Peter in Samaria
Situation of Samaria. Peter’s journey thither. Hi assists Philip the Evangelist. Confronts Simon the Sorcerer. Denounces his imposture. Exhorts him to repentance. Legend of Simon and Peter.
“Seize the banner, spread its fold I
Seise it with no faltering hold!
What if to the trumpet’s sound
Voices few come answering round?
8caroe a votary swell the burst,
When the anthem peals at first?
God hath sown, and He will reap;
Growth is slow when roots are deep.”
—Kcble’a Miscellaneous Poems),
“Hitherto the Church had been crowded up within the city walls, and the religion had crept up and down in private corners; but the professors of it, being now dispersed abroad by the malice and cruelty of their enemies, carried Christianity along with them, and propagated it into the neighbour countries, accomplishing hereby an ancient prophecy, that ‘Out of Zion should go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.’ Dr Cave.
«= iwF-^ PON its own isolated summit, the “Watch Tower,” or “Watch Mountain,” with a girdle of hills around, stood the rebuilt city of Samaria. Even to this day, in its desolation and loneliness, there is beauty and picturesqueness in the site of the old “Crown of Pride.” What must it have been, as Peter and his fellow-traveller approached it, when, amid these now silent ruins and broken columns tenanted by the most degraded and poverty-stricken of Syrians, there moved a luxurious population composed of Jew and Gentile — that encircling zone of hills, the setting of this Kingly Crown, covered with gardens and forests, and, through the one break to the east, the waters of the Great Sea gleaming in the distance!
Perhaps of all the cities of the Holy Land which flourished in the Apostolic age, Samaria, under its changed name of Sebaste, was that which, humanly speaking, was least accessible to the new doctrines of the Apostles of Jesus. The simple fact that Jerusalem had become the main focus of the new faith — that the miracles which had recently, at least, attested its truth were performed in the Temple of Zion — would be enough to prejudice the whole system in the eye of a citizen either of Sebaste or of Shechem. The deadly feud which had existed for ages between the rival sects and the rival Temples crowning respectively Mount Moriah and Qerizim, had lost little if any of its virulence. The Jew still avoided the Samaritan, and the Samaritan the Jew, as they would have done a leper’s foul touch. They still hesitated to eat from the same platter, or drink from the same vessel, or handle the same staff! The traditional hatred thus expressed by one party in the feud was amply reciprocated — “There be two manner of nations which my heart abhorreth... they that sit on the mountain of Samaria, and they that dwell among the Philistines” {Ecclus. L 25, 26). 1 The cause of this hatred on the part of the Jews arose mainly from the fact, that those who formed the subject of their inveterate antipathies were, in truth, a half-heathen tribe. A colony of foreigners, at the time of the first captivity, had been sent by the King of Assyria to occupy the province of Samaria. Thither they imported their pagan rites
1 Possibly the extreme rancour of these malevolent feelings may hare been somewhat moderated after the interview of Jesus with the woman of Samaria and its results (John iy. 39. 40), although we cannot fail to recall that on the very last occasion in which Jesus passed through Samaria He was sternly refused the rites of hospitality, “because His face was aa though He would go to Jerusalem” (Luke ix. 53).
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and manners. This resulted in a strange heterogeneous compound of the worship of Baal and Astarte with the worship of the Jehovah of Israel — a system so debased and corrupt as to draw forth the charge from the lips of the most tolerant of Teachers, “Ye worship ye know not what” (John iv. 22).
Yet, strange to say, despite of these international hates, the persecution in Jerusalem which followed the martyrdom of Stephen, and which resulted in scattering the Hellenistic members of the primitive Church to distant places, found Philip an emissary from Jerusalem in the city of Samaria, “preaching Christ unto them.” Perhaps, indeed, this very antagonism of the two peoples may have so far determined the selection of the new sphere of labour. The disciples well knew that the hated power of the Jewish Sanhedrim, from which they had so severely suffered!, could not follow them or their Teachers into the territory of the rival race. Any such attempted interference would have been keenly resented. * The teaching of this earnest Evangelist was accompanied by miraculous gifts. Truth proved too strong for prejudice, error, or passion. The Samaritans dared not resist the argument of devils exorcised, cripples healed, sick and palsied and fever-stricken restored. The mighty works and the mighty
l The Hellenists were converts from among the foreign Jews, or “Jews of the dispersion,” and are to be distinguished from the Hebrew Christians, among the latter of whom were the Apostles. The former were more “advanced “in their views as to the 44 wide embracing scope” of the Gospel, as independent of the Temple ritual; and upon them, therefore, the fury of the first persecution fell. The Hebrew Christians, who were still frequenters of the Temple and its services, were not so obnoxious; hence, when the Hellenists had to flee for their lives, the Apostles remained still in Jerusalem. — See gome thoughtful remarks in Canon Horrif Key, p 136.,
i Kitto.
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word of God were alike made manifest; while it was “the name of Jesus Christ * (Acts viii. 12) that formed at once the key-note of their preaching, and the secret of their success. “Many, both men and women,” believed and were baptized; and “there was great joy in that city.”
But in all ages of the Church of Christ, and this primitive age was not exceptional, there ever have been tares mingling with the wheat — base and counterfeit coin amid the true currency of heaven. The cause of the Master and of His servants was again threatened to be brought into disrepute, not from the violence of national and sectarian prejudices, but owing to the deceit and artifice of a bold impostor.
Simon Magus seems to have been one of those sorcerers, magicians, or conjurers of Persian origin, who have so long wielded a strange fascination over the credulous of all countries, but more especially over the more plastic and susceptible Oriental mind They wrought themselves and their votaries into the belief that they held intercourse with spirits and demons, through whose ageucy diseases were inflicted or cured. They pretended to foretell future destiny by the position of the stars, and to avert impending evils by spells and incantations. “Half - philosopher, half - charlatan,” as Simon has been called, he had evidently attained a wonderful notoriety in the city where he had come to reside. His own birthplace, according to Justin Martyr, was the village of Gitton, near Shechem; and, on the authority of Clement, he was educated at Alexandria,1 where he was imbued with the dreamy Gnostic philosophy and theology. By some, indeed,
i OUhausen, sad Smith’s Bib. Dia
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be is deemed to be the founder of that mystic creed. Samaria, owing to the mixed character of its inhabitants, to which we have just alluded, being largely imbued with Eastern superstition (belief in necromancy, and divination, and evil spirits), was the likeliest ground Simon could have chosen for the exercise and fascination of his thaumaturgic powers. “From the least to the greatest,” the cultured classes as well as the poorest, in the city, were under his bewitching spell: “This mau is the great power of God” (Acts viii. 10)l “The longing which was everywhere awakened after something higher, led men to attach themselves to all such persons as affirmed that they had been favoured with glimpses of the spiritual world.”1 Sharing in the universal expectation of a coming Messiah, the dupes of his arti6ce may have regarded him as their promised Divine Deliverer, his magical arts being the apparent credentials of his mission. Indeed, the full extent of the man’s pretensions are not sufficiently brought out in our authorised version, where a Greek word (xaXoqcti ps|) has been omitted in the rendering; so that the correct translation ought rather to be, “The power of God which is called great.” The Samaritan recognised angels as “powers” (dwdfii’s), but theirs was a derivative power from the Supreme Being, emanations from the eternal first principle of light; whereas the power ascribed to Simon, and which the impostor himself claimed, was the power of the great God Himself, of whom he was regarded as the visible Incarnation. If we are to credit the account given by Jerome of his selfassertions, he arrogated the attribute of Omnipotence (” Ego Paracletus; Ego Omnipotens “).2
i Otehausen. * See Smith’s Die, Art” Simon.**
2B
This bold pretender beheld with an envious eye the performance of rival signs, wonders, and well-authenticated miracles on the part of Philip, eclipsing his own. What were the tricks of a conjurer’s clever legerdemain compared to deeds of mercy performed over the couch of sufferers, the most appalling mental maladies taking wings and fleeing away 3
Artfully feigning to have become a convert (or, as some are inclined to think — better motives mingling with the application — that he was overcome at the moment with the heavenly power of the truth), he received in common with others from the hands of the Evangelist the rite of baptism. He may very possibly have regarded Philip as a worker of miracles like himself, an adept in some new magic art, and saw with a politic glance that to discredit the fact, would have injured and diminished his own popularity with the citizens. He deemed the profession of the new tenets needful, if he were desirous of retaining his influence; moreover that the manifestation of any open hostility to the new sect would be detrimental to him. Either, then, through policy, or through fear, or both combined, he had outwardly attached himself to the followers of Jesus.
It was at this crisis, probably in the year 36 or 37, shoitly before Saul’s conversion, that Peter appears on the scene. His work at Jerusalem is accomplished. He had laid firm and deep the foundations of the Church in the mother-city despite of all adverse elements. The Sadducees, goaded to madness by the progress of a creed so antagonistic to their own, were still enlisting all the powers of the law for the suppression of the new sect; and mure especially that Hellen-PETER IN SAMARIA.
istic portion most obnoxious to them. Scourge and prison became sadly familiar to the Christians. Even the sacredness of their private homes was violated by unscrupulous inquisitors. Every form of threatening was used to lead them to abjure the sacred Name: neither age nor sex could plead exemption from chain and dungeon. But, despite of these scenes of blood and violence, the Rock-man had the joy of seeing the earliest stone of the great Spiritual Temple laid in Zion; and he could turn his footsteps elsewhere with the elevating conviction, that even in the very spot where his Divine Master underwent His deep humiliation and shameful death, the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church purchased with His blood.
In appropriating to him a new field for his labours, and making selection of Samaria, the Apostolic company had evidently been guided by that same gracious Spirit who had been promised to “lead into all truth /’ and above all, by that unseen but still ever-present Saviour, who was fulfilling in His servants’ experience, as in the experience of His Church in all time to come, His own farewell promise, “Lo! I am with you alway.” The Apostles, indeed, could hardly fail to recal the injunction of a former occasion, “Into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not.” Yet, too, would they not remember the touchiug story - parable told by their Master, in which the chief personage was the Good Samaritan? Far more, in what an old writer calls “their present marching orders,” they must have remembered vividly the very last command which had been laid upon them, “Ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria.” Peter is left therefore in little doubt, as he passes through the
Northern Gate of Bezetha, and wends his way, along with his companion John, up the heights of Scopus, that the highest authority has instigated and ratified the present appoiutment of the brethren. He will at all events hasten to the scene of Philip’s encouraging labours; and if, in answer to prayer, the Holy Spirit be visibly imparted as it was at Jerusalem, lie and his fellow-labourer will accept the sign as an indication from Heaven that they are in the path of duty. It is well worthy of note indeed, in passing, that the mission to Samaria was not a self-selected one on the part of our Apostle; neither was the honour of breaking up the virgin soil claimed as any right by the so-called “Chief of the Apostles.* As we have already seen, Philip was the first to carry the good seed to that unpromising ground. He was the primary instrument in the remarkable revival; his were the miracles and teaching which had won the city by storm, and led to so universal a rejoicing. Peter, so far from occupying a position of precedence and exceptional authority, was “sent,” or deputed along with John, at the special instigation of the assembled Apostles at Jerusalem (Acts viii. 14), thereby indicating that he was their messenger, not their leader; acting under their instructions and jurisdiction; in other words, homologating the appointment of his “ecclesiastical superiors.” “He that is sent,” said Christ, “is not greater than he that sent him.”
With a pleasant remembrance of the same route trodden in recent years, the writer can follow in imagination, with tolerable accuracy, the track of these two faithful ambassadors. The configuration of the country leaves little, indeed no doubt, that the course
PETER IN SAMARIA.
of the great highway between Jerusalem and Samaria must have been much the same in these days as it is now; with this only difference, that a welL-defined and if t- traversed road, “doubtless a good specimen of Roman engineering,”1 must then have existed, with here and there artificial fountains for the refreshment alike of caravans and solitary wayfarers; whereas, at present in many places there is scarce a bridle path, in others nothing but the open, unkept fields with their patches of straggling corn; while in some portions horse and mule and camel have to grope their way, as best they can, amid the rough boulders of a winter torrent or the fragments of former cisterns.
But let us try to sketch more definitely the local and geographical features.
Every traveller to the Holy Land has one peculiar association with this very road which our Apostle now trod — an association which the latter must have experienced in a more intensified form. As at the present day it is the path by which the tourist takes, with thrilling emotions, his last farewell look of the City of God in pursuing his way northwards; so, doubtless, may Peter, having completed his testimony within these sacred walls, have taken a backward glance at the receding Temple and green slopes of its guardian hills, with the similar impression that lie might never again return to behold a scene so bound up with the dearest memories of the Lord he loved. There, just vanishing from sight, was the steep- path which in a early morn and dewy eve” they had oft-times trodden together on their way to Bethany. There was the cloister of Solomon abutting on the gorge of the Kedrou. There was the grey-green olive-grove which marked the precincts of Gethsemane, with to him its sadly mingled remembrances; and there the spur in the Jehoshaphat Valley, where, contrary to the long-accepted tradition of the Middle Ages, possibly the closing scene of all in the awful tragedy was consummated. The spot itself we are picturing is that which, in comparatively few years after Peter left Jerusalem, was to have a very different association, unknown to him; as the place whereon the Roman eagles were gathered and the Roman watch-fires were lit previous to the destruction of the city, and from which Titns gazed for the first time on the splendid edifices which his battering-rams and torches were to lay in ruins.
But they continue their journey. The view of the City of Solemnities is soon hid from sight, and they wend their way amid valleys many of which were doubtless then richly cultivated, having terraces planted with fig, pomegranate, vine, and olive, but whose slopes aie now as bare as the bald limestone which must always have crowned their unpicturesque summits. Now and then as they attained the higher ground, the desolate wilderness of Judtea, with its blighted plateaux and wadys (as if seamed with crevices like those of an Alpine glacier), would open in the far distance on the right, hemmed in by the weird, wall-like mountains of Moab; while to the left would rise, most conspicuous among other heights, the reputed resting-place of Samuel, probably the “Mizpeh of Benjamin.” They would doubtless pass through the modern Wady Suleim, the traditional if not undoubted spot in which the interview took place between David and Jonathan, and where the sacred friendship of these heart-brothers was renewed and sealed. There seems a
PETER IN SAMARIA.
suggestive coincidence, indeed, in now following the footsteps of the two Apostles, who in feelings and character were so exactly the counterpart of those noted twin figures in Old Testament story: — Peter, with his impetuous yet noble heart, cast in the same mould as the son of Jesse, while John is in many respects the reproduction of the loving and loveable son of Saul As the two apostolic friends pursued their way together through that rockstrewn “field,” would they not, like the two heroes just mentioned, by mutual encouragement “strengthen one another’s hands in God” ( 1 Sam. xxiii. 18), and “swear both of them in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord be between thee and me n (1 Sara. xx. 42). Passing by the Hill of Gibeah, the birthplace of Saul, and Ramah of Benjamin, their course would lie amid scenery whose features would not improbably recal the hills around theif own native Bethsaida or the rugged” Valley of Doves.” They have already entered the tribe of Ephraim, that territory pronounced by their great lawgiver in his farewell benediction, to be “full of the precious fruits brought forth by the sun... and the precious things of the lasting hills.” Parts of the road, indeed, must necessarily have been then unclothed and treeless, as they are now. Bare masses of stone and rock still strew the uplands at Bethel, on the borders of the ancient tribe; apparently left as nature’s monument to remind of the olden Patriarch, who on one of these “cairns “pillowed his weary head and dreamed his dream — a dream, whose truest and divinest interpretation these two pilgrim wayfarers now understood better than the dreamer. The rounded” Tells,” more distinctive of Judah and Benjamin, are varied by valleys of bold outliue and crowned with masses of picturesque cliff. Even now, noble groves of olives furrow the mountain sides, natural grey rock in many places dispensing with artificial terraces to support the soil for the growth of fig and vine, as well as patches of grain. If their journey was at the season of the early or latter rain, those loose boulders, along which, in spring, travellers have to pick their way on horseback along the dry bed of a stream, would be washed or submerged by a swift torrent rolling by the side of the highway. That highway, only faintly discernible now, was then one of the many evidences of Roman supremacy and engineering skill, paved like the Via Sacra, and similar in character to other imperial roads still familiar in Italy. We have, in a previous chapter incidentally mentioned, in connection with another journey, the well-known fountain under the village of Bethany. These two Apostles could scarcely faikiow to pause at a similar spring on the wayside to Samaria, and which, if it corresponded with its modern aspect, would be verdant with bright mosses and festoons of maidenhair and other ferns, called by the rather sinister name of the “Fountain of the Robbers.” A discerning traveller thus describes both the fountain and the road beyond.” The water trickles down the side of a cliff amid trails of ferns, into two or three little artificial basins hollowed out near the bottom. Below it is a carpet of green turf, an inviting camping-ground, with the massive remains of a large cistern beside it, now converted into a corn fields It is a strange, wild, lonely spot — not a human habitation is in view, and as the evening closes, not a human footfall breaks the dead silence; yet everywhere around are the marks of industry — olives and fig trees below, and terraces above, leading up the steep hill sides, like stairs
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to the clouds that rest upon their summits.... From the fountain the road winds up the glen, which gradually widens as we advance; and the sides become lower and less precipitous. The cultivation still continues, and even improves, probably because the hills and glens are less rugged. In fact, the ride through this district in spring is most charming. The terraced hills are so quaint, the winding valleys so picturesque, the wild flowers, anemones, poppies, convolvulus, and hollyhocks so brilliant and so plentiful; the sombre foliage of the olive, and deep green of the fig, and bright green of the young corn on the terraces, all give such exquisite hues to the landscape. Add to this the grey ruins perched on rocky hilltops, and the peasants in their gay dresses, red, green, and white; and the strings of mules, and donkeys, and camels defiling along the narrow paths, their bells awakening the echoes; and the Arab with his tufted spear or brassbound musket, and the shepherd leading his goats along the mountain side.” 1
Such, in its modern dress and aspect, was the mountainous part of the Apostles’ present journey.
By and by, emerging from this succession of picturesque “highlands,” an altogether new landscape would open before them, as it had once at least previously done, in interesting circumstances (John iv. 5, 6), and doubtless more frequently than once. A break in the hii’s would disclose, almost instantaneously, the modern El Mukhna, Abraham’s “Plain of Moreh,” seven miles in length, with the Well of Jacob towards its north-west end. The hills of Ebal and Gerizim,
1 See the entire description of this route in Dr Porter’s Handbook of Palestine, it p. 328. like lions concliant, guard right and left the entrance to the main outlet, in which the ancient Shechem then as now nestled. That ground, as we have just observed, was memorable to these Apostolic Chiefs, on account of the interview, so strange to them at the time, between their Master and a female of the hated sect The recollection of that meeting could not fail surely at present, to be a warrant and encouragement to proceed boldly on their new mission, in defiance of the old unworthy prejudice. As they passed the well-known spot, and in all probability quenched their thirst at the same fountain, or as they gazed up to the top of Gerizim, then crowned with a new temple rebuilt by Herod, would they not recal vividly the declaration of Hitn who in prophetic words had announced the hour at hand, when they should “neither in that mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father; “but when the true worshippers in every land and every clime,” would worship Him in spirit and in truth. n 1 Or, still more significantly, when the same Divine Being, as He pointed to the waving corn around, spake of more glorious ’ spiritual fields “already white to harvest,” and of those who were to “gather fruit unto life eternal “? 2 Would not these two devoted husbandmen, going forth bearing precious seed, take comfort in the promise that they would, “doubtless,” in a vast sense of which they had then no conception, “come again with rejoicing bringing their sheaves with them 1” How changed the views and sentiments of one of these missionaries, since the hot words of the zealot would have lighted up the surrounding valleys with conflagration, — brought down fire from heaven on a churlish 1 John ir. 28. John ir. 26, 2 i.
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village of Samaritans (Luke ix. 51)! The beneficent power of the new faith had broken down the walls of partition, and implanted in his heart the tolerant spirit and love of his Master. He now, at least, remembered his Lord’s merited and sharp rebuke, and resolved to act upon it — “Ye know not what spirit ye are of, the Son of Man came not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”
We need not pause to describe the remainder of their journey. If they did not enter, they would, at all events, pass the gates of Shechem, the first campingplace of the patriarchs, and one of the Levitical Cities of Refuge. Then, as now, this narrow valley, part of Ephraim’s fruitful heritage, must have been unsurpassed in Palestine for its exuberance, and for the variety of its productions. If they happened to pass at the end of summer, the melon and cucumber, the apricot and orange, familiar to the eye of these natives of tropical Gennesaret, would here greet them, as they do at the present day, in the gardens on the slopes of Gerizim, as well as the less familiar music of running streams in the little “becks” or dells; while the blue lupin and anemone would carpet the untended wayside. By a Roman road, the remains of which are still visible, the two travellers would continue their journey; a larger rivulet slowly wending its way close by, and tempering the heat. At the north-western outlet, a lateral valley opens to the right, at “the head of the fat ravines” (Isa. xxviii. 1), and their eyes would rest at once’ on the ancient and romantically situated city of Samaria, standing in queenly beauty on its own central oval-shaped hill, and sentinelled, as we have already said, with mountains light and left and rearwards.
On reaching its plateau they would enjoy an enchanting prospect. “The view,” says the same writer from whom we have last quoted, “is a noble one — embracing the glens and vales round the hill, the circuit of mountains, a section of the plain of Sharon, and the wide expanse of the Mediterranean. No better site for a capital could have been selected in the length and breadth of Palestine — a strong position, rich environs, central situation, and an elevation sufficient to catch untainted the cool healthy breezes from the sea.”1
The city of Samaria, “the mountain Shomron” in which the Kings of Israel so long held their court, was chosen originally by Oniri to be his country palace or” Paradise but it subsequently became the capital of the ten tribes who revolted from the house of David. It was subjected, age after age, to the vicissitudes of fortune, often succumbing to the terrors of war and siege. When Peter and John entered its gates, it had risen like the Phoenix from its ashes. Hyrcanus, we are told on the authority of Josephus, had utterly destroyed it. But Herod, the imperial city builder, who recognised its importance as a fortress and place of observation, as well as the singular beauty of its site, had reared on the old foundations an entirely new capital, strongly fortified, which he had called by the Greek translation of the name of his royal master. It has been supposed by antiquarians that the broken marble colonnades and their pillars, still the admiration of travellers, and which have accorded the ruined city the designation of the Palmyra of Palestine, were the jesulte of his munificence. Those who have visited the
i Porter, 345.
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spot, and gazed on these noble fragments (between two and three hundred in number), may picture what the ancient capital must have appeared, at the time when the two unlettered Galileans entered it for the purpose of uprearing a temple not made with hands. The cultivated terraces, at present rising tier upon tier on its hill side, were then probably covered with buildings. The great central street, along which they passed, would be flanked with that avenue of columns; and the apex or upper terrace of the hill crowned with both a royal residence, and a magnificent temple dedicated to the Caesar. The whole was surrounded with walls twenty stadia in length. To quote the words of another traveller: “With its circling colonnades and towering temples, it must have looked surpassingly noble. There is nought like it even in Palestine, whose hills and valleys seem as if specially laid out as sites for castles, and palaces, and cities. It is Ephraim’s 4 crown’ set round with jewels, his ‘wreath’ all wrought about with flowers for the head of his ‘fruitful valley’ (Isa. xxviiL 1). ... I counted the mountain tops in this great girdle, and found them upwards of forty in number... though the ‘great joy ’ is no longer known within the walls of the city, yet the word fails not, and Samaria awaits the time allotted to her: ‘Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountain of Samaria, O virgin of Israel, the planters shall plant them, and shall eat them as common things”* (Jer. xxxi. 5).
It was, then, this city which Peter and his beloved associate 2 entered, in order to assist in the great work
1 Dr Sonar’s Lund of Promise, p. 378, 379, 381.
I 44 Ibis is the lust time that John appears in the Acts.“- Alford. which had been so successfully initiated by Philip. “Who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: (For as yet He was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost 99 (Acts viii. 15-17). It is evident from these words, that though Philip was a divinely-accredited evangelist, and had received abundant tokens of the divine presence and blessing in his labours; yet that the extraordinary powers and miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, which had been manifested in the Pentecostal revival in Jerusalem, were exceptionally bestowed on the Apostles of Christ alone, the divinely appointed founders of His Church and ministers of His kingdom: powers which may have been since profanely claimed by Papal hierarcbs, but which have never really been wielded. In the present instance, the laying on of these two Apostles’ hands evidently conveyed the power of working miracles and of imparting special spiritual blessings. What that “gift of the Holy Ghost 99 was, here specially spoken of as having been imparted, we are not told. It is evident that the communication was made, as at Pentecost, by some external visible sign or attestation — some outward startling effect — including, as in the former instance, the speaking with tongues, the working of miracles, and discerning of spirits. This Apostolic power, moreover, was outwardly conveyed by the imposition of hands, a universal Eastern practice in the bestowment of benefits. As at Pentecost, so now, these extraordinary endowments were imparted in answer to prayer. We have no reason to suppose that they were bestowed upon all,
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indiscriminately, or even on the majority of Samaritan believers. The ordinary gifts of the Spirit — ‘His saving influences as the Enlightener, Comforter, Sanctifier of His people, were evidently shared by all in greater or less degree. As in the subsequent case of Lydia, He bad opened each heart to welcome the glad tidings “with joy in the Holy Ghost. n But the more striking manifestations of His power had been vouchsafed to a limited and privileged number.” To one was given the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues. But all these wrought that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He willed 99 (1 Cor. xil 10, 11). “It does not appear, that, even in the Church of Jerusalem, which we may conceive to have been, at least, as highly favoured in this respect as any other, there was an indiscriminate distribution of His extraordinary gifts. When an election was to be made of persons to take care of the poor, the Apostles commanded the multitude to look out among them men ‘full of the Holy Ghost, and the command obviously imports, that every man was not so qualified.” 1
“John,” observes Stier, “may perhaps have looked back to the days when he desired to call down on the Samaritans another kind of heavenly fire; now at least, he knew what manner of spirit he was of.”
Simon Magus had hitherto passed unsuspected among the new company of professing believers. But he now throws off the mask which he had successfully worn, since receiving the outward sign of admission into a
l Diik, p. 181. society to whose spiritual aspirations he was evidently a stranger. And here we cannot resist to note, in passing, how the case of the sorcerer exposes and refutes the figment of what is spoken of as “baptismal regeneration.” Had there been any such alleged sacramental virtue or efficacy in the sacred rite, it would have been conferred by an apostolic evangelist, surely. It is abundantly evident, however, that there is no such necessary connection between the sign and the thing signified, seeing that after the sprinkling by the hands of an accredited minister of Christ — one, moreover, ordained, not by “successors of the Apostles,” but by Apostles themselves, this outwardly baptized convert was pronounced by Peter to be utterly devoid of inward grace, still “in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.” “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.”
But, to return, the artful magician saw at a glance the double importance, in his own case, of being a sharer in these palpable supernatural gifts. The miracles wrought by Philip had thrown his own spells and incantations into the shade; for the very spirits from whom, in his diabolical art, he was supposed to derive power, were heard, at the bidding of his Jewish rival, “crying out “as they fled affrighted from the bodies they had victimised. His gains and influence were gone, unless he could augment his former evil reputation, by adding to inferior feats secrets of the invisible world, to which he had not attained. His one thought was to become possessed of the new power wielded by this ambassador of the Christ of Nazareth.” He was convinced, from the works i&hich Philip did, that he
PETER IN SAMARIA.
was in league with some powerful spirit He viewed baptism as the initiation into communion with that spirit, and expected that he should be able to make use of the higher power thus gained for his own purposes, and unite this new magical power to his own.” 1 In a word, he desired to become himself an Apostle — the more so as he saw that Peter and John possessed the additional power of conferring a portion of their authority on others. He forthwith makes the proposal of a money bribe, in order to be invested with similar prerogatives. If in addition to his former achievements, he could add those of which he had been the covetous spectator, what a certain passport to fame and gain, wealth and honour!
Basely imagining that the hearts of these holy men were instigated by the mean avarice which predominated in his own, “Give me,” said he, “also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost.” “Since,” in the words of De Wette, “in external commerce everything may be had for gold, he wanted to buy it.” He had evidently judged these ambassadors of the cross by the world’s conventional standard; and that the golden bribe, which to it would be irresistible, would in their case also conquer all scruples. He himself was a mere trader in spiritual power, and he deemed it not unlikely that they too would be open to a money negotiation. Olshausen well points out the contrast between the vain ostentation of this pseudo-miracle worker and the perfect simplicity and humility of the true Apostles, who” although really replenished with the powers of the heavenly world, yet most sharply reprehended all
l Neander. undue estimation of their own persons. They desired to be regarded as nothing but weak instruments, and their illustrious works were designed to glorify not themselves, but only the eternal God and His Son Jesus Christ. M It is, indeed, truly most notable, that as with their divine Master, so with them, the miraculous powers which scattered blessings on all around and which the sorcerer only coveted for his own aggrandisement, were never employed to increase their own personal wants and comforts, reputation or profit, or preferment. Their disinterestedness and self-abnegation were as remarkable as was his avarice and cupidity. With minds humble and unselfish they ever remembered the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Peter feels that the truth he proclaims is degraded and compromised by this arrogant Pretender. The infamous attempt thus to barter and bargain is repellent to a spirit which, with all its natural failings, abhorred covetousness. He repudiates it accordingly. “What communion hath light with darkness, and what concord hath Christ with Belial?” Again reminding us of the Great Tishbite as he stood in the presence of guilty Ahab, the Rockman-apostle in no measured language hurls back his answer to the nefarious proposal of the mercenary — “Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.” We must not take these words as an imprecation on the head of Simon, as if the speaker “knowing the terrors of the Lord” had denounced him as a castaway; but simply as an expression of abhorrence at his impious attempt. He farther tells him in this withering rebuke, that his proposal
PETE It IN SAMARIA. formed abundant evidence of the insincerity and duplicity of Lis heart, which could not be “right in the sight. of God.” The one utterance of the magician was criterion enough for Peter to judge his character and pronounce his profession to be a lie — that he had no real part or lot in the religion of Jesus, but rather that he was still the bond -slave of iniquity. The latter portion of the Apostle’s words have been rendered — “For I perceive that thou art for the gall of bitterness and the bond of un righteousness.” “To be for a thing, in Scripture language, is sometimes to be the instrument or cause of it, as when Simeon says, * This child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel’ There seems thus a prediction of the bitter gall and the irnholy fellowship which Simon would introduce into the Church, a foreboding afterwards strikingly fulfilled.“1 Sad as was the Apostle’s verdict, yet in beautiful accordance with the great Pentecostal sermon to Jerusalem sinners, in which he proaimed forgiveness even to the very murderers of his Lord, so now in the same breath in which he utters the condemning sentence, he urges this Samaritan impostor to repentance. Though he too plainly perceived that, despite of the baptismal rite surreptitiously obtained, Simon was deceiving and self-deceived, yet he wishes to testify to him that his sin is not included in the awful category of” the unpardonable.” He urges him to resort to penitence and prayer. “His susceptibility of spiritual impressions,” is the remark of Olshausen,” similar to what we find in the Old Testament in the case of Balaam, the father of all false prophets, always left room for hoping that the
1 Green, p 88. uth would gain the victory in his heart, and therefore Peter preaches repentance to him.” “Pray God,” are the remarkable words of the Apostle, “if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.” Words, as Dean Alford well observes, “are important, taken in connection with John xx. 23, as showing how completely the Apostles themselves referred the forgiveness of sins to, and left it in the sovereign power of God, and not to their own delegated power of absolution,” 1
The sordid sorcerer, spared a more fearful doom which might have righteously overtaken him, seemed for the moment to be covered with confusion and remorse. The rebuke was not without effect: the barbed dart of the Apostle had reached his guilty heart; and smarting under it, perhaps with a knowledge of the swift and fearful retribution that had been visited on the other two victims of lying and avarice in Jerusalem, he importunately entreats his reprover to pray to the Lord for him, that none of the things spoken might come upon him. It seems, however, to have been only a momentary flash of conviction, a momentary slavish dread of punishment — the cry of terror without the pang of genuine penitence. Though, according to one tradition, he broke his magician’s wand, and flung his magical books into the Dead Sea — yet, if we can credit the mournful sequel as recorded by Irenaeus in the second century, his own seven devils seem to have returned to his swept soul, and his last state to have been worse than the first. He became the avowed enemy of the Apostles and of the Christian name. No wonder, if the account of this ancient father be credited, that Simon earned the infamous repute of being the first of a
1 Greek Test, inloc
long progeny of heretics. He came to assert his claim to represent the Trinity; that by a triple revelation to the Samaritans, the Jews, and then to all the world, he was the incarnation of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. He added to this profanest of blasphemies the assertion, that a beautiful female from Tyre of the name of Helena, a resuscitation of the famous Helen of Troy, who accompanied him in his journeys as his mo/a, or divine intelligence, and was associated with him in his illicit gains, was the mother of all beings, whose first-begotten were angels and archangels. He perverted the Scripture doctrine of grace by encouraging unbounded licence. No wonder when virtue and vice were thus confounded, that many flocked to his standard, and worshipped as a God those who thus pandered to their worst vices. Others of the Fathers relate that, subsequently, he went to Rome, “the rendezvous for all deceivers of this kind,” and made himself as conspicuous there as in Samaria; that a statue was decreed by the Senate and erected to him in the City of the Caesars on the island in the Tiber, with the dedication “To Simon, the Holy God,” “Simoni Deo Sancto.” 1 He is, moreover, represented as continuing throughout his later career, the persistent and implacable foe of the Apostle, by whose faithful denunciations he had been so greatly humbled, dogging his footsteps from place to place. Of his end we know nothing, — if we may except the foolish legend, attrii This statement has been long accepted, but requires to be taken with a qualification. Benan alludes to a remarkable stone, or rather altar, now to be seen in the Vatican of Rome, which was dug out of the island in the middle of the Tiber in 1574, and which has upon it the inscription: “Simoni Deo Banco — to the God Simo Sancus.” There seems a rery strong probability that Justin Martyr may have confounded the two names from their similarity, and that his legend about the Samaritan sorcerer is a mistake. buted to the grave authority of Bishop Ambrose of Milan, of a final meeting having taken place at Rome between him and Peter, and that during the reign of Nero in the year 68, the impostor challenged the Apostle to decide their rival claims by the display of a wild feat of supernatural power: that he rose in the air, in imitation of the ascension of Christ, from the Capitoline Hill, crowned with laurel and supported by demons, intending to alight on the Aventine; but the prayer of the Apostle caused the demons to let go their hold, and brought him with a crash to the earth, which, though it failed to deprive hiin of life, drove the deluding and self-deluded man to commit suicide. It is only fair, however, to add, that the genuineness of the passage is also doubted, and so silly a legend certainly seems unlike the wisdom and trustworthiness of this distinguished ecclesiastic. A more evident association with his name, or rather as derived from it, is that to which we have already incidentally referred — the sin of * Simony’ — in other words, the attempt to purchase positions of spiritual influence and responsibility — ecclesiastical preferment — by pecuniary payment, — a traffic in sacred things, “as if the gift of God might be purchased with money.” *
i See the Apocryphal Gospels, Ac, in Clark’s Anti-Nicene Library, in Joe
3 See Bib Diet; Prof. Dick on Acts; also Dr Kitto, in toco, with quotalong in full from Ireusus and Jerome.