What Does Acts 8:18 Mean?

(18, 19) **When Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles’ hands. . . .**—The words imply that the result was something visible and conspicuous. A change was wrought; and men spoke with tongues and prophesied. To the sorcerer, accustomed to charms and incantations, the men who were in possession of this power would seem to be enchanters with a higher knowledge than his own, and he who had purchased many such secrets, after the manner of the time (comp. Acts 19:19), from previous masters in the magic art, thought that this might be obtained in the same way. The act thus recorded has given its name to a large class of offences in ecclesiastical jurisprudence, and the sin of Simony in all its forms, the act of purchasing spiritual powers and functions, perpetuates the infamy of the magician of Samaria.