“Saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost.”
King James Version (KJV)
8:18 Simon offered them money - And hence the procuring any ministerial function, or ecclesiastical benefice by money, is termed Simony.
8:21 Thou hast neither part - By purchase, nor lot - Given gratis, in this matter - This gift of God. For thy heart is not right before God - Probably St. Peter discerned this long before he had declared it; although it does not appear that God gave to any of the apostles a universal power of discerning the hearts of all they conversed with; any more than a universal power of healing all the sick they came near. This we are sure St. Paul had not; though he was not inferior to the chief of the apostles. Otherwise he would not have suffered the illness of Epaphroditus to have brought him so near to death, #Php 2:25 |- 27; nor have left so useful a fellow labourer as Trophimus sick at Miletus, #2Tim 4:20|.