Simon Magus, the earliest Gnostic leader known to us, was a native of the Samaritan village of Gitta. He is first mentioned in Acts (8:4–25), where he appears as a wonder-worker who had gained a considerable following in Samaria and who sought to augment his stock in trade by purchasing the power of conferring the Holy Spirit from the apostles. The identity of the Simon of the book of Acts and the founder of the Gnostic sect has been questioned, but Irenaeus, among others, has no doubt of it. According to Hippolytus, Simon died in Rome when he failed, in an abortive attempt at a miracle, to rise from the pit in which he had been buried alive. In the pseudo-Clementine literature Simon serves as the target for veiled Jewish-Christian attacks on Paul and Marcion. According to Origen, in his time the Simonians numbered only thirty, but...