"
This is all that could possibly be desired. In fact, according to
these maxims of yours, simony would be so exceedingly rare that we
might exempt from this sin even Simon Magus himself, who desired to
purchase the Holy Spirit and is the emblem of those simonists that buy
spiritual things; and Gehazi, who took money for a miracle and may
be regarded as the prototype of the simonists that sell them. There
can be no doubt that when Simon, as we read in the Acts, "offered
the apostles money, saying, Give me also this power"; he said
nothing about buying or selling, or fixing the price; he did no more
than offer the money as a motive to induce them to give him that
spiritual gift; which being, according to you, no simony at all, he
might, had be but been instructed in your maxims, have escaped the
anathema of St. Peter. The same unhappy ignorance was a great loss
to Gehazi, when he was struck with leprosy by Elisha; for, as he
accepted the money from the prince who had been miraculously cured,
simply as an acknowledgement, and not as a price equivalent to the
divine virtue which had effected the miracle, he might have insisted
on the prophet healing him again on pain of mortal sin; seeing, on
this supposition, he would have acted according to the advice of
your grave doctors, who, in such cases, oblige confessors to absolve
their penitents and to wash them from that spiritual leprosy of
which the bodily disease is the type.
Pages:
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229