SIMON, JULES, French statesman and distinguished writer on social, political, and philosophic subjects, born at Lorient; succeeded Cousin in the chair of Philosophy at the Sorbonne; entered the Chamber of Deputies in 1848; lost his post at the Sorbonne in 1852 for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to Napoleon III.; subsequently became Minister of Education under Thiers (1871-73), a life-senator in 1875, and in 1876 Republican Prime Minister; later more conservative in his attitude, he edited the Echo Universel, and was influential as a member of the Supreme Educational Council, and as permanent secretary of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences; his voluminous works include treatises on “Liberty,” “Natural Religion,” “Education,” “Labour,” &c., and various philosophic and political essays (1814-1896).

SIMON, RICHARD, a celebrated French biblical scholar, born at Dieppe; entered the Congregation of the Oratory in 1659, and became professor of Philosophy at the College of Juilly; was summoned to Paris, and under orders of his superiors spent some time in cataloguing the Oriental MSS. in the library of the Oratory; his free criticisms and love of controversy got him into trouble with the Port-Royalists and the Benedictines, and the heterodoxy of his “Histoire Critique du Vieux Testament” (1678) brought about his withdrawal to Belleville, where he remained as cure till 1682, when he retired to Dieppe to continue his work on Old and New Testament criticism; he ranks as among the first to deal with the scriptural writings as literature, and he anticipated not a few of the later German theories (1638-1712).

SIMON MAGUS, a sorcerer, one who by his profession of magic aggrandised himself at the expense of the people of Samaria, and who, when he saw the miracles wrought by the Apostles, and St. Peter in particular, offered them money to confer the like power on himself; Peter’s well-known answer was not without effect on him, but it was only temporary, for he afterwards appeared in Rome and continued to impose upon the people so as to persuade them to believe him as an incarnation of the Most High.  Hence Simony, the sin of making gain by the buying or selling of spiritual privileges for one’s material profit.

SIMONIDES OF AMORGOS, a Greek poet who flourished in the 7th century B.C.; dealt in gnome and satire, among the latter on the different classes of women.

SIMONIDES OF CEOS, one of the most celebrated lyric poets of Greece; spent most of his life in Athens, employed his poetic powers in celebrating the events and heroes of the Persian wars; gained over AEschylus the prize for an elegy on those who fell at Marathon; composed epigrams over the tombs of the Spartans who fell at Thermopylae, and in his eightieth year was crowned victor at Athens; shortly after this was invited by Hiero to Syracuse, at whose court he died; his poetry was distinguished at once for sweetness and finish; he was a philosopher as well as a poet (556-467 B.C.).