Since the first century, men have tried in devious ways to make Jesus' teachings more sophisticated—more complicated and subtilized. Worldly-wise students of philosophy and religion have sought to mix the Master's simple, sacred message with so-called higher knowledge. They have attempted to modify, mold, and debase primitive Christianity. They have tried to justify it in terms of philosophy, intellectualism, and dialecticism.
The story of Simon the sorcerer is an early example. In Acts it is recorded (8:18-21): "When Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God."
But that is not all the story of Simon. According to tradition, this same Simon was an early advocate, perhaps one of the founders, of a movement known as Gnosticism. Hastings' "Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics" finds "not wholly erroneous" this description of the Gnostics: "the intellectual party in the Church," whose object was to "resolve the Christian message into a philosophy acceptable to cultivated minds."
