- probity, and hearing of the apostles, soon summoned them to his
presence, that he might have the satisfaction of hearing from them, in his own hall, a full exposition of the doctrine which they called the word of God. This they did with such energy and efficiency, that they won his attention and regard; and he was about to profess his faith in Jesus, when a new obstacle to the success of the gospel was presented in the conduct of one of those present at the discourse. This was an impostor, called Elymas,—a name which seems to be a Greek form of the Oriental "Alim" meaning "a magician,"—who had, by his tricks, gained a great renown throughout that region, and was received into high favor by the proconsul himself, with whom he was then staying. The rogue, apprehending the nature of the doctrines taught by the apostles to be no way agreeable to the schemes of self-advancement which he was so successfully pursuing, was not a little alarmed when he saw that they were taking hold of the mind of the proconsul, and therefore undertook to resist the preaching of the apostles; and attempted to argue the noble convert into a contempt of these new teachers. At this, Saul, (now first called Paul,) fixing his eyes on the miserable impostor, in a burst of inspired indignation, denounced on him an awful punishment for his resistance of the truth. "O, full of all guile and all tricks! son of the devil! enemy of all honesty! wilt thou not stop perverting the ways of the Lord? And now, lo! the hand of the Lord is on thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a time." And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and turning around, he sought some persons to lead him by the hand. At the sight of this manifest and appalling miracle, thus following the denunciation of the apostle, the proconsul was so struck, that he no longer delayed for a moment his profession of faith in the religion whose power was thus attested, but believed in the doctrine of Jesus, as communicated by his apostles.
"Seleucia was a little north-west of Antioch, upon the Mediterranean sea, named
from its founder, Seleucus.—Cyprus, so called from the flower of the Cypress-trees
growing there.—Pliny, lib. xii. cap. 24.—Eustath. In Dionys. p. 110. It was an island,
having on the east the Syrian, on the west the Pamphylian, on the south the
Phoenician, on the north the Cilician sea. It was celebrated among the heathens
for its fertility as being sufficiently provided with all things within itself. Strabo,
lib. xiv. 468, 469. It was very infamous for the worship of Venus, who had thence
her name [Greek: Kypris]. It was memorable among the Jews as being an island in which
they so much abounded; and among Christians for being the place where Joses,
called Barnabas, had the land he sold, Acts iv. 36; and where Mnason, an old disciple,
lived; Acts xxi. 16.—(Whitby's Table.) Salamis was once a famous city of
Cyprus, opposite to Seleucia, on the Syrian coast.—(Wells.) It was in the eastern
