Acts 13:8Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

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.

"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.