Editing Simon Magus (section)

==Medieval legends, later interpretations==
The church of [[Santa Francesca Romana, Rome]], is claimed to have been built on the spot where Simon fell. Within the Church is a dented slab of marble that purports to bear the imprints of the knees of Peter and Paul during their prayer. The fantastic stories of Simon the Sorcerer persisted into the later [[Middle Ages]],<ref>Sometimes with [[Mug Ruith]]. MacKillop, p. 337.</ref> becoming a possible inspiration for the ''[[Faustbuch]]''  and [[Goethe's Faust]].<ref>"Surely few admirers of Marlowe's and Goethe's plays have an inkling that their hero is the descendant of a gnostic sectary, and that the beautiful Helen called up by his art was once the fallen Thought of God through whose raising mankind was to be saved." Jonas, p. 111.</ref>

The opening story in [[Danilo Kiš]]'s 1983 collection ''[[The Encyclopedia of the Dead]]'', "Simon Magus", retells the confrontation between Simon and Peter agreeing with the account in the ''Acts of Peter'', and provides an additional alternative ending in which Simon asks to be buried alive in order to be resurrected three days later (after which his body is found putrefied).<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/02/short-story-danilo-kis|title=A brief survey of the short story part 42: Danilo Kiš|last=Power|first=Chris|date=2 August 2012|work=[[The Guardian]]|access-date=16 December 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Taylor|first=Benjamin|author-link=Benjamin Taylor (author)|title=Into the Open: Reflections on Genius and Modernity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uSYap2qVQMwC&pg=PA107|year=1995|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=9780814782132|pages=107 n.1}}</ref>