“I figure Simon was the genesis of Maryitis. He was a smart one. Or the magisterium followed in the spirit of his con.”
Simon the magus or Simon the apostle? Whichever Simon it was, did he know that he worshipped Mary and was sincere in passsing this Mary worship on (even though the future Mary worshippers would be ignorant of this goddess worship) or did he not really worship Mary but just tricked those who came after into worshipping Mary but not knowing they were worshipping Mary?
Freegards
If it was indeed Cephas that first participated in the error of Mariology, then how in the world can we trust anything else he did or wrote?
If he is untrustworthy, then Jesus erred in making him an Apostle. If Jesus erred once, he probably erred again. Now the entire group of disciples is suspect; the writers of the Bible are suspect and so is the Bible.
Therefore Jesus is untrustworthy and isn’t anything more than a religious zealot that gathered a bunch of followers. I guess that we’d all better convert to Judaism while there’s still time.