The Need to Retrieve a Doctrine of Simony

What is si­mony? Sim­ply put, si­mony is com­merce in spir­i­tual things. A lit­tle less sim­ply put, si­mony is an ear­nest de­sire to buy or sell some­thing spir­i­tual or some­thing an­nexed to a spir­i­tual thing.¹“stu­diosa vol­un­tas emendi et ven­dendi ali­quid spir­i­tuale vel spir­i­tu­ali an­nexum.” If that def­i­ni­tion seems ob­scure, hopefully it will be­come clear over the course of this con­fer­ence.

In the year 1700, an anon­y­mous book named The Anat­omy of Si­mon Ma­gus was pub­lished. It was ef­fec­tively a work of re­trieval, like we are do­ing here, de­fin­ing the doc­trine ac­cord­ing to the writ­ings of past gen­er­a­tions, and ap­ply­ing it to con­tem­po­rary prob­lems. That same year, a re­view of the book ap­peared, and it be­gan with these words: “There is hardly one sin in the world, whose na­ture is less known, and whose heinous­ness is less con­sid­ered, than the sin of si­mony.”²“Re­view of The Anat­omy of Si­mon Ma­gus,” 502. These words are truer now than they were when they were com­posed over three hun­dred years ago. Si­mony was once among the most dis­cussed sins in the Chris­tian tra­di­tion, of­ten even counted the great­est of sins,³E.g., X 5.3.32; X 5.3.6. yet to­day it is vir­tu­ally for­got­ten. Most Chris­tians have never heard the word, and those who have think of the topic as ir­rel­e­vant to the mod­ern church.

How did we get to this point? How did the doc­trine of si­mony be­come so im­por­tant and then how did it fall out of com­mon un­der­stand­ing?

How Did the Doc­trine of Si­mony Grow?§

Chris­tians have been ad­dress­ing the sale of spir­i­tual things since the very be­gin­ning. It’s ad­dressed in Scrip­ture it­self, and then in first- and sec­ond-cen­tury writ­ings like the Di­dache and the Shep­herd of Her­mas.⁴E.g., Di­dache (Doc­trina du­o­decim apos­to­lo­rum), 11.12; Her­mas, The Shep­herd, Mand. 11.12. In the third cen­tury, Cyp­rian of Carthage col­lected a list of verses un­der the head­ing “the grace of God ought to be with­out price.” He in­cluded

• Acts 8:20Acts 8:20But Peter said to him, “Your silver perish with you, because you have thought to obtain the gift of God with money.—Pe­ter’s re­buke of Si­mon Ma­gus,

• Mat­thew 10:8Matthew 10:8Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons: freely you received, freely give.—“freely you have re­ceived, freely give”,

• John 2:16John 2:16and to those who sold the doves he said, “Take these things from here; do not make my Father’s house a house of merchandise.”—Christ’s de­nun­ci­a­tion of the mer­chants in the tem­ple,

• Isa­iah 55:1Isaiah 55:1“Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money; come, buy, and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.—the call to come and buy with­out money,

• Rev­e­la­tion 21:6Revelation 21:6And he said to me, “They are done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to him who is thirsty of the fountain of the water of life freely.—the prom­ise of the wa­ter of life freely given.⁵Cyp­rian, Ad Qui­ri­num, 3.100.

Sev­eral early coun­cils ad­dressed si­mony as well, in the sell­ing of sac­ra­ments and of or­di­na­tions alike. For ex­am­ple, the Synod of El­vira (305) told the clergy to stop let­ting the newly bap­tized drop coins in the basin, lest the priest seem to sell what he had re­ceived for free.⁶Synod of El­vira (ca. 305), can. 48 (PL 84:307B). The Coun­cil of Chal­cedon (451) threat­ened to de­pose any bishop who or­dained for money.⁷Coun­cil of Chal­cedon (451), can. 2 (ACO II.2.2, 125). That is the same coun­cil that de­fined the hypostatic union, the doc­trine that Je­sus is one per­son, truly God and truly man. The sin didn’t have a dis­tinct name un­til March 11, 591, when the phrase “si­mo­ni­a­cal her­esy” (si­mo­ni­aca haere­sis) first ap­peared.⁸Rosé, “Si­mon le Ma­gi­cien hé­ré­siar­que?” 204–5; cf. Greg­ory I, Ho­mil­iae in evan­ge­lia, 17.13 (pp. 109–10).

As Chris­tian­ity spread from cities into the coun­try­side, no­bles in­creas­ingly built ru­ral churches on their es­tates and ex­er­cised a mea­sure of con­trol over them, es­pe­cially in selecting their church of­fi­cers. On one hand, this makes sense. If you are go­ing to invest a large part of your wealth to build a church, you want it to be a healthy church and you want to make sure it has a good pas­tor. On the other hand, it is probably plain to see how giv­ing a sin­gle lay­man au­thor­ity over choos­ing the of­fi­cers of a church gives op­por­tu­nity for cor­rup­tion. By the eighth cen­tury, most church build­ings across West­ern Eu­rope were es­sen­tially pri­vate prop­erty on the es­tates of the wealthy,⁹Wood, The Pro­pri­etary Church, 10–11, 437. and this con­trol of appointments meant that the of­fice of pas­tor could be bought or sold.

The prob­lem in­ten­si­fied in the ninth cen­tury af­ter the death of Charle­magne and the rise of what has tra­di­tion­ally been called “feu­dal­ism.”¹⁰Saltet, Les Ré­or­di­na­tions, 173–74. With no em­pire to keep or­der, there were constant threats of invasion and vi­o­lence. Churches and ab­beys that were not al­ready privately owned ceded the lord­ship of their es­tates to lo­cal lords in ex­change for pro­tec­tion. By the end of the tenth cen­tury, si­mony was en­demic. Church po­si­tions were rou­tinely bought and sold like any other as­set. To make mat­ters worse, those who bought the po­si­tions then would recoup their losses by charg­ing for bless­ings, or­di­na­tions, and sac­ra­ments.¹¹See ibid., 174–76.

In the elev­enth cen­tury, the mat­ter came to a head in what is known as the In­ves­ti­ture Con­tro­versy. Lay in­ves­ti­ture was the cer­e­mony by which a king or lord in­stalled a bishop, handing him the ring and the staff that were the signs of his of­fice. This was prob­lem­atic for a num­ber of rea­sons, but one of them was that this re­in­forced the prac­tices of si­mony. Rulers could charge for the cer­e­mony, and to hold church of­fice, one needed to pay. In fact, it was in the midst of this con­tro­versy in 1076 that we get the first re­corded use of the term “si­mony” (si­mo­nia).¹²Rosé, “Si­mon le Ma­gi­cien hé­ré­siar­que?” 203n9; cf. Greg­ory VII, Reg. 3.10a (p. 269).

Long story short, this was cor­rected in 1122 at the Con­cor­dat of Worms, where the Holy Ro­man Em­peror Henry V, con­ceded to his opposition and re­nounced the prac­tice of in­ves­ti­ture. In his place, the pope was de­clared the head of the church. From a Prot­es­tant per­spec­tive, ex­chang­ing civil au­thor­ity over the church for pa­pal su­prem­acy was hardly clear prog­ress; nev­er­the­less, re­mov­ing the no­bil­ity’s power to ap­point church of­fi­cers mit­i­gated one of si­mony’s prin­ci­pal causes.

And this move­ment for in­sti­tu­tional re­form main­tained momentum. Le­gal schol­ars made large com­pi­la­tions of canon law, treat­ing si­mony as fully as any other mat­ter. One of the great­est, if not the great­est com­pi­la­tion of canon law was Gra­tian’s De­cre­tum. This work is bro­ken into “causes” (causae), and the very first one treats si­mony at great length.

How Did the Doc­trine of Si­mony De­cline?§

Mean­while, a dif­fer­ent kind of si­mony arose in what are known as “in­dul­gences.” An in­dul­gence remitted the pen­ance the church had im­posed for sin, at first in ex­change for some other pi­ous work, and soon in ex­change for money given to­ward one. The grant was even­tu­ally ex­tended to the dead in pur­ga­tory, so that buy­ing one be­came a duty chil­dren owed their par­ents. The sale of in­dul­gences was used to fund the crusades and other large fi­nan­cial ventures, even­tu­ally cul­mi­nat­ing in that in­dul­gence de­signed to fund the re­build­ing of St. Pe­ter’s Basil­ica. On Oc­to­ber 31, 1517, Mar­tin Lu­ther struck back with his ninety-five the­ses against in­dul­gences. And the rest is lit­er­ally his­tory.

Given that Lu­ther iden­ti­fied in­dul­gences as si­mony,¹³“There you have si­mony prop­erly so called.” Lu­ther, Vor­le­sun­gen über 1. Mose, 23:3–4 (WA 43, 281:37–42). and the whole Ref­or­ma­tion be­gan with this bat­tle, you might ex­pect Prot­es­tants to have an even stronger doc­trine of si­mony than the me­dievals, yet to­day we see the op­po­site. It’s been al­most en­tirely lost. Why is that? There are at least five rea­sons:

1. The de­cline of the prac­tice of si­mony. The Ref­or­ma­tion ac­com­plished an over­whelm­ing vic­tory over the out­ward, fi­nan­cial cor­rup­tion. Among Prot­es­tants, there was no sell­ing of in­dul­gences, and most of the worst abuses with or­di­na­tions had been cor­rected. As the prac­tice of si­mony dwin­dled, the need for a theol­ogy of si­mony dwin­dled. 2. The de­cline of for­mal con­fes­sion. The Ref­or­ma­tion re­jected the need to con­fess to a priest in or­der to re­ceive for­give­ness from God. Among Prot­es­tants, the man­u­als writ­ten to guide a priest hear­ing con­fes­sion disappeared with the prac­tice, and these were one of the places where the doc­trine of si­mony had re­ceived its most concentrated treat­ment. 3. The de­cline of canon law. The Ref­or­ma­tion re­jected the au­thor­ity of Rome, and there­fore had less use for the com­pi­la­tions of canon law, the de­crees of coun­cils and popes. Much of the doc­trine of si­mony was treated in canon law, so a de­cline in canon law means a de­cline in the doc­trine of si­mony. 4. The de­cline of a tra­di­tion-cen­tered ap­proach to theol­ogy. The stan­dard theol­ogy text­book of the Mid­dle Ages was the Sen­tences, a har­mony of the opin­ions of the church fa­thers, and most of the great works of me­dieval theol­ogy were com­men­tar­ies on it. Be­cause the Sen­tences had a chap­ter on si­mony, every com­men­ta­tor had to treat it. In up­hold­ing Sola Scriptura, The Ref­or­ma­tion moved to a dif­fer­ent model, the “com­mon places” (loci com­munes), heads of doc­trine cho­sen afresh from Scrip­ture. Si­mony did not happen to be among them, so the stan­dard works of Prot­es­tant theol­ogy rarely felt the need to treat it. 5. The de­cline of Latin. No longer un­der the rule of Rome, Prot­es­tant theol­ogy was in­creas­ingly writ­ten for lay­men, in the com­mon tongue of each na­tion, and the older Latin lit­er­a­ture in which the doc­trine had been pre­served in­ci­den­tally be­came less and less ac­ces­si­ble.

You can­not tear the rot out of a house with­out los­ing some sound timber with it, and you can­not have a ground-up ref­or­ma­tion with­out a few doc­tri­nal casualties along the way.

Why Re­trieve the Doc­trine of Si­mony?§

Mo­ses in­structed Is­rael: “Re­mem­ber the days of old; con­sider the gen­er­a­tions past. Ask your fa­ther, and he will tell you, your el­ders, and they will in­form you” (Deut. 32:7Deuteronomy 32:7Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask your father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will tell you.). Bil­dad re­peats the charge to Job, “Please in­quire of past gen­er­a­tions and con­sider the dis­cov­er­ies of their fa­thers. For we were born yes­ter­day and know noth­ing; our days on earth are but a shadow. Will they not teach you and tell you, and speak from their un­der­stand­ing?” (Job 8:8–10Job 8:8–10⁸For inquire, please, of the former age, and apply yourself to what their fathers have searched out;⁹(For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days on earth are a shadow);¹⁰Will they not teach you, and tell you, and utter words out of their heart?).

We will be look­ing at a num­ber of me­dieval sources, and this raises a ques­tion. If the doc­trine of si­mony was de­vel­oped pri­mar­ily by theo­lo­gians op­er­at­ing within the cor­rupt Ro­man sys­tem, what con­fi­dence can we have in their con­clu­sions?

It is im­por­tant to re­mem­ber that the church still ex­isted at that time, and me­dieval theol­ogy was not uni­formly cor­rupt. Mar­tin Lu­ther com­pared it to the teach­ing of the Jews in Christ’s day: Christ did not throw out every­thing the Pharisees taught be­cause of their abuses. He said, “un­der the pa­pacy there is much that is Chris­tian and good—in­deed, all Chris­tian good ex­ists there and has come down to us from there.”¹⁴Lu­ther, Von der Wie­der­taufe, WA 26, 147:13–15.

There was a Pu­ri­tan named Henry Bur­ton who wrote a book against si­mony called A Cen­sure of Si­monie.¹⁵Bur­ton, A Cen­sure of Si­monie. In that book, he re­peat­edly ap­pealed to Ro­man coun­cils and the de­crees of popes. He ex­plained his will­ing­ness to do so, say­ing, “we must put a great dif­fer­ence be­tween the now church of Rome and that which it hath been for­merly, and that even within these three or four hun­dred years.”¹⁶Ibid., 48. If that sounds like com­pro­mise, it’s not. As a Prot­es­tant, Bur­ton’s credentials are unimpeachable. He so strongly fought the intrusion of Ro­man Cathol­i­cism into the Church of Eng­land that in 1637, au­thor­i­ties set him in a pillory and cut off his ears.¹⁷Bur­ton, A Narration of the Life.

Con­clu­sion§

Sev­eral dec­ades ago, a le­gal his­to­rian ob­served that “nei­ther brib­ery nor its sub­species si­mony have to­day the con­sis­tency, the sta­bil­ity, the ex­i­gency of a true moral con­cept.”¹⁸Noo­nan, Bribes, 690. This is not be­cause all the prob­lems have been re­solved; it is be­cause the frame­work for dis­cern­ing them has lapsed.

While the doc­trine of si­mony may not be widely known or un­der­stood to­day, there is no need for it to re­main so. More­over, we have every rea­son to ex­pect that its re­trieval would bring sub­stan­tial bless­ing. The Prot­es­tant Ref­or­ma­tion it­self be­gan over the sale of spir­i­tual things. What new ref­or­ma­tion awaits if we can ad­dress that sin as it has arisen again in the twenty-first cen­tury?

Now is the time to re­trieve the doc­trine of si­mony.

Bib­li­og­ra­phy§

• Bur­ton, Henry. A cen­sure of si­monie, or a most im­por­tant case of con­science con­cern­ing si­monie briefly dis­cussed not al­to­gether per­haps un­par­al­lell for the merid­ian of these times. Lon­don: Wil­liam Stansby for Ed­mund Weaver and John Smeth­wick, 1624.
• ———. A Narration of the Life of Mr. Henry Bur­ton. Lon­don: John Rothwell, 1643.
• Coun­cil of Chal­cedon (451). In Acta con­cil­io­rum oe­cu­me­ni­co­rum, edited by Ed­uard Schwartz, vol. II.2.2, 124–132. Ber­lin: Wal­ter de Gruy­ter, 1936.
• Cyp­rian. Ad Qui­ri­num (Tes­ti­mo­nio­rum libri tres). In S. Thasci Cae­cili Cyp­ri­ani Op­era om­nia, pars I, edited by Wil­helm Har­tel, Cor­pus Scrip­to­rum Ec­cle­si­as­ti­co­rum Lati­no­rum, vol. 3, pars 1, 35–184. Vi­enna: C. Ge­roldi Fil­ium, 1868.
• Di­dache (Doc­trina du­o­decim apos­to­lo­rum). In Pa­tres apos­tol­ici, edited by Franz Xaver Funk, vol. 1, 2–37. Tü­bin­gen: Laupp, 1901. Com­posed ca. 50–120.
• Greg­ory I. Ho­mil­iae in evan­ge­lia. Edited by Hugo Hurter. Sanc­to­rum Pa­trum Opus­cula Se­lecta, Se­ries Al­tera 6. Oe­ni­ponte (Inns­bruck): Li­braria Aca­de­mica Wag­ne­ri­ana, 1892.
• Greg­ory VII. Das Reg­is­ter Gre­gors VII. Edited by Erich Cas­par. Mon­u­menta Ger­ma­niae His­tor­ica, Epis­to­lae se­lec­tae. Ber­lin: Weid­mann, 1920.
• Greg­ory IX. Liber ex­tra. Edited by Emil Fried­berg. Vol. 2. Leip­zig: Bern­hard Tauch­nitz, 1881.
• Her­mas. The Shep­herd. In The Apos­tolic Fa­thers, edited by J. B. Light­foot and J. R. Harmer, 291–483. Lon­don: Mac­mil­lan, 1891. Writ­ten ca. 100–160.
• Lu­ther, Mar­tin. Von der Wie­der­taufe an zwei Pfar­rherrn. In D. Mar­tin Lu­thers Werke: Kri­tis­che Ge­samt­aus­gabe, edited by E. Thiele and O. Bren­ner, vol. 26, 137–174. Wei­mar: Her­mann Böh­laus Nach­fol­ger, 1909.
• ———. Vor­le­sun­gen über 1. Mose. In D. Mar­tin Lu­thers Werke: Kri­tis­che Ge­samt­aus­gabe, edited by O. Re­ichert, vol. 43. Wei­mar: Her­mann Böh­laus Nach­fol­ger, 1912.
• Noo­nan, John T., Jr. Bribes: The In­tel­lec­tual His­tory of a Moral Idea. New York: Mac­mil­lan, 1984.
• “Re­view of The Anat­omy of Si­mon Ma­gus.” The His­tory of the Works of the Learned 2, no. 8 (1700): 502–507.
• Rosé, Is­abelle. “Si­mon le Ma­gi­cien hé­ré­siar­que? L’in­ven­tion de la si­mo­ni­aca here­sis par Gré­goire le Grand.” In Aux marges de l’hérésie, edited by Franck Mer­cier and Is­abelle Rosé, 201–238. Rennes: Presses uni­ver­si­taires de Rennes, 2017.
• Saltet, Louis. Les Ré­or­di­na­tions: Étude sur le sac­re­ment de l’or­dre. Paris: V. Lecof­fre, 1907.
• Synod of El­vira (ca. 305). In Pa­tro­lo­gia La­tina, edited by Jacques-Paul Migne, vol. 84, 301–308. Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1862.
• Wood, Su­san. The Pro­pri­etary Church in the Me­dieval West. Ox­ford: Ox­ford Uni­ver­sity Press, 2006.