Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 8:9

"But there was a certain man, Simon by name, who beforetime in the city used sorcery, and amazed the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one:" — Acts 8:9 (ASV)

But there was a certain man, called Simon.—The man who is thus brought before us in a brief episode occupies a prominent place in the history and legends of the Apostolic Church. For the present, it will be convenient to deal only with the materials St. Luke gives us, reserving a fuller account for the end of the narrative.

Nothing is told us here about his earlier history, before his arrival in Samaria. The name indicates Jewish or Samaritan origin. He appears as the type of a class all too common at the time: Jews trading on the mysterious prestige of their race and the credulity of the heathen, claiming supernatural power exercised through charms and incantations.

Such later was Elymas at Cyprus (Acts 13:6), and such were the itinerant Jewish exorcists at Ephesus (Acts 19:13). Such also was a namesake, Simon of Cyprus (unless, indeed, we have a reappearance of the same man), who also claimed to be a magician. This Simon pandered to the vices of Felix, the Procurator of Judea, by persuading Drusilla (Josephus, Antiquities 20.7.2; see Note on Acts 24:24) to leave her first husband and marry him.

The life of such a man, like that of the Cagliostro fraternity in all ages, was a series of strange adventures. Startling as the statements about his previous life may seem (see Note on Acts 8:24), they are not in themselves incredible. Apollonius of Tyana is, perhaps, the supreme representative of the charlatanism of the period.

Used sorcery.—Literally, was practicing magic. On the history of the Greek word magos and our “magic,” as derived from it, see Note on Matthew 2:1. Our “sorcerer” comes, through the French sorcier, from the Latin sortitor, a caster of lots (sortes) for the purposes of divination. Later legends enter fully into the various forms of sorcery that Simon used. (See below.)

Bewitched the people of Samaria.—Literally, threw them into a state of trance or ecstasy, set them beside themselves, or out of their wits. The structure of the sentence shows that the “city” is not identical with Samaria, and that the latter name is used, as elsewhere, for the region.

Giving out that himself was some great one.—The next verse defines the nature of the claim more clearly. The cry of the people that he was the great power of God, was, we may well believe, the echo of his own boast. He claimed to be, in some undefined way, an Incarnation of Divine Power. The very term had appeared in our Lord’s teaching when He spoke of Himself as sitting on the right hand of the Power of God, as an equivalent for the Father (Luke 22:69).