Simon Templar

“ Then his face fell as he looked down at Simon's belt. "I regret, Your Signory, but you may not wear your sword in the palace of the pope. Even though you wielded it most gloriously in His Holiness's service. Only the papal guards may bear arms within. A thousand pardons, but you must take it off. You may leave it with the capitano of the guard if you wish."
Simon's face burned with embarrassment as he realized he was going to have to disappoint Alain. The scimitar was one of his most precious possessions, and he would not entrust it to a stranger, even a stranger in the service of the pope. ”

“ Annas frowned. "Thou art zealous in the cause, my son," he said with a warning gesture. "I commend thy diligence; would that all the Sanhedrim were of like mind with thyself. The names of the twelve who must be crushed at any cost are as follows:
"The first is Simon, also called Peter--without question the most dangerous of them all, in that he is absolutely unbridled of tongue and apparently without fear of God or man. He is an ignorant fellow, having been taken from his fishing boat on Gennesaret by the Nazarene, as one well fitted to become his disciple." ”

“ Richard Simon had quitted Winchester to fulfil his duties as priest in the town of Oxford. No man was better fitted than Simon to act a prominent part in a state-plot. He was brave; but the priestly garb having wrested the sword from his hand, circumstances had converted that active courage, which might have signalized him in the field, to a spirit of restless intrigue; to boldness in encountering difficulties, and address in surmounting them. ”

“ Javan devoted all his time and all his energies to the promotion of the cause which he had espoused, for he still believed that Simon was the destined instrument in the hand of Jehovah for the preservation of his people, and the destruction of all their enemies within and without the city. His pious and enthusiastic feelings were highly excited to indignation at the profaneness of the Zealots and Idumeans, and the sight of the Holy Temple desecrated by crime and bloodshed and intemperance, filled him with a restless and inextinguishable desire for vengeance. ”

“ It is sufficient to say that it is a great mistake to regard Saint Simon as a mere selfish aristocrat in the cant sense. He would have had the kingdom justly and wisely governed for the benefit of the whole nation, but he regarded the nobility, and, above all, the peers, as the pre-destined instruments of government. 'Much for the people, but nothing by the people,' was his political motto.
The importance of Saint Simon in literature is, however, entirely independent of his standpoint as a politician, though that standpoint was not without influence on his literary characteristics. ”

“ Now Simonians are found nowhere throughout the world; and yet, in order to gain over to himself many followers, Simon freed his disciples from the danger of death, which the Christians were taught to prefer, by teaching them to regard idolatry as a matter of indifference. But even at the beginning of their existence the followers of Simon were not exposed to persecution. For that wicked demon who was conspiring against the doctrine of Jesus, was well aware that none of his own maxims would be weakened by the teaching of Simon. ”

“ It is easy to see that his character is that of a polite, earnest and affectionate man.
{123} Simon, or Peter, as he was afterwards called, was a son of the fisherman, Jonas. He resided at Capernaum, on the shore of the sea of Galilee, where he followed his father's occupation. His brother, Andrew, who had been a disciple of John the Baptist, first brought him to Jesus by whom he was called to be a fisher of men. He was one of the witnesses of the transfiguration on Mount Tabor, and the agony of the Savior in the garden of Gethsemane. He was evidently the leader of the ancient apostles. ”

“ Now Simon, the Samaritan magician, was the first minister of his (the Daemon's) [58] evil practices who arose. Who, making his base of operations from Gittha, which is a village of Samaria, and having rushed to the height of sorcery, at first persuaded many, by the wonder-working he wrought, to attend his school, and call him some divine Power. ”

“ This Simon's father was Antonius, and his mother Rachel. By nation he is a Samaritan, from a village of the Gettones; by profession a magician, yet exceedingly well trained in the Greek literature; desirous of glory, and boasting above all the human race, so that he wishes himself to be believed to be an exalted power, which is above God the Creator, and to be thought to be the Christ, and to be called the Standing One. ”

“ Then Simon: "But the good God bestows salvation if he is only acknowledged; but the creator of the world demands also that the law be fulfilled." Then said Peter: "He saves adulterers and men-slayers, if they know him; but good, and sober, and merciful persons, if they do not know him, in consequence of their having no information concerning him, he does not save! Great and good truly is he whom you proclaim, who is not so much the saviour of the evil, as he is one who shows no mercy to the good." Then Simon: "It is truly very difficult for man to know him, as long as he is in the flesh ”

“ In the third picture, Simon has painted the saint returned after seven years absence from beyond the seas. He has passed thrice forty days in the Holy Land, and is now standing in the choir attending Divine service; a number of singing boys are near; the saint is here tempted by the devil, but the fiend is driven away by the firm determination not to offend the laws of God, which is manifested in Ranieri. who is aided by a figure which Simon meant to represent Constancy. ”

“ But in Palestine there are very few, and in the rest of the world, in which he wished to spread his own glory, his name is nowhere mentioned. If it is, this is due to the Acts of the Apostles. It is the Christians who say what is said about him, and it has become plain as daylight (ἡ ἐνάργεια ἐμαρτύρησεν) that Simon was nothing divine” (Origen, Cont. Cels. i. 57) . ”

“ Simon,—by what motives was his father actuated when he gave him this name? Simon, who denied our Lord Jesus Christ, Simon who was the creator of the historical crime of simony, or sacrilege. I direct my question through all historical ages: was there ever in the world a father who predestined his child's career thus by the mere name? What inveterate cynicism, what dreadful criminal instincts! You will deny and trade with a people's holiest possession,—its native land. Yes, gentlemen, all this is implied in the name of Simon. ”

“ If Simon had started from the little village where he lodged five minutes earlier or later, if he had walked a little faster or slower, if he had happened to be lodging on the other side of Jerusalem, or if the whim had taken him to go in at another gate, or if the centurion's eye had not chanced to alight on him in the crowd, or if the centurion's fancy had picked out somebody else to carry the Cross, then all his life would have been different. And so it is always. You go down one turning rather than another, and your whole career is coloured thereby. You miss a train, and you escape death. ”

“ Tánya. I'll do it! Didn't he say himself that there is that power in Simon? And I know how to manage. No one found me out that time, and now I'll teach Simon what to do. If it doesn't succeed it's no great matter. After all it's not a sin. ”

“ And she told him nothing whatsoever about this until he was fully grown up, and he never told any man what had happened unto him; and when [our Redeemer] revealed unto him the salvation which came to him by a miracle, Simon knew that He was the Son of God in truth, and that He knew hidden things and was informed about everything. And straightway he bowed before our Redeemer, and was obedient unto Him, and followed him from that day, and became one of the Twelve Apostles. ”

“ Now after the passion of Christ, our Lord, and his ascension into heaven, there arose a certain Simon, the magician, a Samaritan by birth, from a village called Gittha, who having the leisure necessary for the arts of magic deceived many, saying that he was some Power of God, above all powers. Whom the Samaritans worship as the Father, and wickedly extol as the founder of their heresy, and strive to exalt him with many praises. ”

“ Simon, the last of the firm, unmarried, and without near relation, was at the time of this story turned sixty, a clean-shaven, bright-eyed, old-fashioned type of man, sedate, famed for his cellar, and a member of the Athenæum—a man you never, never would have imagined to possess such a thing as a past; never would have imagined to have been filled with that semidiabolical, semiangelical joy of life which leads to the follies of youth. ”

“ Justin was deceived either by a resemblance of name, or by some unfaithful relation;" but that which must above all decide this matter is the testimony of Origen, who says that indeed Simon could deceive some persons in his time by magic, but that soon after he lost his credit so much, that there were not in all the world thirty persons of his sect to be found, and that only in Palestine, his name never having been known elsewhere; so far was it from true that he had been to Rome, worked miracles there, and had statues raised to him in that capital of the world! ”

“ Pierre Labarre was not the real benefactor, who slept in his tomb, but when dying he had said to his old servant:
"I have been unfaithful to my duty toward Simon. I have been cowardly toward him. I have a large amount for my grandchildren, where, you alone will know. Seek these children, and make them rich. If Fate be against us, if you cannot find these children, consecrate this fortune to making the name of Simon beloved. Go to the poor village of Leigoutte, and let those who loved him, that is, all who knew him, be the heirs of that son whom the Marquis de Fongereues adored in his heart." ”

“ So saying, he turned back once more to his praying-stool and to his crucifix, while the young Roman walked in deep thought down the hill, and mounting his horse, rode off to his distant post. Simon watched him until his brazen helmet was but a bead of light on the western edge of the great plain; for this was the first human face that he had seen in all this long year, and there were times when his heart yearned for the voices and the faces of his kind. ”

“ In her room, Sophia went through her chest and found her icon of Saint Simon Stylites. She kept the icon hidden when Daoud was around. He believed that praying to saints' images was idolatry, and she especially did not want him to see her praying to a saint named Simon. She knelt, clasped her hands, and prayed to the desert saint.
Oh, holy Simon, bring him back to me. You who dwelt in the desert, you who know what it is to be alone on your pillar, keep safe this man who came alone out of the desert. Protect him from the swords and spears and arrows of his enemies. ”

“ I exhort you, especially, to agree one with another; and in what excellency any one of you exceeds another, to yield to him so far, and by that means to reap the advantage of every one's own virtues. Do you then esteem Simon as your father, because he is a man of extraordinary prudence, and be governed by him in what counsels be gives you. ”

“ It is narrated that this high-priest was succeeded by Onias, his son, and he by “Simon the Just,” who was called by the Jews the last of the men of the Great Synagogue. It was during the priesthood of this Simon that, according to the general opinion of both Jewish and Christian writers, the final addition was made to the Canon of the Old Testament. Simon, who was not only high-priest, but a man of great learning and of most fervent piety and devotion to the Law, is said to have added the books of Chronicles, of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and the prophecy of Malachi ”

“ I've a notion, Simon, that with them to bear me up I'd stand afore the Lord with greater courage. For if what some think is true—that it's those we've loved in this world will have the right to plead for us in the next—then, Simon, there will be two to plead for me as few can plead." [Pg 58]
He stood up and looked around. "It is a bad sea now, but worse later, and a strong breeze brewing, Simon"; and drew from an inside pocket of his woollen shirt a small leather note-book. ”

“ Whichever of you shall restore to life this dead person, he is true, and to be believed in and received, and we will all follow him in whatsoever he saith to us. And they said to Simon the sorcerer: Because thou wast here before Simon the Galilæan, and we knew thee before him, exhibit thou first the power which accompanieth thee. ”

“ In the name of Jesus Christ, whom the Jews crucified at Jerusalem, and whom we preach, rise up thence. And as soon as the word of Simon was spoken the dead man came to life and rose up from the bier.
And all the people saw and marvelled; and they said to Simon: Christ, whom thou preachest, is true. And many cried out, and said: Let Simon the sorcerer and the deceiver of us all be stoned. But Simon, by reason that every one was running to see the dead man that was come to life, escaped from them from one street to another and from house to house, and fell not into their hands on that day. ”