Pray to the Lord for me
Simon’s request for prayer is significant. The Greek word for "pray" (δεηθῆτε, deēthēte) suggests a plea or supplication, indicating Simon's desperation and acknowledgment of his need for divine intervention. By asking the apostles to pray "to the Lord," Simon recognizes the authority and power of God, which contrasts with his earlier attempt to manipulate spiritual gifts for personal gain. This request can be seen as a step towards humility, acknowledging that he cannot rectify his situation alone.

so that nothing you have said may happen to me
This phrase reveals Simon's fear of the consequences of his actions. The apostles had warned him of the severe spiritual repercussions of his attempt to purchase the Holy Spirit's power. The Greek word for "happen" (ἐπέλθῃ, epelthē) implies something coming upon or befalling someone, often with a negative connotation. Simon's concern is for his own well-being, which may suggest a self-centered motivation. However, it also shows an understanding of the seriousness of his sin and the reality of divine judgment.From a conservative Christian perspective, this verse underscores the necessity of genuine repentance and the power of intercessory prayer. It highlights the importance of approaching God with a contrite heart and the role of the Christian community in supporting one another through prayer. Simon's account is a powerful illustration of the transformative potential of acknowledging one's sins and seeking God's grace.

At this point Simon disappears from the history of the Acts, and this seems accordingly the right place for stating briefly the later traditions as to his history. In those traditions he occupies a far more prominent position than in St. Luke's narrative, and becomes, as it has been said, the "hero of the romance of heresy," as given in the Homilies and Recognitions of the Pseudo-Clement. Born at Gittom, in Samaria (Justin, Apol. i. 26), he received his education at Alexandria, and picked up the language of a mystic Gnosticism from Dositheus (Hom. ii. c. 22; Constt. Apost. vi. 8). He had for a short time been a disciple of the Baptist (Hom. c. 23). He murdered a boy that the soul of his victim might become his familiar spirit, and give him insight into the future (Hom. ii. c. 26; Recogn. ii. 9). He carried about with him a woman of great beauty, of the name of Luna or Helena, whom he represented as a kind of incarnation of the Wisdom or Thought of God (Justin, Apol. i. 6; Hom. ii. c. 25; Euseb. Hist. ii. 13). He identified himself with the promised Paraclete and the Christ, and took the name of "He who stands," as indicating divine power (Recogn. ii. 7). He boasted that he could turn himself and others into the form of brute beasts; that he could cause statues to speak (Hom. iv. c. 4; Recogn. ii. 9, iii. 6). His life was one of ostentatious luxury. He was accompanied by the two sons of the Syro-Ph?nician woman of Mark 7:26 (Hom. i. 19). After the episode related in the Acts, he went down to Caesarea, and Peter was then sent thither by James, the Bishop of Jerusalem, to confront and hold a disputation with him on various points of doctrine. From Caesarea he made his way to Tyre and Tripolis, and thence to Rome, and was there worshipped by his followers, so that an altar was seen there by Justin with an inscription, "SIMONI DEO SANCTO" (Apol. i. 56). Peter followed him, and in the reign of Claudius the two met, once more face to face, in the imperial city. According to one legend, he offered to prove his divinity by flying in the air. trusting that the demons whom he employed would support him; but, through the power of the prayers of Peter, he fell down, and had his bones broken, and then committed suicide (Constt. Apost. ii. 14; 6:9). Another represents him as buried alive at his own request, in order that he might show his power by rising on the third day from the dead, and so meeting his death (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. vi. 20).

In the midst of all this chaos of fantastic fables, we have, perhaps, one grain of fact in Justin's assertion that he had seen the altar above referred to. An altar was discovered at Rome in 1574, on the island in the Tiber, with the inscription "SEMONI SANCO DEO FIDIO." Archaeologists, however, agree in thinking that this was dedicated to the Sabine Hercules, who was known as SEMO SANCUS, and it has been thought by many writers that Justin may have seen this or some like altar, and, in his ignorance of Italian mythology, have imagined that it was consecrated to the Sorcerer of Samaria. His statement is repeated by Tertullian (Apol. c. 13) and Irenaeus (i. 20). Of the three names in the inscription, Semo (probably connected with Semen as the God of Harvest, or as Semihomo) appears by itself in the Hymn of the Fratres Arvales, and in connection with Sancus and Fidius (probably connected with Fides, and so employed in the formula of asseveration, medius fidius) in Ovid, Fast. vi. 213; Livy, viii. 20; 32:1.