Simon Magus

E441613

Gnostic figure New Testament person Samaritan religious figure heretic magician

Simon Magus is a 1st-century Samaritan religious figure often portrayed in early Christian and Gnostic traditions as a magician and heretic who opposed the apostles and inspired later Gnostic thought.

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All labels observed (1)

Label	Occurrences
Simon Magus canonical	1

Statements (48)

Predicate	Object
instanceOf	Gnostic figure ⓘ New Testament person ⓘ Samaritan religious figure ⓘ heretic ⓘ magician ⓘ
activityLocation	Samaria NERFINISHED ⓘ
appearsIn	Acts 8:9–24 ⓘ
associatedConcept	simony ⓘ
associatedWith	Gnosticism NERFINISHED ⓘ Helena (his consort in later traditions) NERFINISHED ⓘ heresy ⓘ magic ⓘ proto-Gnostic teachings ⓘ sorcery ⓘ
baptizedBy	Philip the Evangelist NERFINISHED ⓘ
calledBy	“the Great Power of God” ⓘ
condemnedBy	Hippolytus of Rome NERFINISHED ⓘ Irenaeus of Lyons NERFINISHED ⓘ Justin Martyr NERFINISHED ⓘ
convertedBy	Philip the Evangelist NERFINISHED ⓘ
describedAs	“a man who had previously practiced magic in the city” ⓘ “saying that he himself was somebody great” ⓘ
ethnicOrigin	Samaritan ⓘ
flourishedInCentury	1st century ⓘ
influenced	later Gnostic thought ⓘ
knownFor	attempting to buy spiritual power ⓘ opposing the apostles ⓘ practicing magic in Samaria ⓘ
languageContext	Greek-speaking early Christian world ⓘ
laterOpposed	Peter the Apostle NERFINISHED ⓘ
mentionedIn	Acts of the Apostles ⓘ
namedAfter	Simon Magus NERFINISHED ⓘ
offeredMoneyTo	John the Apostle NERFINISHED ⓘ Peter the Apostle NERFINISHED ⓘ
portrayedAs	arch-heretic in early Christian literature ⓘ
portrayedIn	Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies NERFINISHED ⓘ Irenaeus, Against Heresies NERFINISHED ⓘ Justin Martyr, First Apology NERFINISHED ⓘ Pseudo-Clementine literature NERFINISHED ⓘ
rebukedBy	Peter the Apostle NERFINISHED ⓘ
region	Roman province of Syria Palaestina NERFINISHED ⓘ
religiousContext	Second Temple Judaism NERFINISHED ⓘ early Christianity ⓘ
reputationAmong	people of Samaria ⓘ
roleInTradition	founder of a school of heresy ⓘ opponent of apostolic Christianity ⓘ
soughtToBuy	power of the Holy Spirit ⓘ
timePeriod	Apostolic Age NERFINISHED ⓘ

How these facts were elicited

The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.

Instruction

You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10.

# Requirements
- If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list.
- If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list.
- Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf".
- Do not get too wordy.
- Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.

Input

Subject: Simon Magus
Description of subject: Simon Magus is a 1st-century Samaritan religious figure often portrayed in early Christian and Gnostic traditions as a magician and heretic who opposed the apostles and inspired later Gnostic thought.

Referenced by (1)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Gnosticism → hasKeyFigure → Simon Magus ⓘ