Elymas (Bar-Jesus)

When was Elymas active?

Elymas (Bar-Jesus) is dated fl. AD 47 (death unrecorded) in the archive, which places Elymas in the Apostolic Age (AD 4–70).

Which early sources mention Elymas?

Elymas (Bar-Jesus) is named in 2 primary-source passages catalogued here, drawn from Luke and John Chrysostom. Every passage is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.

Where was Elymas from?

The archive associates Elymas (Bar-Jesus) with Paphos, Cyprus. The sources record more than one location, so the places are listed in the order the record moves through them.

Who were Elymas’ contemporaries?

The archive links Elymas (Bar-Jesus) to 4 other figures, including Paul of Tarsus, Barnabas of Cyprus, Simon Magus and Sergius Paulus. Each connection is drawn from a source that places them together, not from inference.

O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?

Again a Jew sorcerer, as was Simon. And observe this man, how, while they preached to the others, he did not take it much amiss, but only when they approached the proconsul. … He shows how justly the man deserved to suffer, by his saying, “O full of all deceit”: nothing wanting to the full measure: and he well says, of all “deceit,” for the man was playing the part of a hypocrite. “Child of the devil,” because he was doing his work. … His words were not prompted by anger, and to show this, the writer premises, “filled with the Holy Ghost,” that is, with His operation. … It was the sign by which he was himself converted, and by this he would fain convert this man. As also that expression, “for a season” (ἄχρι καιροῦ), puts it not as an act of punishing, but as meant for his conversion: had it been for punishment, he would have made him lastingly blind, but now it is not so, but “for a season” — and this, that he may gain the proconsul. … It was not vengeance then, but healing: for it is as though he said, “It is not I that do it, but the hand of God.” Mark how unassuming! No “light,” as in the case of Paul, “shone round about him.” … “Thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun”: this was a sign of the blindness of his soul. [Chrysostom reads the blindness as medicinal and aimed at Elymas’s own conversion. The NPNF editor demurs, holding that the Hebraism “the hand of the Lord” (Χεὶρ Κυρίου) marks a judicial act against Elymas, and that Chrysostom’s merciful reading is what the proconsul was meant to see rather than the whole of what happened. Both readings are recorded; the archive does not choose between them.]