Acts 8:24Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

For Simon said, "Pray to the Lord for me," not because he had repented and turned, but merely for propriety's sake. Otherwise, where is the lamentation? Where is the remorse and confession of sins?

"For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity." These are words full of wrath. But Peter does not punish him, lest his faith afterward appear to have been forced by necessity and fear, and lest this action appear cruel.

In answer to this criminal simony, as all attempts to obtain the grace of the priesthood by purchase came to be called, the apostle Peter addressed Simon with a stern rebuke. It affected the magician so deeply that he began asking the apostles to pray for him.

As for the main requirement, repentance, he does not even mention it. Thus he remained on the dangerous path on which Peter saw him standing. The writer of Acts reports nothing about his later fate. But history has preserved his memory as that of a most wicked enemy of Christianity, who opposed the apostles.

Peter met him once more in Rome, where magicians, goetes, exorcists, and charlatans gathered from all the ends of the world. It is evident that Simon, without repentance and walking farther and farther along the dangerous path, reached the destruction with which Peter had threatened him.

Many terrible reports about Simon were preserved by ancient writers, for example by Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus, who presents him as the founder of Gnosticism. Saint Irenaeus notes that all who distort faith in the crucified Son of God are followers of the Samaritan magician.

One significant report has also been preserved. Two of his disciples, Nicetas and Aquila, were converted to Christ by the apostle Peter. In instructing them, Peter said that true miracles serve for the good and salvation of the soul, while false ones serve for the soul's harm and ruin. The former are performed by the power of God, and the latter by demonic power.

While displaying before Nero the miracle of flying through the air, Simon fell, broke his legs, and died a cripple.

In the opinion of Bishop Theophan, "Simon is a model for all heretics who, with their own speculations, enter the realm of faith, both in former times and now. They become entangled in faith, and nothing comes of them except harm to themselves when they remain silent, and harm to others when this confusion is not restrained in them but breaks outward through their thirst to be teachers. From this arises a party of persons who err more or less in faith, with an unhappy confidence in their infallibility and a disastrous urge to remake everyone according to their own fashion. What remains? Only to cry out: by whatever judgments You know, save us, O Lord! As You know, grant our heart a saving disposition."