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named Sergius Paullus. Here it will be profitable to pause and see how the record bears
witness to the trustworthiness of Luke as an historian.
The critics used to maintain that Sergius Paullus must have been Pro-praetor, not
Pro-consul (Deputy), as Luke avers. There were many changes in the administration of
Roman Government: at one time a country would be Imperial; at another it would be a
Senatorial province. Amid all the changes Luke never falters, his every statement having
been proved accurate. So here. Recently a coin has been dug up in Cyprus, bearing the
inscription: "In the Pro-consulship of Paullus."
In 1912 Sir William Ramsay brought to light an inscription referring to Lucius Sergius
Paullus, the younger, whose father was a Roman official. Galen, a heathen physician,
writing about 100 years after Acts 13:, speaks of one, Sergius Paullus, as well versed in
philosophy, while Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, three times refer to Sergius
Paullus as a person interested in intelligent research, and as Pliny wrote about 20 years
after the incident in Acts 13:, there is every likelihood that he refers to the same man.
It may therefore have been that having wide interests he could tolerate Elymas, and at the
same time proffer an invitation to the preachers of the Word. In any case, we can but
rejoice that he heard, saw and believed, a marked contrast with those spoken of by Isaiah,
whose eyes were shut, whose ears were closed, and whose heart was hardened (see
Acts 28: 25-28).
At first it may cause surprise that so prudent a man as Sergius Paullus, should permit a
sorcerer to be near his person, but we must not introduce into ancient times modern
attitudes. Even so, with all our boasted civilization, the reader will discover a vast
amount of superstition among all classes to-day. The horse-racing fraternity, whether
they gamble in pounds or pence, are proverbially superstitious. The newspaper find
ready readers intent on knowing all about their horoscopes and lucky days. Jewellers'
shops exhibit a series of "lucky stones" suitably set in silver or gold, and clairvoyants
find among their clientele cute business men.
This sorcerer was a Jew who bore the name Bar-Jesus, but who assumed the title
Elymas, which is, perhaps, derived from the Arabic Elim, and Hebrew Elemoth, both
meaning a wizard. Greek and Roman literature is full of references to the credulity of
this skeptical period. Rome greedily welcomed the Syrian fortune-tellers, and to adopt
the language of Juvenal, "The Orontes (the river upon which Antioch stood) itself flowed
into the Tiber".
"The Jewish beggar-woman was the gipsy of the first century, shivering and crouching
in the outskirts of the city, and telling fortunes, as Ezekiel had said, of old `for handfuls
of barley, and for pieces of bread'." (Conybeare and Howson).
Pompey, Crassus and Cæsar sought the aid of oriental astrologers, and the great
satirist, Juvenal, pictures the Emperor Tiberius "sitting on the rock of Capri, with the
flock of Chaldeans round him" (Juvenal 10: 93).