The brief legend of St. Sousnyos, which Basset has included in his edition of Ethiopian Apocrypha,[1720] is all magic, beginning with an incantation or magic prayer against disease and demons. There is also a Slavonic version. This Sousnyos is presumably the same as the Sisinnios who is said by the author of the apocryphal Acts of Archelaus,[1721] forged about 330-340 A. D., to have abandoned Mani, embraced Christianity, and revealed to Archelaus secret teachings which enabled him to triumph over his adversary.
Old Testament apocrypha of the Christian era.
While on the subject, mention may be made of two works which properly belong to the apocrypha of the Old Testament, but which first appear during the Christian era and so fall within our period. The Ascension of Isaiah,[1722] of which the old Latin version was printed at Venice in 1522, and which dates back to the second century, is something like the Book of Enoch, describing Isaiah’s ascent through the seven heavens and vision of the mission of Christ. In the Book of Baruch, of which the original version was written in Greek by a Christian of the third or fourth century,[1723] the most interesting episode is the magic sleep into which, like Rip Van Winkle, Abimelech falls during the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans. In the legend of Jeremiah the prophet’s soul is absent from his body on one occasion for three days, while on another occasion he dresses up a stone to impersonate himself before the populace who are trying to stone him to death, in order that he may gain time to make certain revelations to Abimelech and Baruch. When he has had his say, the stone asks the people why they persist in stoning it instead of Jeremiah, against whom they then turn their missiles.[1724]
Such is no exhaustive listing but rather a few examples of the encouragement given to belief in magic by the Christian Apocrypha.
CHAPTER XVII
THE RECOGNITIONS OF CLEMENT AND SIMON MAGUS
The Pseudo-Clementines—Was Rufinus the sole medieval version?—Previous Greek versions—Date of the original version—Internal evidence—Resemblances to Apuleius and Philostratus—Science and religion—Interest in natural science—God and nature—Sin and nature—Attitude to astrology—Arguments against genethlialogy—The virtuous Seres—Theory of demons—Origin of magic—Frequent accusations of magic—Marvels of magic—How distinguish miracle from magic?—Deceit in magic—Murder of a boy—Magic is evil—Magic is an art—Other accounts of Simon Magus: Justin Martyr to Hippolytus—Peter’s account in the Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum—Arnobius, Cyril, and Philastrius—Apocryphal Acts of Peter and Paul—An account ascribed to Marcellus—Hegesippus—A sermon on Simon’s fall—Simon Magus in medieval art.
“The Truth herself shall receive thee a wanderer and a stranger, and enroll thee a citizen of her own city.”
—Recognitions I, 13.
The Pseudo-Clementines.
The starting-point and chief source for this chapter will be the writings known as the Pseudo-Clementines and more particularly the Latin version commonly called The Recognitions. We shall then note other accounts of its villain-hero, Simon Magus, in patristic literature.[1725] The Pseudo-Clementines, as the name implies, are works or different versions of one work ascribed to Clement of Rome, who is represented as writing to James, the brother of the Lord, an account of events and discussions in which he and the apostle Peter had participated not long after the crucifixion. This Pseudo-Clementine literature has a double character, combining romantic narrative concerning Peter, Simon Magus, and the family of Clement with long, argumentative, didactic, and doctrinal discussions and dialogues in which the same persons participate but Peter takes the leading and most authoritative part. Not only the authorship, origin, and date, but even the title or titles and the make-up and arrangement of the various versions and their original are doubtful or disputed matters. The versions now extant and published seem by no means to have been the only ones, but we will describe them first. In Greek we have the version known as The Homilies in twenty books, in which the didactic element preponderates. It is extant in only two manuscripts of the twelfth and fourteenth centuries at Paris and Rome,[1726] but is also preserved in part in epitomes. Different from it is the Latin version in which the narrative element plays a greater part.