06/13/2024 ****************************************************** I just got a great idea on how to make a fortune! Not sure where I got the idea from, sometimes these things just come to me :-) Anyway, I figure I can buy Bibles for about $15 - (maybe $12 wholesale). Then I'll print up a bunch of traditional American documents and glue them in the back. You know, like the Magna Carta, the Sachsenspiegel, the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address, Wilson's Fourteen Points, FDR's Four Freedoms and, of course, the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Then I'll call it, "The American Bible", no wait, "The Patriot's Bible", no maybe "The Citizen's Bible". No. I'll have to think about that some more. I'll say it has a handwritten message from God on the inside cover of each one. Okay, it's just my handwriting and the message will just be a Bible verse, but it sounds pretty cool don't you think? I'm thinking of using John 11:35, "Jesus wept." It's the shortest verse in the Bible, so I won't get writers cramp. Besides, I think it pretty much sums up how he probably feels about all this. Then I'll sell this for, oh, I don't know, maybe $59.99. ****************************************************** Now I know what you're going to say, "Tom, you can't do this, it smacks of SIMONY!" Well ... ****************************************************** It's interesting where the word "simony" comes from. It's from the Bible - Acts of the Apostles 8:9-24 - about a man named Simon Magus (Magus meaning magician/sorcerer). ****************************************************** 9. Now a man called Simon had for some time been practising magic arts in the town and astounded the Samaritan people. He had given it out that he was someone momentous, 10. and everyone believed in him; eminent citizens and ordinary people alike had declared, 'He is the divine power that is called Great.' ****************************************************** Then Philip (one of the first seven deacons) shows up preaching and performing "wonders and great miracles". Later the Apostles Peter and John show up to help Philip. Simon was impressed and even became a Christian. I think Simon basically just wanted to find out what the 'tricks' were, what were the 'gimmicks' they were using, how did they do what they were doing. He even "offered them money" saying 'Give me the same power ...' ****************************************************** 20. Peter answered, 'May your silver be lost for ever, and you with it, for thinking that money could buy what God has given for nothing! 21. You have no share, no part, in this: God can see how your heart is warped. 22. Repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that this scheme of yours may be forgiven; 23. it is plain to me that you are held in the bitterness of gall and the chains of sin.' ****************************************************** As a result of this episode, Simon Magus is forever linked to the sin which bears his name, "simony", the act of selling church offices and roles or sacred things. Christianity isn't meant to be a profit center (maybe it's a "prophet" center :-) ****************************************************** Simon Magus shows up again as a villain in a post Biblical book from the late second century, "The Acts of Peter", which contains the famous saying "Quo vadis?" and the tradition that the Apostle Peter was martyred by being crucified upside down (head downward). They both travel from Antioch to Rome, Peter performs miracles and healings and preaches that Simon Magus is just using trickery to deceive everybody, whereas Peter makes a dog talk and resurrects a dead fish (???). Simon confronts Peter in front of the Emperor Nero and says he'll prove his power by flying. He takes off and flies around like Superman over the city just to impress everybody (that would impress me :-) Peter prays for God to strike him down, which he does. Simon tumbles out of the sky and is severely injured, survives, but dies a few days later. A later 5th century version of the story appears in "The Acts of Peter and Paul", which also describes the death of the Apostle Paul by beheading. In that later version, Simon asks Nero for a tower from which he will fly. After Simon dies they leave his body out for three days, to see if he will rise from the dead like Jesus did. Spoiler alert, he didn't :-) You might recognize all this as part of the plot of the 1954 movie "The Silver Chalice", with Jack Palance as Simon Magus. It was Paul Neuman's film debut. I saw it on cable a long time ago and remember it as quite "forgettable" :-) The Silver Chalice (1954) - Simon flies (5 minute excerpt) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dHzAn1vhl0 Maybe he should have stuck to card tricks and sawing women in half :-) ****************************************************** Simon Magus is also depicted as a villain by the Early Church Fathers, such as Justin Martyr, in the mid-second century. Irenaeus claimed that Simon Magus was the “father of all heresies”, and that he was the father of Gnosticism, a major early Christian heresy. Simon Magus supposedly lead a Gnostic sect named after him called the Simonians. ****************************************************** Maybe I'll hold off on my profit scheme. I don't need any of that being 'held in the bitterness of gall and the chains of sin' stuff :-) At least not until I can learn to fly :-) ****************************************************** ... ...