NOTES for Act 8:9-11

The term “simony” entered Church usage as far back as the Middle Ages. It meant the buying and selling of ecclesiastical offices. Clearly, the term derives from the magician Simon mentioned in Acts, who seemed to have converted and renounced magic, yet... in a certain sense remained a magician. Admittedly, the medieval followers of the biblical Simon had become decidedly petty: they wanted an ecclesiastical office for their money, whereas Simon aimed higher. He wanted to buy himself a little grace—as much as he could afford. That is something more serious than a Church office. This is where things become most interesting and revealing. The sale of Church offices is easy to understand: all ecclesiastical structures are the work of human hands. In human terms, buying and selling places within them is understandable too, however repugnant. Grace, however, is genuinely interesting. What did Simon imagine grace to be, if he was certain it could be bought or sold?

Probably something like the supernatural energy he himself had sought to master all his life. He had likely achieved some success, if his many acts of “sorcery” worked. A magician is always certain that the energy whose presence he senses, even if he does not consciously recognize it—the energy underlying the universe—is real. It can be mastered. Most importantly, he will succeed in mastering it. Without that certainty, there is no magician. Nor any magic. But now the magician encounters manifestations of God's power: the power of the Kingdom.

And... he converts quickly and easily. Then he asks to buy some grace. An interesting conversion! Yet on reflection, there is nothing strange about it. Nor, of course, is there any real conversion. What there is instead is recognition of a fact obvious to the magician: a power exists in the world greater than anything he has dealt with before. There are people who possess this power—that is how the magician sees the situation. He must get along with such people. He must accept their religion: for a magician, Christianity will always be merely a religion; by definition, he knows nothing of it as the life of the Kingdom. In the end, a magician may even accept God's existence if he sees that the power comes from Him. But he will never be able to entrust himself to God. For to trust Him means recognizing Him not simply as stronger, but as higher than oneself.

To acknowledge that, a magician must cease to be a magician. He must cease to be what he is. Until that happens, his religion will be based on the principle of “you give to me, and I give to you.” God is stronger, so one must strike a bargain with Him, so that He will share His power. Perhaps through certain people, intermediaries to whom His power is accessible. But... suddenly, quite unexpectedly for Simon, the apostles give him a harsh rebuke. He comes to understand something—if not everything, then at least a little.

He understands that these people bear something money cannot buy. The point is not that God does not want to share His power with humanity. The point is that this power is part of His Kingdom and can be received only by entering the Kingdom, together with God's love, as one of its manifestations. Outside the Kingdom and without God's love, a magician will remain a magician, whatever religion he professes and however often he appeals to God. One cannot strike a bargain with Him. One can only give Him one's whole self and receive everything from Him in return: the whole Kingdom in all its fullness.

It is interesting that the Gospel that the disciples preach, when separated from the gift of the Holy Spirit given to believers through the apostles, can easily turn into yet another esoteric magical teaching. That is exactly how Simon the Magician understands it. Not knowing the freedom and grace of the Holy Spirit, or relationships with God built entirely on mercy and the free gift of communion, he thinks that in Christian life something can be bought or sold. This error is very universal. As soon as we lose (or forget) this experience of joy in God and stop living by the Spirit, we immediately begin to think that something can be earned from God, that we can force Him into something, or somehow bribe Him.

Today's reading gives us an opportunity to view the Kingdom from a new and perhaps somewhat unexpected angle. It concerns the story of a magician named Simon (vv. 9–24). As we read the account, we immediately notice that, very soon after Philip's arrival in the city, Simon became one of his most attentive listeners and seemed ready to become one of his followers (vv. 9–13). But when the apostles came to the city and prayed for the Spirit to be sent down upon the new converts, Simon approached them, offering money and asking in return for the power of prayer that made it possible for the Spirit to descend upon those for whom they prayed (vv. 18–19).

At first sight, such a desire on the magician's part for the power of God might seem strange and unnatural. But if we reflect on the nature of magic, we will see nothing particularly strange here. Magicians have long viewed the world as the expression and embodiment of a certain supernatural force or energy, mastery of which was considered the goal of magic and the purpose of a magician's life. Apparently Simon, too, had achieved a measure of success in this respect, perhaps considerable success (vv. 10–11). But then a stranger appears in the city who seems to know this power better and to wield it with mastery. Simon, of course, wanted to become this mysterious preacher's disciple, and once he had decided to do so, he no longer left his side (v. 13). He probably disregarded baptism, considering it unnecessary for himself.

Apparently, like most magicians, Simon was a practical atheist. If he thought about God at all, it was probably in the sense that God could neither help nor hinder him: a magician must acquire power himself, without appealing to any gods or spirits. When he became convinced that the apostles really possessed an utterly real power that transformed a person, he naturally wanted to learn to wield it as they did.

But everything turned out to be both simpler and more complicated than Simon had expected. It became clear that this was not merely about power, but about the Kingdom entering the world; the power was only one of its manifestations. Simon, however, wanted to acquire the power without the Kingdom. It is no accident that Peter judges his spiritual condition with the utmost severity (vv. 22–23). The issue is not that the power the magician wants to control is bad in itself. Ultimately, nothing in the world is inherently demonic: the devil cannot create; he can only spoil and pervert what he did not create. The frightening thing is something else: a magician, even when coming into contact with the Kingdom, always remains closed to others, including God, and utterly self-centered. The Kingdom, by contrast, presupposes complete openness to God and one's neighbor. Judging by Simon's reaction to Peter's words (v. 24), he is probably beginning to understand this. And perhaps, in doing so, he is taking his first step toward the Kingdom.