'And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a
great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they
were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria,
except the apostles. 2. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial,
and made great lamentation over him. 3. As for Saul, he made havock of
the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women
committed them to prison. 4. Therefore they that were scattered abroad
went everywhere preaching the word. 5. Then Philip went down to the
city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. 6. And the people with
one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and
seeing the miracles which he did. 7. For unclean spirits, crying with
loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and many
taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed. 8. And there was
great joy in that city, 9. But there was a certain man, called Simon,
which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the
people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one: 10. To
whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This
man is the great power of God. 11. And to him they had regard, because
that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries. 12. But when
they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of
God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and
women. 13. Then Simon himself believed also: and when he was baptized,
he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and
signs which were done. 14. Now when the apostles which were at
Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent
unto them Peter and John: 15. Who, when they were come down prayed for
them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: 16 (For as yet he was
fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the
Lord Jesus.) 17. Then laid they their hands on them, and they received
the Holy Ghost.'--ACTS viii. 1-17.
The note of time in verse 1 is probably to be rendered as in the
Revised Version, 'on that day.' The appetite for blood roused by
Stephen's martyrdom at once sought for further victims. Thus far the
persecutors had been the rulers, and the persecuted the Church's
leaders; but now the populace are the hunters, and the whole Church the
prey. The change marks an epoch. Luke does not care to make much of the
persecution, which is important to him chiefly for its bearing on the
spread of the Church's message. It helped to diffuse the Gospel, and
that is why he tells of it. But before proceeding to narrate how it did
so, he gives us a picture of things as they stood at the beginning of
the assault.
Three points are noted: the flight of the Church except the Apostles,
the funeral of Stephen, and Saul's eager search for the disciples. We
need not press 'all,' as if it were to be taken with mathematical
accuracy. Some others besides the Apostles may have remained, but the
community was broken up. They fled, as Christ had bid them do, if
persecuted in one city. Brave faithfulness goes with prudent
self-preservation, and a valuable 'part of valour is discretion.' But
the disciples who fled were not necessarily less courageous than the
Apostles who remained, nor were the latter less prudent than the
brethren who fled. For _noblesse oblige_; high position demands high
virtues, and the officers should be the last to leave a wreck. The
Apostles, no doubt, felt it right to hold together, and preserve a
centre to which the others might return when the storm had blown itself
out.
In remarkable contrast with the scattering Church are the 'devout men'
who reverently buried the martyr. They were not disciples, but probably
Hellenistic Jews (Acts ii. 5); perhaps from the synagogue whose members
had disputed with Stephen and had dragged him to the council. His words
or death may have touched them, as many a time the martyr's fire has
lighted others to the martyr's faith. Stephen was like Jesus in his
burial by non-disciples, as he had been in his death.
The eager zeal of the young Pharisee brought new severity into the
persecution, in his hunting out his victims in their homes, and in his
including women among his prisoners. There is nothing so cruel as
so-called religious zeal. So Luke lifts the curtain for a moment, and
in that glimpse of the whirling tumult of the city we see the three
classes, of the brave and prudent disciples, ready to flee or to stand
and suffer as duty called; the good men who shrunk from complicity with
a bloodthirsty mob, and were stirred to sympathy with his victims; and
the zealot, who with headlong rage hated his brother for the love of
God. But the curtain drops, and Luke turns to his true theme. He picks
up the threads again in verse 4, telling of the dispersal of the
disciples, with the significant addition of their occupation when
scattered,--'preaching the word.'
The violent hand of the persecutor acted as the scattering hand of the
sower. It flung the seeds broadcast, and wherever they fell they
sprouted. These fugitives were not officials, nor were they
commissioned by the Apostles to preach. Without any special command or
position, they followed the instincts of believing hearts, and, as they
carried their faith with them, they spoke of it wherever they found
themselves. A Christian will be impelled to speak of Christ if his
personal hold of Him is vital. He should need no ecclesiastical
authorisation for that. It is riot every believer's duty to get into a
pulpit, but it _is_ his duty to 'preach Christ.' The scattering of the
disciples was meant by men to put out the fire, but, by Christ, to
spread it. A volcanic explosion flings burning matter over a wide area.
Luke takes up one of the lines of expansion, in his narrative of
Philip's doings in Samaria, which he puts first because Jesus had
indicated Samaria first among the regions beyond Judaea (i. 8).
Philip's name comes second in the list of deacons (vi. 5), probably in
anticipation of his work in Samaria. How unlike the forecast by the
Apostles was the actual course of things! They had destined the seven
for purely 'secular' work, and regarded preaching the word as their own
special engagement. But Stephen saw and proclaimed more clearly than
they did the passing away of Temple and ritual; and Philip, on his own
initiative, and apparently quite unconscious of the great stride
forward that he was taking, was the first to carry the gospel torch
into the regions beyond. The Church made Philip a 'deacon,' but Christ
made him an 'evangelist'; and an evangelist he continued, long after he
had ceased to be a deacon in Jerusalem (xxi. 8).
Observe, too, that, as soon as Stephen is taken away, Philip rises up
to take his place. The noble army of witnesses never wants recruits.
Its Captain sends men to the front in unbroken succession, and they are
willing to occupy posts of danger because He bids them. Probably Philip
fled to Samaria for convenience' sake, but, being there, he probably
recalled Christ's instructions in chapter i. 8, repealing His
prohibition in Matthew x. 5. What a different world it would be, if it
was true of Christians now that they 'went down into the city of
So-and-So and proclaimed Christ'! Many run to and fro, but some of them
leave their Christianity at home, or lock it up safely in their
travelling trunks.
Jerusalem had just expelled the disciples, and would fain have crushed
the Gospel; despised Samaria received it with joy. 'A foolish nation'
was setting Israel an example (Deut. xxxii. 21; Rom. x. 19). The
Samaritan woman had a more spiritual conception of the Messiah than the
run of Jews had, and her countrymen seem to have been ready to receive
the word. Is not the faith of our mission converts often a rebuke to us?
But the Gospel met new foes as well as new friends on the new soil.
Simon the sorcerer, probably a Jew or a Samaritan, would have been
impossible on Jewish ground, but was a characteristic product of that
age in the other parts of the Roman empire. Just as, to-day, people who
are weary of Christianity are playing with Buddhism, it was fashionable
in that day of unrest to trifle with Eastern magic-mongers; and, of
course, demand created supply, and where there was a crowd of willing
dupes, there soon came to be a crop of profit-seeking deceivers. Very
characteristically, the dupes claimed more for the deceiver than he did
for himself. He probably could perform some simple chemical experiments
and conjuring tricks, and had a store of what sounded to ignorant
people profound teaching about deep mysteries, and gave forth
enigmatical utterances about his own greatness. An accomplished
charlatan will leave much to be inferred from nods and hints, and his
admirers will generally spin even more out of them than he meant. So
the Samaritans bettered Simon's 'some great one' into 'that power of
God which is called great,' and saw in him some kind of emanation of
divinity.
The quack is great till the true teacher comes, and then he dwindles.
Simon had a bitter pill to swallow when he saw this new man stealing
his audience, and doing things which he, with his sorceries, knew that
he only pretended to do. Luke points very clearly to the likeness and
difference between Simon and Philip by using the same word ('gave
heed') in regard to the Samaritan's attitude to both, while in
reference to Philip it was 'the things spoken by' him, and in reference
to Simon it was himself to which they attended. The one preached
Christ, the other himself; the one 'amazed' with 'sorceries,' the other
brought good tidings and hid himself, and his message called, not for
stupid, open-mouthed astonishment, but for belief and obedience to the
name of Jesus. The whole difference between the religion of Jesus and
the superstitions which the world calls religions, is involved in the
significant contrast, so inartificially drawn.
'Simon also himself believed.' Probably there was in his action a good
deal of swimming with the stream, in the hope of being able to divert
it; but, also, he may have been all the more struck by Philip's
miracles, because he knew a real one, by reason of his experience of
sham ones. At any rate, neither Philip nor Luke drew a distinction
between his belief and that of the Samaritans; and, as in their cases,
his baptism followed on his profession of belief. But he seems not to
have got beyond the point of wondering at the miracles, as it is
emphatically said that he did even after his baptism. He believed that
Jesus was the Messiah, but was more interested in studying Philip to
find out how he did the miracles than in listening to his teaching.
Such an imperfect belief had no transforming power, and left him the
same man as before, as was soon miserably manifest.
The news of Philip's great step forward reached the Apostles by some
unrecorded means. It is not stated that Philip reported his action, as
if to superiors whose authorisation was necessary. More probably the
information filtered through other channels. At all events, sending a
deputation was natural, and needs not to be regarded as either a sign
of suspicion or an act necessary in order to supplement imperfections
inherent in the fact that Philip was not an Apostle. The latter meaning
has been read--not to say forced--into the incident; but Luke's
language does not support it. It was not because they thought that the
Samaritans were not admissible to the full privileges of Christians
without Apostolic acts, but because they 'heard that Samaria had
received the word,' that the Apostles sent Peter and John.
The Samaritans had not yet received the Holy Ghost--that is, the
special gifts, such as those of Pentecost. That fact proves that
baptism is not necessarily and inseparably connected with the gift of
the Spirit; and chapter x. 44, 47, proves that the Spirit may be given
before baptism. As little does this incident prove that the imposition
of Apostolic hands was necessary in order to the impartation of the
Spirit. Luke, at any rate, did not think so; for he tells how Ananias'
hand laid on the blind Saul conveyed the gift to him. The laying on of
hands is a natural, eloquent symbol, but it was no prerogative of the
Apostles (Acts x. 17; 1 Tim. iv. 14).
The Apostles came down to Samaria to rejoice in the work which their
Lord had commanded, and which had been begun without their help, to
welcome the new brethren, to give them further instruction, and to knit
closely the bonds of unity between the new converts and the earlier
ones. But that they came to bestow spiritual gifts which, without them,
could not have been imparted, is imported into, not deduced from, the
simple narrative of Luke.