SIMONIANS, in church-history, a sect of ancient heretics, so called from their founder Simon Magus or the Magician. The heresies of Simon Magus were principally his pretending to be the great power of God, and thinking that the gifts of the Holy Ghost were venal, and to be purchased with money. He is said to have invented the Eons, which were so many persons of whom the Godhead was supposed to be compounded. His concubine Helen he called the first intelligence, and mother of all things. Sometimes he called her Minerva, and himself Jupiter. Simon Magus gained a great many proselytes, who paid himself
and his concubine divine worship. These were the Simonides earliest heretics, and whom St John, St Peter, and St Paul, in their epistles, so often warn Christians against.