be a believer, thinking that the apostles also wrought their cures
by magic and not by the power of God; and supposing that their
filling with the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands those who
believed in God, through that Christ Jesus who was being preached
by them--that this was effected by some superior magical knowledge,
and offering money to the apostles, so that he also might obtain
the power of giving the Holy Spirit to whomsoever he would, he
received this answer from Peter: "Thy money perish with thee, since
thou hast thought that the gift of God is obtained possession of
with money; for thee there is neither part nor lot in this Word,
for thy heart is not right before God. For I see thou art in the
gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity."

And since the magician still refused to believe in God, he
ambitiously strove to contend against the apostles, so that he also
might be thought of great renown, by extending his investigations
into universal magic still farther, so that he struck many aghast;
so much so that he is said to have been honoured with a statue for
his magic knowledge by Claudius Caesar.

He, therefore, was glorified by many as a god; and he taught that
it was he himself who, forsooth, appeared among the Jews as the
Son, while in Samaria he descended as the Father, and in the rest
of the nations he came as the Holy Spirit. That he was the highest
power, to wit, the Father over all, and that he allowed himself to
be called by whatever name men pleased.

2. Now the sect of the Samaritan Simon, from whom all the heresies
took their origin, was composed of the following materials.