And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries.
And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them, х dia (G1223) to (G3588) hikanoo (G2425) chronoo (G5550) ... exestakenai (G1839)] - 'because that for a considerable time they had been bewitched' the perfect tense having an intransitive sense),
With sorceries. This, coupled with the rapidity with which they attached themselves to Philip, strikingly shows both how ripe the people of this region were for some religious change, and how much they lacked fundamental training. If our Lord's stay among them was the cause of the one, the shortness of that stay, and their imperfect knowledge of Old Testament truth, is a sufficient explanation of the other.