Editing Simon Magus (section)

===Identification of Simon as the Apostle Paul===
Since Ferdinand Christian Baur in the 19th century, scholars including Hermann Detering and Margaret Barket have concluded that the attacks on "Simon Magus" in the 4th-century [[Pseudo-Clementines]] may be attacks on Paul. Detering takes the attacks of the Pseudo-Clementines as literal and historical, and suggests that the attacks of the Pseudo-Clementines are correct in identifying "Simon Magus" as a [[Wiktionary:proxy|proxy]] for [[Paul of Tarsus]],<ref>[http://depts.drew.edu/jhc/detering.html Hermann Detering, The Dutch Radical Approach to the Pauline Epistles<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> with Simon-Paul originally having been detested by the church, and the name changed to Paul when he was rehabilitated by virtue of [[Authorship of the Pauline Epistles|forged Epistles]] ''correcting'' the genuine ones.<ref>See also: [[Ferdinand Christian Baur|F C Baur]]; A. Hilgenfeld; Hermann Detering, "The Falsified Paul: Early Christianity in the Twilight" - 1995 (translated [http://www.egodeath.com/TheFabricatedPaul.htm into English in 2003]); and J.R.Porter, ''The Lost Bible'', pg 230.</ref> Robert Price has stated his agreement with this assertion.

====Anti-Marcionism====
There are other features in the portrait which are reminiscent of [[Marcion]]. The first thing mentioned in the ''Homilies'' about Simon's opinions is that he denied that God was just.<ref>[[s:Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily II/Chapter 14|Clementine ''Homilies'', ii. 14]].</ref> By "God" he meant the creator god. But he undertakes to prove from the Jewish scriptures that there is a higher god, who really possesses the perfections which are falsely ascribed to the lower god.<ref>[[s:Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily III/Chapter 10|Clementine ''Homilies'', iii. 10]]; [[s:Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily III/Chapter 38|38]].</ref> On these grounds Peter complains that, when he was setting out for the gentiles to convert them from their worship of ''many gods upon earth'', [[Satan]] had sent Simon before him to make them believe that there were ''many gods in heaven''.<ref>E.g. [[s:Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily III/Chapter 3|Clementine ''Homilies'', iii. 3]]; [[s:Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily III/Chapter 9|9]]; [[s:Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily III/Chapter 59|59]].</ref><ref name=EB1911>{{EB1911|wstitle=Simon Magus|volume=25|pages=126–130|inline=1}}</ref>