Simon Magus

I had been sweeping through Samaria on the wind of persecution itself — the very violence that scattered the Jerusalem church after Stephen's death became the gust that carried Philip down into that hated, half-believing province the Jews had shunned for centuries, and I turned even that scattering into a sowing. Philip preached Christ there, and I confirmed his word the way I always love to confirm a true word — signs following, unclean spirits crying out and leaving, the paralyzed and lame walking. There was great joy in that city, the specific joy that only follows real deliverance, and I filled it to the brim.

But Samaria already had its own wonder-worker before Philip arrived, a man named Simon who had for a long time amazed that whole people with his magic, claiming to be someone great, and they had believed him, calling him 'the power of God that is called Great' — the very language, I note with grief, that the human heart reaches for whenever it meets a display of power it cannot explain and has not yet learned to test. This is the ancient wound: men so hungry for the numinous that they will worship the first counterfeit who performs a trick, when they were made for Me, the true and only Power, and did not yet know it.

Simon himself believed when he heard Philip, and was baptized, and followed Philip everywhere, astonished at the signs he now watched from the other side — no longer performing wonder but witnessing it, and I want it said plainly: I do not doubt that something real began in him that day, some genuine astonishment, perhaps even a genuine first step. I am patient even with sorcerers. But belief that stops at astonishment, that admires power without surrendering to the Person behind it, is a seed on shallow soil, and I saw the old root still living under Simon's newly watered surface.

When Peter and John came down from Jerusalem and laid hands on the Samaritan believers, I came upon them visibly, unmistakably — I do not always announce myself so plainly, but that day I did, because Samaria needed to see, with no room for doubt, that the same Spirit poured out on Jews at Pentecost was poured out here too, on a people the Jews despised, for I make no such distinctions among the sons of Adam. And Simon saw it. And here the old sorcerer's mind, trained for decades in his trade, did what it had always done: it looked at power and asked what power costs, and to whom the coin should be paid.

He offered Peter and John money. 'Give me also this ability, that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.' I want every soul who ever reads this account to feel the full horror of that sentence, because it is the oldest lie dressed in the newest occasion — that I am a commodity, a technique, a force to be licensed and resold, rather than the Lord, freely given, freely giving, bound to no man's purse.

Peter's rebuke was not gentle, and I did not soften it in his mouth, because some errors require thunder, not persuasion. 'May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity.' Simon, shaken, asked them to pray for him — whether from true repentance or only fear of Peter's curse, Scripture leaves unresolved, and I leave it unresolved too, because every soul's ending is written by its own final choice, not mine to force.

I let his name outlive him as a warning to every century after: simony, the sin of buying or selling what is sacred, of treating ordination, sacrament, or grace as a transaction rather than a gift. Wherever a man since has paid for an office in my Church, or sold what I give freely, Simon's face is the one Church tradition holds up to shame him, because I do not change. I am never for sale. I am only, ever, given.

The Record

The account is found in Acts 8:9–24, set within the broader narrative of Philip's mission to Samaria following the persecution that scattered the Jerusalem church after Stephen's martyrdom (Acts 8:1–4). Simon is described as one who "practiced magic and amazed the people of Samaria," claiming to be someone great, and known popularly as "the power of God that is called Great" (Acts 8:9–10) — language suggesting the Samaritans regarded him as a manifestation of divine power, possibly reflecting syncretistic religious currents in first-century Samaria.

Peter's rebuke — "May your silver perish with you... you have no part or share in this matter, for your heart is not right before God" (Acts 8:20–21) — gave rise directly to the term simony (Latin simonia), which entered canonical vocabulary as early as the fourth century and was formally condemned by numerous councils, including the Council of Chalcedon (451) and later medieval reform councils under Popes such as Gregory VII, who made the eradication of simony central to the Gregorian Reform of the eleventh century. The Catechism explicitly invokes this passage: "It is impossible to buy the spiritual goods [the Holy Spirit confers]... One cannot buy the spiritual power conferred by the grace of the sacraments" (CCC 2121), naming simony as an offense against the virtue of religion.

Later Christian tradition, drawing on apocryphal and patristic sources (including St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus, and the Pseudo-Clementine literature), expanded Simon Magus into a figure of persistent heresy and rivalry with Peter, culminating in legendary accounts of a final confrontation in Rome under Nero — material outside the canonical text but influential in later Christian art and literature. The canonical account itself leaves Simon's ultimate repentance unresolved, ending simply with his request that the apostles pray for him.