Acts 8:9

Acts 8:9. A certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city need sorcery. We have here a description of the first collision between the unreality and imposture in the outside world, and the earnestness and single-heartedness of the little community who loved the name of Jesus. The person called Simon, commonly known as Simon Magus, or the magician, was not an uncommon figure in the history of this period. Such a one we meet with again in Elymas at the court of the Roman governor, Sergius Paulus (Acts 13). Such a one was the famous impostor Apollonius of Tyana, who flourished in the same century. An advanced knowledge of natural philosophy, especially of chemistry, gave these clever unscrupulous characters a strange power and influence over men's minds, an influence they constantly used to further their own selfish ends. Simon seems to have been really impressed with the miracles performed by Philip, and at once perceived that these wonder-works were of a very different order from those which his superior knowledge of natural science enabled him to perform. He never seems to have comprehended the source whence proceeded Philip's awful power. He attributed it simply to a deeper knowledge of the secrets of nature, and thought the key to the art was, of course, to be bought. His mistake and discomfiture are related in the following verses. Bitterly annoyed at the result of his collision with the followers of Jesus, it is probable that this unhappy man at once turned his great powers [for these undoubtedly he possessed in no mean degree] to oppose the growing influence of the little Church. His evil work was crowned with no small measure of success, for in the records of the early history of Christianity, among the many false teachers who sprang up, Simon Magus is invested with a mysterious importance, ‘as the great Heresiarch, the open enemy of the apostles, inspired, it would seem, by the spirit of evil, to countermine the work of the Saviour, and to found a school of error in opposition to the Church of God.' In the treatise, Against Heresies, a work now generally ascribed to Hippolytus, bishop of Portus, near Rome, about A.D. 218-235, we find a general outline of the principles of Simon Magus and his school. Some account also is given in the same treatise of the Great Announcement (ἀπόφασις μεγάγη), a writing compiled from the oral teaching of Simon, by one of his immediate followers: in this compilation the revelation with which he declared he was entrusted is set forth, and the work and Person of Christ are disparaged and set aside. See Westcott, On the Canon, chap, 4, and Ewald, Acten Geschichte, pp. 120, 122. Simon is by many regarded as the father of Gnosticism.

Giving out that himself was some great one. According to Justin Martyr, Simon pretended that he was God, above all principality and power. Jerome relates that he said, ‘I am the Son of God,' ‘the Paraclete,' ‘the Almighty,' etc. Such bold assertions as these related by Justin Martyr and Jerome were no doubt made subsequently to his collision with Peter and Philip. Exasperated by his repulse, and the exposure he had suffered at the hands of these believers in Christ, envious too of their powers and also of the consideration which they enjoyed with so many of the people, he endeavoured, by assuming the titles of the Master of Peter and Philip, to win something of the power they possessed, and which he coveted.