And when they had gone through the whole island, as far as Paphos, they found a certain man, a magician, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-Jesu:
διελθοντες δε την νησον αχρι παφου ευρον 2147 τινα μαγον ψευδοπροφητην ιουδαιον ω ονομα βαριησους βαριησουν
6 Church Fathers comment on this verse
Again there is a sorcerer, a Jew, like Simon. The writer lists the names of the cities to show that, since they had recently received the word of God, it was necessary to strengthen them so that they would remain in the faith. For this reason the apostles visited them often.
Accompanied by Mark, Paul and Barnabas first set out for the island of Cyprus, the homeland of Barnabas. They passed through the island from east to west, from Salamis to Paphos.
In their preaching they addressed themselves first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles. By their calling and by the promises given to them, the Jews had the first right to this. They had established places for religious assemblies, the synagogues, where proselytes also gathered.
Through the proselytes the most convenient passage opened to the Gentiles themselves. In Paphos they found, in the proconsul Sergius Paulus, one of those men who were satisfied neither with the popular faith nor with philosophy.
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.
From Salamis the Apostles went farther through the island, preaching Christ everywhere. At last they reached the opposite shore, where Paphos, the chief city of the island, lay. It was the residence of the Roman proconsul, the governor of Cyprus.
In Paphos they came into conflict with a certain magician and false prophet. He presented himself as a wonderworker and also as a messenger of God, receiving special revelations from God. By birth he was a Jew, and he was called Bar-Jesus, meaning son of Jesus, or son of salvation, or of a savior.
This conflict occurred under the following circumstances. The proconsul of Cyprus at that time was Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man who was not satisfied with the pagan religion and was searching keenly for the truth. For this reason he had drawn near to himself the Jew Bar-Jesus, who had exercised great influence over him before the Apostles arrived.
With this preaching they went through the whole island, from Salamis on the eastern shore to Paphos on the western. This latter city, known in Greek history for the orgies performed there in honor of Venus, was now the residence of the Roman proconsul, Sergius Paulus. He was an educated and noble Roman. Yet like all his contemporaries, he had already lost faith in his gods. He devoted the leisure of his office to mysterious and strange superstitions, by which he was surrounded on every side. In general, this was an age when unbelief coexisted with the crudest superstition. Proud Romans, having lost every firm foundation in their national religion, felt compelled by some instinctive necessity to seek at least some contact with the invisible world.
They did this even through the mystical sorcery of the East. It is known that Marius turned to the divination of the Jewish woman Martha. In this remarkable period, augurs, stargazers, Chaldeans, mathematicians, astrologers, magi, soothsayers, fortune-tellers, ventriloquists, and interpreters of dreams streamed from everywhere into Rome in great numbers. They acquired such importance that they drew upon themselves the indignation of both satirists and historians. Some of them, such as Apollonius of Tyana and later Alexander of Abonoteichus and the Cynic Peregrinus, attracted universal attention. There was hardly a Roman household that did not keep its own fortune-teller. Juvenal sarcastically says that the emperor Tiberius, having withdrawn from Rome to the island of Capri, lived there surrounded by "a whole herd of Chaldeans." The same was true of Sergius Paulus. He kept with him, as a magician, a certain Jewish deceiver named Bar-Jesus. When he heard of the preaching of the two strangers from Antioch, he became interested in them also and wanted to hear their teaching.
Having gone through the whole island as far as Paphos: Paphos, more precisely New Paphos, lay thirty stadia from Old Paphos, famous in antiquity for the cult of the goddess Venus. It was the chief city of the island and the residence of the Roman proconsul, the island's governor.
It lay on the shore of the island opposite Salamis. To travel from Salamis to Paphos, the preachers had to pass through a densely populated region. Without doubt, they preached Christ in the settlements through which they passed, though the writer of Acts does not mention this, owing to the brevity of the account.
They found a certain magician, and so forth: a magician, of course, in the same sense in which Simon the Samaritan is called Simon Magus above (Acts 8:9 and note). In addition, the writer of Acts characterizes him as a false prophet, a man who falsely presented himself as a special, extraordinary messenger of God, who had received special and extraordinary revelations from God (Deut 18:20 and parallels).
He probably gave himself the title of magician, Elymas. The writer of Acts brands him with the title false prophet. This magician was a Jew. Judging from the Arabic name Elymas, which he took for himself, he was probably a Jew from Arabia. Or perhaps by taking this title he merely wished to pass himself off as an eastern sage, to boast of this, and to gain greater honor in the eyes of the people.
By the name Bar-Jesus: Bar-Jesus properly means son of Jesus, since the name Jesus was then one of the common names given at circumcision; compare the note on Mt 1:1. It was hardly the magician's proper name. Rather, he was known by this patronymic, just as Bartholomew was called the son of Tolmai, while his proper name was Nathanael; see the note on Mt 10:3.
The arrival of the Apostles in Paphos, the chief city of the island, situated on its opposite side, was probably swift and deliberate. As they passed through inhabited places, they surely preached, but matters proceeded in such a way that the writer of this book could record nothing outstanding.
It was different in Paphos, the capital of the proconsul, who was disposed to seek the true faith. Therefore, since he was not satisfied with paganism, he kept near himself a Jew named Bar-Jesus. This man presented himself to him as a sage, a magician, but in reality he was a false prophet.
Bar-Jesus resembled Simon Magus in many ways, but differed from him in this. Simon was more carried away by wonderworking powers and sought them everywhere, while this man kept more to Jewish ground, so to speak.
Already in his name there was an adaptation to messianic concepts. He presented himself as the son of the Savior, Jesus. As the writer of Acts observes, he imitated the manner of life and action of the prophets, which is why he is called a false prophet.
Yet to give a special character to his prophetic claim, which the Jews evidently did not recognize, he called himself an Arabian sage, or magician, Elymas, that is, ulema.
The good proconsul was probably very interested in him at first. But soon, as a prudent man, he saw the falsehood of Bar-Jesus. Therefore, when Barnabas and Saul appeared, he immediately summoned them, in order to satisfy his thirst for truth.
So many had wholly despaired of acquiring this truth, as another proconsul, Pilate, showed, though before him stood incarnate Truth Himself.
Artobolevsky portrays the image of the proconsul Sergius Paulus in a very elevated way. He writes: The writer of Acts characterizes him as an intelligent man (see Acts 13:7; compare 11:24).
We must not think that this description referred to any personal qualities of the proconsul, to his worldly experience, political tact, administrative abilities, or even scientific pursuits, if he is identical with the naturalist mentioned by Pliny.
Undoubtedly, the inner spiritual life of the proconsul is described here in the Old Testament sense. We must think that, amid pagan errors, the proconsul managed to preserve within himself that wisdom in the heart (Job 38:36).
This was the natural moral sense which the Apostle later calls conscience (see Rom 2:14-15). This lamp had not been extinguished in his heart. Guided by it, the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature what the law requires.
By the duty of his office, Sergius Paulus was, if one may say so, in the very furnace of immoral eastern cults. Yet he found no inner satisfaction in them.
He had already almost come to believe in the existence of the Great Being. He knew Him in spirit, in spiritual understanding (Col 1:9), and thirsted only for His manifestation in the outward, material world.
But when Bar-Jesus noticed Sergius Paulus's inclination toward his preaching and his desire to see an outward manifestation of the Deity, he decided to put forward the mysterious, Judeo-theosophical element.
He performed wonders and surrounded himself with a halo of divine majesty. Then a reaction began in the heart of the proconsul, expressed in dissatisfaction with the teaching of Bar-Jesus.
His proud self-designation as Elymas, a sage like other magicians, and then his conduct during the Apostles' preaching, in verse 8, reveal clearly enough the moral side of the magician's person.
Pride, or extreme self-love, which excluded all love for one's neighbor, and base self-interest: these formed the inner world of the magician.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 16 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS