Present Danger

Previous generations often regarded simony as one of the greatest dangers of their own day. To what degree do these concerns apply today among evangelicals? The recovery of a doctrine should end in proper use, and proper use requires an updated assessment of its present application. In some ways we have provided that in the last two chapters, but points of inquiry remain.

First, we should consider the difficulties of discerning and acknowledging modern simony. Second, we should consider the gravity of simony and its cure.

The Difficulty of Discerning Modern Simony

Modern simony is difficult to discern on account of both the subject and object. As regards the subject, we have lost important categories; as regards the object, the common offenses have shifted greatly from what they once were. In either case, a robust doctrine of simony is the remedy.

Missing Categories

In the appendix to Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell described the formation of “Newspeak,” a version of English so pared of its vocabulary that it rendered sophisticated thought impossible. By this, the totalitarian regime that imposed the language became invincible. If one lacks the words to describe evil, he tends to struggle to even identify it. Orwell’s scenario was a fiction of his own making, but this phenomenon of language and cognition has been identified by scientists in various empirical studies. For example, compared to a speaker whose language features a word for a particular shade of color, a speaker whose language features no similar word experiences more difficulty quickly distinguishing that shade from its neighbors.¹See Winawer et al., Russian Blues Reveal Effects.

So it is with the doctrine of simony. Once its vocabulary is lost, the sale of spiritual things may go entirely undetected. Recovering the vocabulary of simony, as we have done here, is therefore a first task. The varieties of spiritual things (by essence and by cause)²See Chapter 3, ↗. together with their annexes (by direction and by dependence)³See Chapter 4, ↗. allow us to identify the spiritual side of the exchange. The Gregorian triad (the gift of the hand, the tongue, and service)⁴See Chapter 7, ↗. identifies the temporal. And this is only the core vocabulary of the exchange itself. Beyond it lie the modes of exchange, and within these, the various modes of giving and receiving.

There is almost certainly room to recover and develop further vocabulary still. Yet given the breadth already covered, the greater part of the work that remains may be not expansion but refinement, sharpening of the categories already in hand. The sharper our vocabulary of simony grows, the better our ability to discern it becomes.

Shifting Offenses

Former appearances of simony have largely receded from view. Commerce in ordinations, sacraments, indulgences, relics, the right of patronage, etc. is rare. This is not to say that the old forms are extinct. They survive in some measure in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, and even among Protestant churches reports of things like baptism fees are not entirely unheard of. The battles fought by former generations against the manifestations of simony in their own day were largely won.

Yet simony is protean.⁵“Among all the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, no little fox is more wicked or more cunning than simony. For, as a certain author [Horace] says, ‘By what knot do I hold Proteus as he changes his aspect?’ so we may say: by what knot shall we hold simony—that most cunning little fox, manifold in face, thousand-shaped in habit, and almost always unlike not only the other little foxes but even unlike itself, to such a degree that, while it ruins the vineyards of Christ, it is sometimes seen in the very guise of the vinedresser?” Gerhoch of Reichersberg, Liber de Simoniacis, 268:27–38. We have observed how the advent of copyright has permitted people to sell biblical teaching itself in a way that was formerly impossible,⁶See Chapter 14, ↗. and recent phenomena like the formalization of biblical counseling have created more opportunities for commerce in spiritual things.

As the pace of technology quickens, so does the transformation of simony. Digital media have opened new channels for monetizing doctrine, and the platforms that facilitate this introduce their own complexities. Advertisements and revenue sharing—sometimes not even optional—do not have the appearance of a direct sale, but involve their own sorts of exchanges. Our culture has multiplied the ways a spiritual thing may be annexed to a material thing, and with them the occasions for confusion. Some are plainly innocent; while the practice continued,⁷The Alaska Airlines prayer card tradition lasted thirty years and ended in 2012. no Alaska Airlines customer could reasonably understand his airfare as a purchase of a verse on a prayer card. Others, such as theology cruises, require more consideration.

The changing nature of simony is nothing new. For example, in Protestant England the prevalent form of simony had shifted from the sale of orders to corruption in the collation and provision of benefices—simoniacal ordination having grown rare as simoniacal dealing in benefices grew frequent.⁸See Willis, Simony: In Two Parts, 21–22. A new era yielded a new manifestation of the sin, but established doctrine furnished the means to identify and proscribe it. Regarding this phenomenon, one nineteenth-century professor of civil law observed, “The view of the ancients and moderns has been invariably the same, and that the former have principally inveighed against simony of the one description, the latter against simony of the other description, arises not from any different view taken by the church as to the nature of the offence, but from the change of discipline which change of times and manners has rendered necessary.”⁹Joseph Phillimore, as quoted in Phillimore, The Ecclesiastical Law, 1103–4.

Proper definitions keep simony from passing unrecognized when its appearance changes. When these foundations erode, hard-won ground is easily lost. The house swept clean of one form of the offense may have seven more return in its place, so that the last state is worse than the first. This threat of invasion is effectively mitigated with a proper doctrine of simony resident in the church.

The Difficulty of Acknowledging Modern Simony

Regarding modern simony, the difficulty of acknowledgment at least rivals, if not exceeds, the difficulty of discernment. People are easily governed by competing authorities though they may regard themselves as unbiased judges. We might break these down into two primary categories: the authority of other men and the authority of self-interest.

The Weight of an Implied Consensus

Common practices among relatively elite ranks suggest to onlookers a studied consensus, and their propriety is often assumed on account of this implied authority. Such customs form from a variety of factors and often go without ever being subjected to serious scrutiny. Such is the case with modern simony. Because the sale of spiritual teaching saturates the Christian landscape, it exerts a kind of hegemony. The participants in this commerce include not only false teachers and charlatans but men of unquestioned devotion, so challenges to it are often regarded as malicious attacks against the pillars of the church.

We might partition those affected by this phenomenon into three groups. First, there are those who practice or endorse the sale of spiritual teaching with obstinacy. Like the priests of Micah’s day, they presume upon the mercy of the Lord on account of the ubiquity of the practice. Second, some are uncertain on the issue, but withhold firm judgments against the sale of spiritual teaching on account of an apparent consensus to the contrary. Third, there are those who have concluded yet hold their tongue for fear of opposing the masses.

In any of these cases, the doctrine of simony exposes the artificiality of this authority. First, recall that the medievals arrived at conclusions that directly rejected such appeals to authority. They recognized the pervasiveness of the sin, and even those who respected Rome were forced to conclude that its highest bishop could not be guaranteed to be free from the stain of simony.¹⁰See Chapter 13, ↗. Second, simply the use of technical terms and categories demands a reasoned response that mere practices do not provide. Third, an ancient tradition reframes the whole notion of consensus, widening it from one generation of the faithful to many.

Conflicts of Interest

Many struggle to approach the question honestly because the answer is of significant personal consequence. Upton Sinclair famously quipped, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”¹¹Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor, 109. The claim is not that such men knowingly suppress the truth but that such interest works quietly upon the judgment, making the most convenient conclusions appear the most likely.

This interest governs one’s reading of Scripture. In Chapter 8, we observed that those who promote the sale of spiritual things often employ 1 Corinthians 9:14 in their defense.¹²See ↗. Paul established a minister’s right to financial support in the first fourteen verses, yet this is only the initial premise of the apostle’s discourse. The weight of the argument falls on its remainder and Paul’s refusal to use that authority (1 Cor. 9:15, 18).¹³See Chapter 14, ↗. Those who appeal to the passage commonly stop at the premise. Contending against seat rents in the nineteenth century, James Begg observed the same selective quotation from his opponents, remarking that they “always halt in the middle of the apostle’s statement with an evident design.”¹⁴Begg, Seat Rents, 20.

Many are hesitant to identify the sin where it may interfere with their present activities or even require repentance for past ones. In the fourteenth century, this was directly highlighted by the popular Epistola Luciferi, a satire penned in the guise of “Lucifer prince of darkness,” addressed to the prelates of the church, thanking them for their faithful service to his kingdom.¹⁵The letter was composed around the turn of 1352, and has been attributed to a number of candidates. See Schabel, Lucifer princeps tenebrarum, 127–29. Therein, the devil observes that corrupt clergy cannot speak out against simony because she is their mother: “We commend to you our very dear daughters, Pride, Avarice, Fraud, Luxury, and the others, especially Lady Simony, who has made you and suckled you with her own breasts and nourished you. And you shall not call her simony or sin, because you own everything.”¹⁶Ibid., 132, translating the critical Latin at ibid., 171. An English version of the letter was printed by John Foxe among the Lollard writings annexed to the trial of Walter Brute, Foxe, Actes and Monuments, 5.503.

This interested blindness is not restricted to previous centuries. Today, though it is rarely suggested, the idea that seminary tuition or theology text royalties should be regarded as illicit is precluded as an intolerable conclusion. Even apart from those with a financial stake in institutions that sell biblical teaching, nearly everyone within the church has benefited in some way from them, and has among them friends, mentors, or benefactors. Few are willing to indict those they love and who have served them well.

So long as the sale of spiritual teaching is treated as a matter of practical judgment of wisdom, proportion, or taste, interest will always find room to maneuver; such judgments are endlessly negotiable. Principle keeps the matter from being diffuse and demands a consistency that resists, at least in some measure, personal bias. A recovered doctrine of simony provides that principle and forces the issue.

The Gravity of Modern Simony

We have already surveyed how previous generations have weighed simony—where it ranks among sins, and how one should answer it.¹⁷See Chapter 12. However, we have yet to provide our own assessment of these conclusions, especially as they relate to the sale of biblical teaching today.

Heresy

As we saw in Chapter 13, simony was long regarded as a heresy. The charge began with Gregory the Great, whose label of simoniaca haeresis was maintained by later generations. The implicit claim that a price could be placed on a priceless grace was regarded as a fundamental denial of the faith. Does this same reasoning apply to modern simony? And is “heresy” even the proper category to apply here?

God’s word is clear that divine revelation is priceless. When the psalmist speaks of the law of God’s mouth as being worth more than thousands of pieces of gold and silver (Ps. 119:72), the idea is not that it is worth slightly more, but that it cannot be weighed against them at all. Wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing can be compared with her (Prov. 3:15). To sell Scripture—or that teaching which is derived from it—is therefore to put a price on that which is priceless. Moreover, biblical teaching of the word of God does not merely describe him, but communicates the Infinite One himself. It would be manifest heresy to deny God’s eternity or immensity—that he transcends both time and space—because it ascribes creatureliness to the Creator. This is precisely what takes place in idolatry (Isa. 40:18, 25). Therefore, to treat divine revelation as salable is to treat God himself as salable, valued along with creation.

Heresy is at bottom a denial of the gospel, and the sale of biblical teaching functions as such a denial. Though this may not be obvious at first, it follows from two observations made in Chapter 14. First, right biblical teaching—whatever its scope—necessarily communicates the gospel.¹⁸See ↗. Second, the proclamation of the gospel is not a mere vessel for its message; the “word of his grace” (Acts 14:3; 20:32) is itself given by that grace.¹⁹See ↗. To borrow Marshall McLuhan’s famous phrase, the medium is the message.²⁰McLuhan, Understanding Media, 7. It is not merely that the word of God ought to be offered “without money and without price” (Isa. 55:1; cf. Rev. 21:6; 22:17), but that what is offered for a price must be something other than the gospel. This is not to claim absolutely that no one could learn the saving message through paid instruction, only that such understanding comes despite the sale, not on account of it.

Moreover, it is the unpardonable sin, even as Wycliffe and Hus observed.²¹See Chapter 13, ↗. Consider the two kinds of temporary faith described in Scripture, especially as delineated in the parable of the sower with the rocky soil and the thorny soil. The rocky soil falls away on account of difficulty (Matt. 13:21; Luke 8:13), while the thorny soil falls away on account of the pleasures of this life (Matt. 13:22; Luke 8:14). It is this second failure that Hebrews 6:6 marks as impossible to renew to repentance, speaking of the land that “bears thorns and thistles” (Heb. 6:8). The distinction is further demonstrated in Peter and Judas, the former corresponding to the rocky soil and the latter to the thorny. Peter denied his Lord out of fear but was later restored; Judas delivered him up out of greed and perished. The simoniac sins in the manner of Judas.

All of this requires qualification.²²See Chapter 13, ↗. Simony exists in outward action, typically without the inward conviction that would make it heresy in all the aforementioned senses. The idea of a practical heresy is not foreign to Scripture, which even speaks of the fool who says in his heart “There is no God” (Ps. 14:1; 53:1). This is not a settled creed of atheism but a practical disregard of divine judgment. Though Judas was the son of perdition, Simon Magus himself received the hope of forgiveness at the words of Peter (Acts 8:22). Regardless, the sin of simony remains a grave danger as does any sort of heresy. Even those who outwardly commit it play with fire.

The Greatest Sin

A number of theologians identified simony as not only a great sin, but the greatest sin.²³See Chapter 12, ↗. In part, this is carried by the aforementioned comments on simony’s relation to the unpardonable sin. Those who would count the things of this earth as having a value comparable to Christ such that he could be traded for them “crucify again to themselves the Son of God” (Heb. 6:6).

Not all who sell holy things truly intend to prize the world above their Lord, but the severity of the expression remains. Whatever the inward reservation, no deed declares a knowing and culpable devaluation of the gospel more plainly than fixing a literal price on it. Thus, Scripture names the love of money a root of all kinds of evil and places the service of mammon in direct competition with service to the Lord (1 Tim. 6:10; Matt. 6:24). In the sale of biblical teaching, a man places Christ below material things in the plainest terms the choice can take.

Alarm over the sale of religion tends to settle on those who actively promote false teaching.²⁴See 2 Pet. 2:1–3. The profiteering of prosperity preachers, for example, is frequently singled out for special condemnation, yet our findings here should lead us to question this judgment. We must resist the urge to weigh sin only by the harm done to man and not by the offense given to God. The false teacher’s lies are a separate matter. On that narrower question of the sale itself, pricing what is worthless is a mote beside pricing what is priceless. We should not be quick to suppose that Demetrius the silversmith sinned more grievously in selling false gods (Acts 19:24) than did Judas in selling the true God. After all, the New Testament regards Balaam as chief among deplorable mercenary prophets (2 Pet. 2:15; Jude 11), but all his words were true (Num. 22:38; 23:12).

Epithets

The charge of heresy and its associated rhetoric are only a sample of the language the ancients turned against simony. One seventeenth-century minister writing on the topic reported, “I could amass many other sharp invectives of the fathers against this crime; but I forbear, lest this article swell to too great a bulk.”²⁵Gordon, Reformed Bishop, 98. Few today have the palate for this sort of rhetoric, but modern sensibilities aside, we must ask whether there is truth to some of the more severe appellations, especially in regard to the sale of biblical teaching. Two we examined in Chapter 12 warrant revisiting: leprosy and sodomy.

As for “leprosy,” the standard observation was of its contagion: as one simoniac ordained another, the corruption of office perpetuated itself.²⁶See Chapter 10, ↗. The concern may seem to weaken once the doctrine is applied to the sale of biblical teaching, but in practice it is no different. Those raised into ministry under men who sell their teaching learn to sell in turn. A large bulk of training for ministry in our day takes place in seminaries where professors are funded by tuition rather than by churches. Implicitly, those designed to serve as role models endorse the sale of biblical teaching. Beyond the seminaries, the local church often redirects its members to parachurch ministries that charge those seeking instruction. When those so raised up in turn take up the work of teaching, they commonly practice—or at least condone—what was modeled for them. Moreover, Ambrose’s argument should not be ignored: biblical patterns permit understanding Gehazi’s curse as applying to those who follow him in his sin rather than his physical descendants.²⁷See Chapter 10, ↗.

To revisit the rationale behind the label of “sodomy,” as the sodomite perverts natural acts, the simoniac perverts gracious acts; one spills the seed of the body, the other spills the seed of the word.²⁸See Chapter 12, ↗. While this rhetoric is the least likely to survive modern scruples, it applies strikingly well to the varieties of simony that exist most commonly today. A teacher labors at great pains over the word, develops his teaching, and then places it behind a paywall, undermining the spiritual fruitfulness that might have resulted.

Before dismissing the use of such rhetoric, we should remember that Peter was willing to pronounce maledictions against Simon: “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money” (Acts 8:20), and Christ was willing to overturn tables on account of commerce in the house of God. Those who stand in a position to correct teachers who sell their instruction must be prepared to “rebuke them sharply” (Titus 1:13).

The Cure for Modern Simony

Having considered the danger, what is the remedy? The twin needs of the hour are zeal and knowledge, or more specifically, zeal according to knowledge.

Zeal

Recall the admonition of Gregory the Great: whoever does not “burn vehemently” against simony according to his station will have his portion with Simon.²⁹Gratian, Decretum, C. 1, q. 1, c. 5. The Lord calls his people, and most especially his ministers, to vigorously oppose the sale of spiritual things. Not only are we to take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but we are to expose them (Eph. 5:11). Many biblical passages may be added to reinforce this point.³⁰E.g., James 4:17; Lev. 5:1; Ezek. 33:8; Prov. 24:11–12; Rom. 1:32.

This zeal requires a courage that is necessarily at odds with the fear of man. Many believed but refused to follow Jesus because they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God (John 12:42–43). Ultimately, this requires a love of God so great that it could even be said to imply a hatred of man (Ps. 139:21; Luke 14:26). But such a posture is the only kind of true love for man, since love “does not rejoice in unrighteousness” (1 Cor. 13:6).

By zeal, Christ cleansed the temple, and it is by zeal that he will continue to cleanse the temple of his church. He calls his people to share in this righteous indignation (Ps. 119:53).

Knowledge

Proper zeal exists and operates according to knowledge (Rom. 10:2). The doctrine of simony supplies that knowledge, appropriately directing zeal. Tyndale observed the need for expertise, mixing the figure of fleecing the flock with that of wolves in sheep’s clothing: “The parson sheareth, the vicar shaveth, the parish priest polleth, the friar scrapeth, and the pardoner pareth, we lack but a butcher to poll off the skin. […] What other thing are these in a realm save horseleeches […] and those wolves which Paul prophesied should come and should not spare the flock, Acts 20 chap. And which Christ said should come in lambs’ skins, and bade us beware of them and judge them by their works.”³¹Tyndale, Obedience of a Christian Man, fol. 77v–78r.

Where doctrinal knowledge is lacking, practical judgments will fill the gap. This typically errs in two ways. First, it focuses on the most obvious offenders, which are not even necessarily the worst offenders. Consider our earlier comparison between those who would sell false teaching and those who would sell true teaching. The latter is in some ways a greater offense, but those focused on the practical will primarily, if not exclusively, direct their attention to the former. Second, it will permit practical concerns to excuse sinful behavior if they cannot be immediately answered. Many will excuse the sale of teaching because they cannot say how teachers might otherwise be supported. Pragmatism cannot be permitted to trump principle, and pragmatic compromises in the things of God do not typically render the desired results since he who is sovereign over the outcome will not be mocked (Prov. 11:24; Gal. 6:7).

Many think of knowledge as primarily tempering zeal, but right understanding generates zeal. The one who can name a sin is far more capable of burning against it than one who cannot. It is only the ones who study the law deeply who can know its breadth (Ps. 119:96), becoming aware of those things to which it speaks. This is especially true with regard to mental simony, since inward sins are the ones that most often elude the conscience (Rom. 7:7; Matt. 5:21–22, 27–28). Many justify peddlers of the word on the basis of a supposed sincerity, not realizing that a man who holds out his faith to those who pay and withholds it from those who cannot necessarily reveals an ulterior motive (2 Cor. 2:17; James 2:1, 9–10).

We have made initial steps in providing a right understanding here, but possibly our historical survey has raised more questions than it has settled. Several matters we encountered deserve fuller treatment than they have received in our analysis. We have not commented on modern practices of financial exchanges in weddings and funerals, though these were frequently addressed by the medieval theologians and canonists. Medieval and Reformed concerns about pastoral salaries have likewise been left unapplied to our era. Even some things to which we have given a closer examination—such as the anti-fraternal approach to addressing simony—deserve dedicated treatments. The further recovery of the doctrine of simony will be a great blessing to the church, offering the knowledge necessary to direct righteous zeal.

Conclusion

A recovered doctrine of simony aids in discerning the sin, giving a vocabulary and principles which allow us to identify it despite its changing nature. That retrieval likewise aids in acknowledging the sin by mitigating the competing factors that would commend silence. Even in its modern forms, simony may be regarded as a practical heresy, counted among the chief sins, and even targeted with the same rhetoric used by saints of the past.

While such commitments and strategies may seem less than genteel, the difficulty may be navigated by a zeal that is according to knowledge. Right understanding both directs and generates right zeal, that same zeal by which Christ cleansed the temple of commerce in the days of his earthly ministry.