the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Sergius Paulus
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or Sergius Paulus is mentioned in Acts 13:4-12, where he is described as the proconsul in Cyprus, ‘a man of understanding’ who ‘called unto him Barnabas and Saul, and sought to hear the word of God.’ With Sergius Paulus was Elymas the sorcerer who sought ‘to turn aside the proconsul from the faith.’ St. Paul’s power brought blindness upon Elymas. ‘Then the proconsul, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the teaching of the Lord.’
The Sergii were a Roman patrician gens who furnished more than one consul. Two possible references to Sergius Paulus occur outside the NT. A Sergius Paulus is mentioned in the Index of Authors to Pliny’s Natural History, as an authority on bks. ii. and xviii., which give special information, about Cyprus. A Greek inscription from the N. coast of Cyprus is dated ‘in the pro-consulship of Paulus,’ who is probably the same governor.
NT references, though incidental (for the interest of the story centres in the duel between St. Paul and Elymas), describe a triumph for the Christian preachers. It was customary for a high Roman official to have in his train of comites not only personal friends and attachés, but also ‘provincials, men of letters or of scientific knowledge or of tastes and habits that rendered them agreeable or useful to the great man’ [W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 77). Sergius Paulus is described as συνετός-a, man of understanding, or of keen intelligence. This description does not favour the idea that he was weakly under the influence of a mountebank. Elymas was evidently a powerful exponent of a subtle theosophical system; and as a man of unusual intelligence, with a religious bent, the governor encouraged the presence and enjoyed the company of such scientists and philosophers. For the same reason he sent for Barnabas and St. Paul, when news reached him of their work in Cyprus. These travelling teachers were summoned to Court. The governor listened to their message with such evident pleasure and approval that the jealousy of Elymas was roused, and lie tried to dissuade his patron from hearing them. But St. Paul’s challenge reduced Elymas to impotent blindness. Sergius Paulus had been impressed already by the missionaries’ exposition of Christianity. He was ‘astonished at the teaching of the Lord.’ His astonishment is said to have been due not to the miracle but to the teaching (C. v. Weizsäcker is wrong, therefore, in ascribing the conversion of Sergius Paulus to ‘the Apostle striking his favourite, the Magian Barjesus, blind’ [Apostolic Age, i. 111; and cf. 274]). The Christian message made a deep impression on this ‘man of understanding’; and, when he saw the issue of the conflict between the two champions, ‘he believed.’ The governor of Cyprus was a notable convert. Renan and others have regarded the conversion of a Roman proconsul as incredible. It has to be said that we know nothing more of his Christian life-whether he professed Christianity openly by baptism, and used his influence to further the religion, or whether he relapsed. Possibly the word ἐπίστευσεν is used here to describe something less than full Christian faith; cf. Acts 8:13, ‘Simon believed’ (though Simon became a pervert), and John 12:42, ‘the rulers believed … but did not confess,’ and especially John 20:8. Anyhow, the unembellished statement is entirely in favour of its historical integrity: Sergius Paulus did make some profession of faith which sent the apostles on their way rejoicing in the Christian victory. We are not told whether this man’s heart was the good soil in which the seed bears fruit, or the shallow soil in which the shoot is scorched, or the preoccupied soil in which the growing corn is choked. We are told only that the seed took root and sprang up.
Probably this proconsul’s favourable reception of St. Paul’s preaching was one of the earliest suggestions to the Apostle that the dominant power of Rome might be an asset for Christianity rather than a hostile influence. It is possible, also, that it encouraged St. Paul and Barnabas to develop a more extended missionary campaign on the mainland than was originally intended; and this may have been one reason for John Mark’s withdrawal from the party.
Literature.-G. G. Findlay, article ‘Paul the Apostle,’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) iii. 704; A. C. Headlam, article ‘Paulus, Sergius,’ ib., p. 731; W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, London, 1895, pp. 73-88, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the NT, do., 1915; R. J. Knowling, Expositor’s Greek Testament , ‘Acts,’ 1900, in loc. For meaning of ‘believed’ cf. B. F. Westcott, The Gospel according to St. John , 2 vols., London, 1908, ii. 290; B. B. Warfield, article ‘Faith,’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) i. 829.
J. E. Roberts.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Sergius Paulus'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/s/sergius-paulus.html. 1906-1918.
