Acts 13:10Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Well did he say, “all deceit,” because the man was acting hypocritically. “Son of the devil,” because he was doing the devil's work. “Enemy of all righteousness,” because here, truly, there was every righteousness.

It seems to me that with these words he also rebukes the man's life.

Such men eagerly seized upon everything that seemed new to them. Therefore he greatly desired to hear what new teaching Barnabas and Paul were preaching. But, carried away by religious needs which he himself did not clearly understand, he was in the nets of a deceiver, the Jewish magician Bar-Jesus.

In later times these magicians were among the strongest enemies of Christianity, because Christianity threatened to destroy their power over the Gentiles. Therefore Bar-Jesus also used every effort to hinder the spread of the Gospel and set the proconsul against it.

But Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, pronounced the judgment that he deserved as a hater of the light. At the Apostle's word, he lost his sight. This proof of the power of the new teaching against its enemies acted decisively upon the proconsul, and he believed in the Gospel.

Enemy of all righteousness: enemy of everything that is right and righteous. This enmity was clearly revealed in his opposition to the preachers' teaching, which contained what is right and righteous, and in his turning the proconsul aside from the straight ways of the Lord.

Will you not cease, and so forth: by your opposition to us and by your effort to turn the proconsul away from the faith (verse 8), will you not cease turning him away from the straight ways of the Lord?

The straight way of God leads the proconsul Sergius Paulus, through the preaching of Barnabas and Saul, to faith in Christ and to blessedness.

Elymas strives to turn him away from this straight path and place him on another, crooked path, which does not lead to that goal, namely faith in Christ and blessedness.

After this first punishment of the magician, the exposure of the dark qualities of his soul, another and heavier punishment follows: the striking of his bodily sight with blindness, corresponding to the blindness of his soul.

"See," says Saint John Chrysostom, "Paul said nothing to the sorcerer until he gave occasion, but they proclaimed only the word of the Lord. But he, seeing others attending to Paul, cared only that the proconsul should not believe. And see, he first rebukes, and then strikes. He rightly said, 'full of all deceit,' for the man was playing the hypocrite. 'Son of the devil,' because he was doing his work. 'Enemy of all righteousness,' because here, in truth, there was every righteousness. It seems to me that by these words he also rebukes his life."

"You are not warring and fighting against us," he says, "but you are perverting the straight ways of the Lord."

It is noteworthy that from this time the author of Acts no longer calls Saul by this Hebrew name, meaning "heavy labor," but calls him Paul, meaning "small." "I am the least of the Apostles," he said of himself (1 Cor 15:9).

Therefore Saul could have taken this name to himself from an inner consciousness. Yet it seems that the conversion of the proconsul Sergius Paulus also gave an outward occasion for this.

This was especially so because, on entering the Greco-Roman world, he needed one of the names commonly used there. With that name there was forever closely joined in him the finest association, bound up with the memory of Sergius Paulus.

"Together with Saul's ordination his name also changes," writes blessed Theophylact. "He was renamed so that in this respect also he might be no lower than the Apostles."

After setting forth the general features of the Christian faith, the Apostles' preaching soon passed to the account of God's condescension toward the sinful world. It spoke of the work of redemption accomplished by the Savior and of the means by which salvation may be attained.

The terminology of the author of Acts points to this. He calls the Apostles' preaching the word of God, the same name by which he had designated unmistakably Christian teaching (see 12:24; 13:5).

Then it is said further that Elymas tried to turn the proconsul away from the faith. Therefore he was already inclining toward the Christian faith.

But according to the Apostle's word, no one can believe in Him of whom he has not heard (see Rom 10:14). Thus one must think that the teaching about the Messiah was one subject of the Apostles' preaching.

The seed of apostolic preaching, falling on receptive soil, soon put forth a shoot in the soul of the pagan. This spiritual state of the proconsul could not be hidden from the penetrating gaze of the sorcerer, who was compelled, with bitter necessity, to retreat.

Yet the sorcerer's resistance was rather strong. And now Saul comes forward, and we hear his first word.

"For the first time in Paphos the Apostle comes forward, not with the word of the Gospel, but with a word of rebuke. The Apostle comes forward in the power of the Spirit of God (see Rom 15:19). He reveals the sorcerer's disposition, rebukes him, and announces his punishment."

The judgments concerning the Apostle's name "Paul" are also interesting. They amount to this: the name may have been used earlier, but only from the first journey and direct contact with the pagan, Roman world did the Apostle finally establish it for himself and make it his official name.