Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 620. The Sin of Simon
Subjects in this Topic:
The Sin of Simon
Simon's first error, or, more truly, sin, was his entire blindness to all but the outward miraculous effects of the Spirit-a blindness which was possible only if evil desires and selfishness had become dominant.
His next fault was consequent on the first. If the influence of the Spirit was only what he thought it, of course it could be communicated without regard to moral conditions. His own words might have struck him as involving the impossibility of his request. The very name “Holy Ghost,” which he pronounces without thought of its meaning, might have taught him that its reception needed some preparation in whosoever received it, and that it was not communicated by the mere touch of hands.
His last error was the degrading supposition that this power could be bought. If he was ready to buy, he doubtless meant to sell. So he has, deservedly enough, the dishonour of having stood godfather to the crime, often repeated in its grossest form, and called after him, simony.
John Hus writes: “This year lying, lascivious, avaricious men, who by their evil deeds disowned Christ and derided the true path of Christ, have robbed the people by false indulgences, imagining strange speeches and absolutions, and granting remittance of all sins and punishments. And these men having the support of the masters (of the university) robbed the people all the more boldly, and lied as much as they could.”1 [Note: Count Lützow, The Life and Times of Master John Hus, 189.]
2. The sin has, indeed, taken different shapes. Simony, throughout the Middle Ages, was a common vice against which some of the more devout popes strove long and vigorously. In England, and according to English law, simony means still the purchase of spiritual office or spiritual functions. It would be simoniacal for a bishop to receive money for conferring holy orders or for appointment to a living. It would be an act of simony for a man to offer or give money to attain either holy orders or a living. Simony, however, is a much more extensive and far-reaching corruption than the purchase of ecclesiastical benefices. Simony can take subtler shapes and can adapt itself to conditions very different from those which prevail under an established Church. Every one recognizes, in word at least, the scandalous character of money traffic in Church offices. Even those who really practise it hide from themselves, by some device or excuse, the character of their action. But the simoniacal spirit, the essence of Simon's sin, is found in many quarters which are never suspected. What is that essence? Simon desired to obtain spiritual power and office, not in the Divine method, but in low, earthly ways. Money was his way because it was the one thing he valued and had to offer; but surely there are many other ways in which men may unlawfully seek for spiritual office and influence in the Church of Christ. Many a man who would never dream of offering money in order to obtain a high place in the Church, or would be horrified at the very suggestion, has yet resorted to other methods just as effective and just as wrong. Men have sought high position by political methods. They have given their support to a political party, and have sold their talents to uphold a cause, hoping thereby to gain their ends. They may not have given gold which comes from the mine to gain spiritual position, but they have all the same given a mere human consideration, and sought by its help to obtain spiritual power; or they preach and speak and vote in Church synods and assemblies with an eye to elections to high place and dignity.
Christians have found that they might trade with the belief that there is a Holy Spirit, a Spirit of truth, a heart-purifying, heart-regenerating Spirit, which He will renew in us day by day. And always when they have done so, this belief that the gift of God may be purchased with money, that money is the all-conquering divine power, has been discovered to be dwelling in them. It was the awful revelation of this simony in the hearts of the rulers of the Church, taking then the form of the sale of indulgences, which produced the Reformation of the sixteenth century. Forgiveness, it was seen, was in the highest sense the gift of God. Indulgence was a gift of the devil. It must have been his suggestion that they could buy such a gift of God. This is one instance; there are multitudes more in earlier and later times, in all countries and in all religious communities.1 [Note: F. D. Maurice, The Acts of the Apostles, 108.]
In Dante's Inferno, the Simonists are found in the third chasm. The heart of Dante seems almost too full for utterance when he comes in sight of them. To him they are, as it were, a more hateful species of panders and seducers than those he has just left; and they lie beneath the vile flatterers “that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness.” It is they who have prostituted the things of God for gold and silver, and made “His house a den of thieves.” They are all fixed one by one in narrow round holes, along the sides and bottom of the rock, with the head downwards, so that nothing more than the feet and part of the legs stands out. The soles of them are tormented with flames, which keep flickering from the heels to the toes, and burn with a brightness and intensity proportioned to the different degrees of guilt. Dante is carried down by his Guide to the bottom of the chasm; and there finds Pope Nicholas the Third, who, with a weeping voice, declares his own evil ways, and those of his successors Boniface the Eighth and Clement the Fifth.
“I know not if here I was too hardy, for I answered him in this strain: ‘Ah! Now tell me how much treasure our Lord required of St. Peter, before he put the keys into his keeping? Surely he demanded nought but “Follow Me”! Nor did Peter, nor the others, ask of Matthias gold or silver, when he was chosen for the office which the guilty soul had lost. Therefore stay thou here, for thou art justly punished.' ”2 [Note: J. A. Carlyle, Dante's Inferno, 217, 225.]