As we went to prayer,— Or, To the oratory. The manner in which St. Luke relates this history,plainly implies that he considered it as a real possession, and that St. Paul himself considered it in that view: nor can we account either for the woman's behaviour, for St. Paul's, or for that of her master's afterwards, without allowing this to be the case. A spirit of divination, is in the original, a spirit of
Pytho, or of Apollo; concerning which see the notes on Leviticus 19:31 and Deuteronomy 18:11.