ministries. For the moment we must be satisfied with observing a few points in connection with the two sorcerers,

Simon Magus, and Elymas.

PETER.

PAUL.

in

Consequent upon gospel in

SIMON the SORCERER.

the SORCERER.

Attack by imitation: `Thou art in

Attack by perversion: `Thou

the gall of bitterness, and in the

child of the devil, thou enemy

bond of iniquity'.

of all righteousness'.

Elymas, a foreshadowing of

Simon, a type of Israel with

Israel in Acts 28, stricken with

blindness: `Immediately there

repentance: `Pray ye to the Lord

fell on him a  mist and a

for me, that none of these things

which ye have spoken come

upon me'.

At this point, the inspired writer tells us that Saul possessed a Gentile name, Paul. It cannot be mere accident

that the first convert in this new mission bore the same name as the apostle himself, Paulus and Paul of course being

identical. There are many examples both in the Scriptures and in secular history of the possession of a double name.

We think of Abram, Joseph and Daniel. Esther was known to the Persians as Hadassah. Hillel was known to the

Greeks as Pollio. Peter was also called Cephas. Augustine in his sermons says:

`Paul suffers what Saul had inflicted; Saul stoned, and Paul was stoned; Saul inflicted scourgings on Christians,

and Paul five times received forty stripes save one; Saul hunted the church, Paul was let down in a basket; Saul

bound, Paul was bound'.

It was, and still is, the custom, for a Jew to have a Hebrew and a Gentile name. In our own Whitechapel it would

be easy to find someone known familiarly in the street as Bill or Tom who, within the family circle, would be Isaac

or Moses. The custom has indeed provided a joke in an illustrated Yiddish paper. Moreover, the names adopted by

the Jew are contemporaneous with his times.  In Persian and Babylonian times we have `Nehemiah' and

`Belteshazzar': under Greek influence we have such a name as `Philip'. In Roman times we have `Justus', `Niger'

and `Priscilla'. In the Middle Ages we find Jews bearing the name `Basil', or `Leo'. (For a fuller treatment of the

subject see Zunz' Namen der Juden). Jerome refers to the Roman custom of adopting the name of a country that

had been conquered, such as Scipio, who, having conquered Africa, took the name Africanus. Certainly there is

intentional emphasis upon the Gentile convert's name here. There is every likelihood that, as Paul was a freeman,

his family took the name of some Roman family immediately associated with this freedom. So, from this time

onward, the apostle is known as Paul; never again is he called by the old Hebrew name, which, with his old self and

past, was dead and buried.

The remaining part of the story of this journey centres chiefly in Antioch of Pisidia, and in it occurs the first

record of an address by Paul. We have no inkling as to the mode of guidance in the itinerary, but as the nearest land

was the mainland of Asia Minor, and as travellers in those days had little option regarding the chartering of vessels,

the most natural thing was, that finding a vessel about to leave for Perga in Pamphylia, the apostles should accept