Acts 8:17Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Do you see that this was not done simply, but that great power was needed to communicate the Holy Spirit? It is not the same thing to receive forgiveness of sins and to receive such power. Consider, I ask you, how many things followed from Stephen’s death. They are scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria. They preach the word, proclaim Christ, perform signs, and little by little receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Here there was a double sign: to give to them, and not to give to Simon. This is a very great sign.

Those who believed in Samaria believed with true faith and were baptized by the deacon Philip, whom the Apostles had sent, in that Church which is the one Church. To her alone it had been permitted to give the grace of baptism and to forgive sins. Since they had received lawful and ecclesial baptism, they did not need to be baptized again. Peter and John only did what was lacking, so that, after prayer had been made over them and the hand laid upon them, the Holy Spirit might be invoked and descend upon them.

How great the event of the Samaritans' conversion to Christ was is shown by the fact that it immediately became the subject of a special report to the apostles. As the writer of Acts noted earlier (v. 1), they had remained in Jerusalem even after persecution began in that city.

At the same time the apostles were informed that the Samaritans who had believed in Christ had only been baptized by Philip in the name of the Lord Jesus. They had not yet received the Holy Spirit. Therefore they arranged for the chief apostles, Peter and John, to go to the believing Samaritans. By their apostolic authority and power they completed in Samaria the work of Saint Philip.

Here the baptism of the Samaritans by the deacon Philip is narrated (6:5). Yet he did not impart the Holy Spirit to them. Therefore the apostles Peter and John were sent to Samaria to impart the Spirit to them. And when they had come, they prayed for them, that is, for the Samaritans, laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

In the same chapter, verses 36-39 tell of the baptism of the Ethiopian man. The baptism was performed by the same Philip. It followed the preaching of Christ (v. 35), which produced in the hearer a sincere faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God (v. 37). After this Philip and the Ethiopian both went down into the water, and Philip baptized the Ethiopian.

The purpose of these apostles' mission to Samaria was prayer for the sending down of the Holy Spirit upon the baptized Samaritans (v. 15), and the bringing down of the Spirit upon them (v. 17). It was not further catechesis or confirmation in faith of those baptized. There is no hint of this in the narrative.

"For He," the Holy Spirit, "had not yet fallen upon any of them," and so forth. What does this event mean? Philip himself had the Holy Spirit, Who worked in him with great powers and miracles (vv. 6 and 7). Yet it was as though he could not, through the laying on of hands, bring down the Holy Spirit upon those baptized, and the apostles had to be sent for this.

The imparting of the Holy Spirit to the believing Samaritans shows that chrismation appeared later, when, because of the great multiplication of believers, the apostles could no longer personally lay hands on everyone. This change is spoken of in many places in the apostolic writings.

The sacred and mystical laying on of the apostles' hands upon each of the believers certainly required no little time. Those who were counted worthy of the mystery visibly manifested in many ways their reception of the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The gracious power of the Holy Spirit enters a person through holy chrismation, since this sacrament, though its outward action differs, has the same inner action as the Apostolic laying on of hands upon the newly baptized. Of this it is written in the Acts of the Apostles: “They laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8:17). To this sacrament one must also refer the Apostolic saying: “He who has anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Cor 1:21-22).