They cannot come to me upon earth among the sinners
No longer from this hour to keep him up, but to let him go
Things ended poorly for Simon Magus. The Samaritan had something to prove to the emperor and citizens of Rome. He told Nero, "Order a lofty tower to be made of wood, and of great beams, that I may go up upon it, and that my angels may find me in the air; for they cannot come to me upon earth among the sinners."
As promised, he lifted from the ground, floating above the Forum, much to the chagrin of the two apostles in attendance. Facing imprisonment, it was Peter who took evasive action, reaching out to his god.
“I adjure you, you angels of Satan, who are carrying him into the air, to deceive the hearts of the unbelievers,” he prayed, in the words of the Apocrypha book that bears his name, “by the God that created all things, and by Jesus Christ, whom on the third day He raised from the dead, no longer from this hour to keep him up, but to let him go."
The cocky magician is said to have come crashing back down to Earth soon after, breaking his leg in three pieces. The attending crowd, previously enamored of his tricks, meted out their own punishment, hurling stones at the already broken man. Carried on a bed to nearby Rome, a pair of surgeons operated on Simon, only to lose him on the table.
Not all stories of levitation ended as poorly for the levitator. Francis of Assissi was known – among his many mystique acts – to frequently leave the ground. The patron of merchants, animals and ecology would raise upwards of two meters by some accounts. Others insisted the man could float above the treetops.
Of the many saints said to levitate, however, Joseph of Cupertino may have been the most unlikely, first leaving the ground some four-hundred years after Francis’ death. A frequent floater, the Italian-born priest was recorded as having dozens of such incidents of pure ecstasy during worship.
His earliest years were largely defined by the development of ulcers that made it impossible to walk. His early devotion, however, was said to have been so strong he entreated his mother to carry him to church every morning. His father, a poor carpenter, had died prior to Joseph’s birth. It was a local hermit applying lamp oil to his legs that relieved the pain for long enough to walk the nine miles to Lady of Grace every day, with the assistance of a cane.
Accounts of his life have been less than complimentary about his formative years. When the ability to walk returned, he was said to have done so aimlessly, his mouth constantly open. A slow learner with limited literacy, Joseph was absent minded and prone to anger. It was his limited education that first barred him from life among the Franciscans, though the Friars Minor Capuchin ultimately accepted him into their ranks.
His penchant for extreme penance was certainly in-line with the group, but Joseph was cast out after eight months. While committed to the work, he was consistently terrible at it – enough to limit his stay to under a year. Returning home at age 18, his mother, too, grew impatient with his incompetence. Attempting to help out, he frequently stumbled, breaking pots and other dishes in the process.
The Order of Friars Minor Conventual eventually took him in, limiting his work to the stables, where he could seemingly do the least damage. A now-humbler Joseph managed to impress his fellow religious men through years of simple devotion.
It was here that Joseph’s feet first left the ground. An early 20th century biographer reported his sheer ecstasy on seeing a portrait of Mary similar to one he’d encountered at an earlier parish. "Ah, my dear Mother, you have followed me," he exclaimed, floating more than 30 feet into the air for a closer look. A similar moment occurred when fellow friars visited his cell to inform he that he was being accepted into the Franciscan order. This time, he was “robbed of his senses” as he ascended.
At least 70 levitations were documented. Some lasted hours during mass, others were catalyzed by the simple mention of Mary’s name. "Praise her, ye holy angels, with your songs,” he exclaimed during such an incident, “for I pine away because I cannot worthily praise her.”
For the church, the simple – if frequent – act of levitation was not enough to beatify Joseph. A scholar notes,
The Church has certainly not based canonization on the single fact of levitation, but without doubt she regards it as the hand of God. She looks to the habits of life of the favored person, and in particular to the circumstances of the levitation itself for proof of the supernatural character of this repeated phenomenon.
He was, however, ultimately canonized by Pope Clement XIII almost exactly a century after his death. He became the patron saint of air travelers.
Sources:
St. Joseph of Copertino https://archive.org/stream/StJosephOfCopertino/StJosephOfCopertino_djvu.txt
The Acts of Peter from "The Apocryphal New Testament"
St. Joseph of Cupertino https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=72