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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 618. The Simon of the Book of Acts
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The Simon of the Book of Acts
2. The Samaritans, like the Jews, were eagerly looking for the coming of a Messiah. In this they only shared a characteristic of their time. The whole East at this time, we are told by the historian Suetonius, was flooded with Messianic expectations, and the expectations produced a harvest of false Christs. But apart from such special ideas, there was, in the decay and exhaustion of the old pagan religions, a greatly increased demand among men for religious teachers, to tell them something of the truth, to heal their diseases of spirit and mind as well as of body, to open up some channel of intercourse with the spiritual world, and, in a word, give them some knowledge of God. The class of “prophets,” “seers,” and “magi,” who answered to this demand had always existed in the East, but now they were especially abundant. The developments and intermixture of Greek philosophy and Oriental religion had given them most varied characters. They appeared sometimes as exorcists, healers, wonder-workers; sometimes as astrologers or spiritualists. Some really tried to fill the place of philosophers and moral teachers; others claimed to be prophets and to possess a Divine inspiration. A few of the class may have been great men with more or less sincerity, like Apollonius of Tyana, whose biography was put forward in a later generation to compete with the Gospels. But the temptation to gain and cheat was too powerful, and the majority were nothing else than pretenders, quacks, and charlatans. Some were learned in astrology and the learning of the East, and the magi of Chaldæa had an honourable reputation. But the boundaries between true and false science, as between religion and superstition, had not yet been clearly marked out, and so the word magus had already acquired its evil associations of magic and sorcery.
Thousands there are who have their first estate
Inviolate maintained without transgression;
But there are thousands who have risen irate
Against authority; to such regression
Seems never granted, but upon their pate,
The consequences of their indiscretion,
Their vile revolt,
Their treacherous and treasonable fault,
Must one day fall: till then, their course pursuing,
They work assiduously for man's undoing.
'Tis such who in defiance of divine
And wholesome laws respond to all who call them.
Men count their baneful influence benign,
And as their spiritual guides instal them;
Tho' they be but a brood of viperine,
Who men deceive in order to enthral them.
What soul could guess
How false, how mischievous, how merciless,
Are all their diabolic machinations!
And how pernicious their communications!1 [Note: J. Boyd, The Story of the Glory, 290.]
During the early centuries there was a wide and current belief in the existence of demons. There was also a corresponding belief in demoniacal possession. Though this form of insanity still occurs at the present day, cases of it are rare, owing to the fact that wide circles of people have lost all belief in the existence and activity of demons. But the forms and phases in which insanity manifests itself always depend upon the state of general culture, and the ideas current in the social environment, so that whenever the religious life is in a state of agitation, and a firm belief prevails in the sinister activity of evil spirits “demon-possession” still breaks out sporadically.2 [Note: A. Harnack, Expansion of Christianity, i. 153.]
3. As the counterfeit of the true, these false prophets were among the most dangerous enemies of Christianity; and the distinction between the true and the false had to be sharply drawn once for all. The Lord had warned His disciples against false prophets and false Christs, and in the Acts we find the class convicted and judged in the persons of Simon Magus and Barjesus. Simon, as his name “the Magus” and his position in Christian tradition show, was in the first rank of these pretenders. By his skill in magic he had acquired quite a sovereignty over the Samaritans. His claim to be “some great one” was probably a Messianic pretension. But he aspired still higher. Besides being a magus, he was a philosopher; and he had elaborated a hierarchy of Divine emanations (i.e. successive mediators between God and man) which he called Powers. Of these powers he professed to be himself the chief, giving himself the name of “the great power of God.” It is in view of such theories about powers that the Apostles assert the superiority of Christ to all such orders of being. St. Paul calls Christ “the power of God”; in the Acts the Divine power is generally associated with the Holy Spirit.
In short, the Samaritans regarded Simon as a sort of incarnation of the highest power in the Deity. That he magnified himself to the extent of the most audacious blasphemy may be gathered from several passages in the Fathers. Justin tells us that “almost all the Samaritans, and a few also among other nations, acknowledged and worshipped him as the first God”; while Irenæus implies that he recognized a plurality of persons in the Godhead, and claimed to be himself an incarnation of all of them, and to have appeared among the Samaritans as the Father, among the Jews as the Son, and among people of other religions as the Holy Ghost.
We cannot prevent hypocrites arising; it is only a proof that true religion is worth having. You took a bad half-sovereign the other night, did you? Did you say, “All half-sovereigns are worthless, I will never take another”? Not so, you became more careful; but you were quite sure there were good half-sovereigns in currency, or else people would not make counterfeit ones. It would not pay anybody to be a hypocrite, unless there were enough genuine Christians to make the hypocrites pass current.1 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon, Barbed Arrows, 134.]
4. It was in the middle of this success that Philip came to Samaria.
The Lord Himself had preached to the Samaritans at Sychar (about seven miles from Samaria) for two days, and the conversation of the Samaritan woman showed their strong Messianic convictions. Philip went down to their capital, the old Samaria, which had been rebuilt by Herod the Great on a magnificent scale and called after Augustus-in Greek Sebastos-Sebaste. Here like a herald he proclaimed the Messiah, i.e. the establishment of the Kingdom of God. This Kingdom was neither the Jewish ecclesia nor the rival Samaritan ecclesia, but a new ecclesia which bore the name of Jesus, who had been anointed as its Messianic King or Christ. Philip confirmed his words by working many signs of healing. The superstition of the Samaritans made them specially liable to “amazement,” or, as the A.V. implies, to “being bewitched” by a power they could not understand. Accordingly the miracles were necessary in order to overthrow the power and influence which Simon had acquired over them by his false miracles. Those of Philip were real, and the result was corresponding. The attention of the whole population was won; the healings caused great joy; the people at once believed that Philip's words must likewise be true, and many began to carry their belief into action by being baptized. It is surprising that no opposition was offered by Simon. But in fact he himself was deeply impressed by the real spiritual power of Philip and by his signs, which altogether eclipsed his own. He believed and was baptized, and became a disciple of Philip as of a superior master. The nature of his faith was soon to be tested and laid bare.
What led him to believe we are left to conjecture; whether it was only that he saw his followers gradually disappearing, and that the miracles wrought by Philip impressed him by their superiority to his own sorceries, or whether some deeper feeling moved him for a time, we can perhaps hardly decide. As far as we can answer these questions, his motive was chiefly a love of power and of gain, and perhaps an intellectual interest in religion. Simon was dabbling in philosophical speculations; he saw in the gospel something which seemed capable of being fitted into his system with a little necessary distortion; he saw performed every day miracles of healing which made his own achievements seem petty and trifling. He was smitten with discontent and envy, perhaps not unmingled with admiration and reverence. Good and evil feelings struggled for the mastery within him; there may have been self-disgust, the recognition of what was higher, and a longing after better things, as well as the grosser thought of future profit and the desire of greater notoriety, which no doubt was strongest; for why should he stop short at being called “the power of God” and not win worship as an actual deity? At all events, he professed his belief and submitted to the rite of baptism; and, having been thus enrolled in the ranks of the Christian Church, he continued with Philip, wondering at, or “bewitched by” (the word is a strong one), the miracles which he wrought.
I once thought that almost all that could pray movingly and fluently and talk well of religion had been saints. But experience hath opened to me, what odious crimes may consist with high profession; and I have met with divers obscure persons whom I have found to have long lived a truly godly and sanctified life. I more plainly perceive the difference between the Church as congregate or visible, and as regenerate or mystical; and between sincerity and profession; and that a credible profession is proof sufficient of a man's title to Church admission; and that the profession is credible at the bar of the Church, which is not disproved. I am not for narrowing the Church more than Christ Himself alloweth us; nor for robbing Him of any of His flock. I am more sensible how much it is the will of Christ that every man be the chooser or refuser of his own felicity, and that it lieth most on his own hands, whether he will have communion with the Church or not; and that if he be an hypocrite it is himself that will bear the loss.1 [Note: Richard Baxter.]
5. The Apostles were not long in visiting the new Church, and in completing the work which Philip had begun. They conferred upon the new converts the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands. This gift, we must suppose, made itself visible by outward effects, as in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, and afterwards in the Church of Corinth. They spoke with tongues or prophesied. When Simon saw miraculous powers not only exercised, but actually communicated to others, his curiosity and his cupidity were roused.
Such a scene stirred in him also that which was deepest in his heart. The deepest thing in him was neither the burden of an evil and unspiritual life, nor the yearning after God, nor the gladness of a pardoned sinner. It was just what it had always been-ambition, the lust after spiritual power. As he gazed, amazed, on the sublimest exhibition of spiritual power which he or any other man had ever seen-the descent of the Holy Ghost on the souls of men, so as to master their bodily organs as well, and to lift the whole man into an ecstasy of devotion-the one desire which leapt up in him and sprang to his lips was that he too might possess power like an Apostle, to give power like this to men. But there was in unhappy Simon, as there had been in Balaam of old, a baser passion than even ambition. To him spiritual power was valuable because he could turn it to profit; take captive the silly by it, and wheedle them out of their money. What will win gold is worth gold. What can be sold may also be bought. To one who had affected to traffic in what is superhuman till he had ceased to believe in what is really Divine, the two Apostles were only cleverer magicians than himself. They possessed some more potent formulæ. They could work upon some mightier spirit than he knew. If they were like himself, they might be bribed to share their secrets with him and enter into profitable partnership. Thus, in presence of the holiest, the unholiest in Simon came to light. “Give me also this power,” he exclaimed, “that on whomsoever I lay my hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.”
I remember, says Goldwin Smith, when I was for some months giving help to my father as a deputy in the Collector's office, hearing one of the larger distillers say with almost unnecessary frankness: “Mr. Collector, your authorities pay those inspectors in my place twelve hundred a year, do they not?” “Yes,” said my father. “Well,” said the distiller, “if I wanted to send out a few thousand gallons of whiskey without paying the tax, I could certainly afford to give those inspectors a much larger salary for omitting to make record of that portion of my product.”1 [Note: George Palmer Putnam, 1814-1872, p. 347.]
Curst be the gold and silver which persuade
Weak men to follow far-fatiguing trade.
The lily-peace outshines the silver store,
And life is dearer than the golden ore.
Yet money tempts us o'er the desert brown,
To every distant mart, and wealthy town:
Full oft we tempt the land, and oft the sea,
And are we only yet repaid by thee?
Ah! why was ruin so attractive made,
Or why fond man so easily betrayed?
Why heed we not, whilst mad we haste along,
The gentle voice of peace, or pleasure's song?
Or wherefore think the flowery mountain's side,
The fountain's murmurs, and the valley's pride,
Why think we these less pleasing to behold,
Than dreary deserts, if they lead to gold?2 [Note: W. Collins, “Persian Eclogues,”]
6. But St. Peter saw straight into his heart; he read there the lust of power and fame and money. With burning words he rebuked him, “Thy silver perish with thee, because thou hast thought to obtain the gift of God with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right before God. Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray the Lord, if perhaps the thought of thy heart shall be forgiven thee. For I see that thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.”
The other Simon's fiery rebuke flashed a terrible beam into the dark caves of this dark soul. The crime of crimes, in St. Peter's eyes, was to think of “the gift of God” as purchasable with money, and that not merely because such a misconception darkened the freedom of the gift, but because it ignored the one condition of obtaining it, which St. Peter proceeds to lay down in the words which shut Simon out from it: “Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter” (which is to be taken as defined by the context-namely, the gift in question): “for thy heart is not right before God.” The right heart, which comes through faith, is the condition. Money cannot buy the gift any more than it can purchase sunshine; but the faith which purifies the heart is sure to receive it.
Money never did, and never could, create religion. Your capitalist may endow religious institutions. To see the way he is run after by religious societies, to observe the part which finance plays in the Church organizations, one might easily imagine that here the gold bag is omnipotent. But come to realities and we find where we are. You cannot, by any alchemy, extract prayer from a dollar bill or a banknote. All the gold in the world could never produce a genuine religious aspiration. The noblest emotions were never born in that atmosphere, and where it prevails they do not thrive. It was not money that started Christianity, or gave us the New Testament. They are not Stock Exchange values.1 [Note: J. Brierley.]
With money you can buy the canvas and the oil, but not the artistic eye which interprets and appreciates the picture; you can buy the poem, but the living and inspiring poetry is not for sale; you can rent the garden, but cannot bribe the flowers to whisper their tender messages. After all, it is but a very little way that money can go; it can do nearly everything in the market-place or among the dust of cities, but what do the angels know of your currency, your bills of exchange, your promissory notes, and your intricate conveyancing of estates? Not one of the great redemptions of life can be wrought out with money: death takes no bribe; the grave will not sell its victories for gold; you may buy the Bible, but you cannot buy the Holy Ghost; you may pay for the masonry, but no money can put you in possession of the Spirit of the altar.1 [Note: Joseph Parker.]
7. The terrible “imprecation” launched at the cowering quack is to be taken in connexion with the urgent call to repentance, which would avert the otherwise certain doom. St. Peter speaks doubtfully, but the doubt concerned the possibility not so much of forgiveness as of Simon's repentance. For his heart was full of “the bitter gall” of sin and fast bound with “the chain of his iniquity” (a reminiscence of Isa_58:6). Such is the meaning of the English translation. The first expression, however, is taken from Deu_29:18, where the Israelite whose heart turns away from God is among the people as “a root that beareth gall and wormwood,” i.e. “a root of bitterness.” And as the Greek is literally “thou art for” or “unto,” the rendering of the R.V. margin [“will become”] is the best. St. Peter sees-and sees most truly-that Simon's sin will be a root of bitterness and gall to the Church and a fetter of iniquity, impeding its free course.
Like Pharaoh, Simon was frightened but not reformed. His words recall Exo_8:28, “Entreat the Lord for me.” The denunciation by one in whom he recognized a power above his own terrified him. And, not recognizing that penitence is a personal matter between the soul and God, he thought that he could pray by deputy. But he must not be condemned unfairly. One man cannot rise so high as another. The lofty nature loathes sin, and goes to God to escape it. The poorer nature fears judgment, and goes to God to escape it. The prayer of the latter will be less spiritual than that of the former, and yet God may accept it.
With this incident Simon disappears from the New Testament, according to the Bezan text, “weeping loudly.”
The element of fear is one of the great primal passions, and to all those deep basic human elements the gospel makes its peculiar appeal. And the fears of men must be excited. The music cannot be all bass; but the bass note must not be absent, or the music will be ruined.
There are still those who, far from being cowards, may, like Noah, be “moved with fear” to the saving of their houses. Cardinal Manning tells in his Journal how, as a boy at Totteridge, he read again and again of the lake that burneth with fire. “These words,” he says, “became fixed in my mind, and kept me as boy and youth and man in the midst of all evil. I owe to them more than will ever be known to the last day.” And Archbishop Benson used to tell of a working man who was seen looking at a placard announcing a series of addresses on “The Four Last Things.” After he had read the advertisement he turned to a companion and asked, “Where would you and I have been without hell?” And the Archbishop used to inquire whether, if we abandoned the legitimate appeal to human fear, we should not need some other motive in our preaching to fill the vacant place.1 [Note: F. W. Boreham, Mushrooms on the Moor, 165.]