Acts 8:11Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

They were to cry out while shaking those sticks: “Let the city be without gnats!” And so the scorpions and gnats disappeared from the city.

They also asked him about an earthquake threatening the city. He sighed and wrote the following on a tablet: “Woe to you, unhappy city.

You will be shaken much and burned with fire. The one on the bank of the Orontes will mourn you.”

Concerning this Apollonius, the great Anastasius of the City of God also said: “The wonders performed by Apollonius are even now still fulfilled in certain places.

Some are for driving away four-footed animals and birds that might harm people. Others are for restraining river currents that have broken out of their banks.

Yet others are for the destruction and harm of people, though also for their restraint.

For not only during his life did demons perform such wonders. Even after his death, at his tomb, they performed wonders in his name, in order to deceive wretched people, whom the devil often catches by them.”

What, then, shall one say about deeds performed through magical temptation? For Apollonius was skilled in magical deception.

He never considered that in his madness he had given himself over to a clever contrivance. He should rather have said: “By a word alone I do what I wished,” and not performed the actions expected of him.

All that happens by God’s permission and by demonic action. By all such deeds our Orthodox faith is tested.

It is firm and remains strong near the Lord, and is not carried away by the devil, by his illusory wonders, or by satanic works.

These are performed by the enemies of the human race and servants of evil.

It also happens that some prophesy in the name of the Lord, as Balaam did (Num 23; Num 24), Saul (1 Sam 19:23), and Caiaphas (Jn 11:49-52).

Some even cast out demons, as Judas did and the sons of Sceva did (Acts 19:13-14).

For grace often acts even upon the unworthy, as many testify. Balaam was foreign to everything, both righteous life and faith, yet grace appeared in him for the conviction of others.

Pharaoh was the same, yet the future was revealed even to him. Nebuchadnezzar was lawless, yet the future of many generations was likewise revealed to him.

By this it is testified that many who have perverse notions, even before the coming of Christ, perform signs not by their own will, to deceive people who do not know the good.

Such were Simon the Magician, Menander, and others like them. Because of them it was truly said: “Do not deceive by miracles.”

From this it is evident that in the Church of apostolic times there was both baptism in water and the imparting of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands (Acts 8:17-18).

These mysteries are performed to this day in the holy Orthodox Church. Only the imparting of the gift of the Holy Spirit is performed not through the laying on of hands, but through chrismation.

Justin Martyr, Apol. 1, 26, states positively that this Simon came from the Samaritan village of Gitta, or Gitton. There are no firm grounds for distrusting Justin here, especially since he himself was a Samaritan by birth, from Sychem.

It is probable that Samaritan national pride was not the least stimulus in considering their kinsman something extraordinary, "the great power of God."

He was a magician; the word "practiced magic" occurs among all the New Testament books only here.

But he was not a magician in the good sense in which the Persian magi came to worship the newborn Lord (Mt 2:1). He was a sorcerer, an enchanter.

At that time, according to Roman and Greek witnesses, many people appeared in various lands of the Greco-Roman world under the names of magi, Chaldeans, mathematicians, and goetes.

They possessed some knowledge of mysterious powers in nature, which was then still little explained. They presented themselves as extraordinary people.

By healing certain diseases, incantations, divination, prophecy, sorceries, charlatan mystery, and various devices, they so worked upon the ignorant masses that they drew many after themselves and were reputed to be something extraordinary.

For the most part they had no systematic doctrines. Yet the ordinary teaching about higher powers was rather strong among them in one form or another.

They imagined that they stood in special relations with these powers. Or at least they claimed that they did, or that they themselves belonged to such higher powers.

Simon presented himself as someone great, some extraordinary person. The people said of him that he was the power of God, the so-called (καλεμένη) great power.

The writer of Acts distinguishes the magician's own opinion of himself from the people's opinion of him.

The latter is more definite and, of course, was based on one or another of his own sayings about himself.

The expression "the great power of God" recalls the language of what later developed as so-called Gnosticism. It imagined aeons as powers flowing from the fullness, or pleroma, of the Godhead.

The people considered their Simon to be one of these powers, and indeed a great or higher power, appearing in human form.

Perhaps Simon did not express himself about himself so definitely. He preferred a certain mysteriousness in his words about himself.

In this way, on the one hand, he stirred the people's imagination more. On the other, he arrogantly enjoyed the lofty opinion that the people had formed of him, as though it were not his own.

Probably Alexandrian philosophical and Eastern theosophical ideas were already sufficiently widespread at that time. Later they entered as one element into the speculative ravings of the Gnostics (cf. Col 2:8ff.; Col 2:20ff.).

This explains the expression "the great power of God."

However it may have been, by his magic Simon so astonished the Samaritan people that all were amazed at him, which is the highest degree of wonder.

As a result all gave heed to his teaching, as in verse 6, from the least to the greatest, what is called both old and young. So strong was the people's fascination with this man, and it continued for no little time.

There are reports that Simon wove Christian teaching into his ravings. He said that he appeared on Sinai as the Father, appeared in the days of Tiberius as the Son, and afterward descended upon the apostles as the Spirit.

Yet it is evident that these were empty ravings of a man who used for his own glory everything the age provided.

At the same time, this shows that the falsely learned mixture, or syncretism, of that time sometimes took precisely such monstrous forms.

These forms were later especially developed by the Gnostic heretics.

In any case, it is beyond doubt that Simon possessed much knowledge of the secrets of natural forces. Yet he did not disdain evil sorcery.

By the totality of all this, he performed astonishing deeds and held the whole city of Samaria under enchantment when the holy Apostle Philip appeared there.

Philip’s preaching and miracles could not, of course, fail to influence Simon and his admirers.

And so two worlds, in the persons of their strongest representatives, appear as if competing and at the same time struggling, before the face of many people ready to incline either to the right or to the left.

The question was fateful, though not for the humble deacon Philip, but for the one who claimed to be something great.