Matthew Ehret: 29-05-2026,
In this fourth installment of this series, we will explore the emergence of a new strategy of warfare against early Christianity.
While efforts to destroy the new movement through fire, lions, and direct persecution failed, a more insidious tactic of infiltration via Gnostic cults became a new technique launched near the end of the first century.
Much of the program for creating an infinitely divisible hydra of Gnostic sects in the place of a unified Christianity followed a template established by a figure named Simon the Sorcerer.
Simon the Sorcerer is sometimes known as ‘The Bad Samaritan’ who had been trying to gain influence in the early ministry shortly after Jesus had died, and after demonstrating that he was a disingenuous infiltrator, was basically told: “okay, this is not for you.”
He was caught trying to pay money to attain the superpowers of miracle working, rationalizing that if Christ could do miracles, then with enough money, he could learn this witchcraft as well.
In the Book of Acts, we find the following characterization:
9 Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, 10 and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.” 11 They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery.