“And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money,”
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.
Ac 8:18,19 When Simon saw . . . he offered them money. Uninstructed in the lofty spirit of the gospel, ambitious to possess this power peculiar to the apostles, he is sordid enough to offer money for it. His sin was not that he aspired to this power, but that he sought to buy it. He had very crude conceptions of the spirit of Christianity. It is not stated, but it is easy to infer, that he was not one of those upon whom the apostles had bestowed the divine gift.