# The Need to Retrieve a Doctrine of Simony Conley Owens *Opening remarks, Tuesday, September 29* *Given at doreancon 2026 — Retrieving a Doctrine of Simony. Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church, Sunnyvale, California, September 28–30, 2026.* Written alongside *The Doctrine of Simony* (https://simony.info). --- 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] 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] 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,[^3] 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*.[^4] 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 8:20—Peter’s rebuke of Simon Magus, - Matthew 10:8—“freely you have received, freely give”, - John 2:16—Christ’s denunciation of the merchants in the temple, - Isaiah 55:1—the call to come and buy without money, - Revelation 21:6—the promise of the water of life freely given.[^5] 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.[^6] The Council of Chalcedon (451) threatened to depose any bishop who ordained for money.[^7] 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.[^8] 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,[^9] 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.”[^10] 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.[^11] 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*).[^12] 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] 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. 32:7). 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 8:8–10). 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.”[^14] There was a Puritan named Henry Burton who wrote a book against simony called *A Censure of Simonie*.[^15] 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.”[^16] 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.[^17] ## 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.”[^18] 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. --- [^1]: “*studiosa voluntas emendi et vendendi aliquid spirituale vel spirituali annexum*.” [^2]: “Review of The Anatomy of Simon Magus,” 502. [^3]: E.g., X 5.3.32; X 5.3.6. [^4]: E.g., *Didache (Doctrina duodecim apostolorum)*, 11.12; Hermas, *The Shepherd*, Mand. 11.12. [^5]: Cyprian, *Ad Quirinum*, 3.100. [^6]: *Synod of Elvira (ca. 305)*, can. 48 (PL 84:307B). [^7]: *Council of Chalcedon (451)*, can. 2 (ACO II.2.2, 125). [^8]: Rosé, “Simon le Magicien hérésiarque?” 204–5; cf. Gregory I, *Homiliae in evangelia*, 17.13 (pp. 109–10). [^9]: Wood, *The Proprietary Church*, 10–11, 437. [^10]: Saltet, *Les Réordinations*, 173–74. [^11]: See ibid., 174–76. [^12]: Rosé, “Simon le Magicien hérésiarque?” 203n9; cf. Gregory VII, *Reg.* 3.10a (p. 269). [^13]: “There you have simony properly so called.” Luther, *Vorlesungen über 1. Mose*, 23:3–4 (WA 43, 281:37–42). [^14]: Luther, *Von der Wiedertaufe*, WA 26, 147:13–15. [^15]: Burton, *A Censure of Simonie*. [^16]: Ibid., 48. [^17]: Burton, *A Narration of the Life*. [^18]: Noonan, *Bribes*, 690.