When they had gone through the isle. — The better MSS. give, through the whole island. Paphos lay at its western extremity, and appears to have been the head-quarters of the Roman governor. A local tradition, reported by M. de Cesnola (Cyprus, pp. 29, 223), points out a marble column to which St. Paul was bound and scourged by the citizens of Paphos, who are represented as having been among the most wicked of mankind.
They found a certain sorcerer. — The word so rendered, Magos, is the same as that used for the “wise men” of Matthew 2:1 (where see Note), but it is obviously used here in the bad sense which had begun to attach to it even in the days of Sophocles, who makes Œdipus revile Tiresias under this name, as practising magic arts (Œd. Rex. 387), and which we have found in the case of Simon the sorcerer. (See Note on Acts 8:9.) The man bore two names, one, Bar-jesus, in its form a patronymic, the other Elymas (an Aramaic word, probably connected with the Arabic Ulema, or sage), a title describing his claims to wisdom and supernatural powers. We have already met with a character of this type in the sorcerer of Samaria. (See Note on Acts 8:9.) The lower class of Jews here, as in Acts 19:14, seem to have been specially addicted to such practices. They traded on the religious prestige of their race, and boasted, in addition to their sacred books, of spells and charms that had come down to them from Solomon.