Wednesday, April 19, 2006

WOD time again: I've been thinking about simony

That is, selling sacred things. I suppose I should go get the dictionary definition.

Here: "Simony is the ecclesiastical crime and personal sin of paying for offices or positions in the hierarchy of a church, named after Simon Magus, who appears in the Acts of the Apostles 8:18-24. Simon Magus offers the disciples of Jesus payment for the power to perform miracles."

Okay, I think this part is more in line with what I usually think of:
Canon law also outlawed as simony some acts that did not involve the sale of offices, but the sale of spiritual authority...

The Free Dictionary gets too much into the history of medieval litigation. Let me pull out my Webster's.

Ah, this is better: "the act of buying or selling...things regarded as sacred or spiritual."

Why do I bring it up? Why, I'm wondering if I'm guilty of it, of course.

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