ encounter with Elymas ends with the punishment of
the sorcerer for his wicked ways. By Paul’s word, the Lord moves against Elymas
and strikes him blind ‘for a while’.45 Christ also moves against the
sorcerer Simon in the apocryphal acts. While the words of Peter and, in some
texts, the prayer of Paul play a role in striking down Simon from the sky,
Christ is the true actor. In the Acts of Peter, the apostle fears eternal
consequences for the deceived believers if Simon is allowed to fly into heaven
and asks Christ to intercede: ‘If you permit this man to do what he has set out
to do, then now all those who have believed in you will be made to stumble, and
the signs and wonders that you gave to them through me will be disbelieved.
Hurry, Lord, to demonstrate your grace, and after he has fallen down, let him
be manifestly broken to pieces but not die.’46 In the
Pseudo-Marcellus Latin Passion, we have already seen that Nero foresees
possible divine judgement for Simon: ‘If I am not able to do anything to you,
then the God who is able will do it.’47 When the moment of Simon’s
attempted flight arrives, Peter cries out to the demons carrying him: ‘I
command you through God, the creator of all things, and through Jesus Christ,
whom he raised from the dead on the third day, not to carry him any longer but
to let him go.’48 In the other Latin Passion (a section that does
appear in Pseudo-Hegesippus), Paul tells Peter: ‘Ask the omnipotent God to show
his power and thwart the craftiness of the enemy.’ In his prayer, Peter
proclaims: ‘I rebuke you, you demons who are carrying him, through God the
almighty Father and Jesus Christ his Son. Let go of him right now, and all will
say that Christ is the Saviour of this world.’49 Just as with Elymas
in Acts 13, the punishment of Simon comes not from the apostles themselves, but
from God. 43
This dense cluster of comparisons between Elymas and the apocryphal Simon
may lead us to conclude that the literary Simon is rooted more in Elymas than
the biblical Simon. Such a conclusion would not be without merit, but I would
like to propose a more complex model of development for the figure of Simon.
4. The Composite Sorcerer
The Simon of the
apocryphal acts should be most accurately understood as a composite figure, a
sort of pastiche of various traditions, of which Elymas and the Simon of Acts 8
are key components. ….
Nero
may be quite irrelevant, anachronistic, to all of this:
Nero Caesar can be
likened to king Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’, to the emperor Hadrian
(10) Nero Caesar
can be likened to king Antiochus 'Epiphanes', to the emperor Hadrian
Conclusion
Simon
Magus was the “false prophet” (ψευδοπροφήτην), Elymas.
Just
as in the case of my identification of the Old Testament’s Jonadab with
Achitophel, the names have changed. However, “Elymas” (Elymaean/Median)
apparently means broadly the same as Magus (Acts 13:8): “But Elymas the
sorcerer (for that is what his name means) …”.
He is a most reviled biblical character.
Saint Peter
denounces him in strong terms:
Acts
8:20-23:
Peter answered: ‘May
your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God
with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your
heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness
and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a
thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness
and captive to sin’.
Saint Paul
even more strongly:
Acts
13:9-11:
Then Saul, who was
also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas
and said, ‘You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything
that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will
you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? Now the hand of
the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even
able to see the light of the sun’.
