A false prophet, spoken of Acts 13. 6. His name signifies, the son of Jesus.
or, according to some copies, BAR-JEU, was a Jewish magician in the island of Crete, Act 13:6. St. Luke calls him Elymas. He was with the pro-consul Sergius Paulus, who, sending for Paul and Barnabas, desired to hear the word of God. Bar-Jesus endeavouring to hinder the pro-consul from embracing Christianity, Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, “set his eyes upon him, and said, O full of all subtilty and mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? Behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season;” which took place immediately. The pro-consul, who saw this miracle, was converted. Origen and Chrysostom think that Elymas, or Bar-Jesus, was converted likewise; and that St. Paul speedily restored his sight.
Bar-Je´sus [ELYMAS]
See ELYMAS.\par
Bar-je’sus. (son of Jesus). See Elymas.
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Bar-Jesus (bär’jç’sus), son of Jesus. A Jewish magician in Crete, who opposed Paul and Barnabas, endeavoring to prevent Sergius Paulus from embracing Christianity, and was struck blind, "not seeing the sun for a season." This affliction, as the Greek achlus implies, was rather an obscuration than a total extinction of sight. He is also called "Elymas" = a magician, a sorcerer. Act 13:6-12.
("son of Jesu or Joshua"):
By: Crawford Howell Toy, Kaufmann Kohler
A Jewish magician described in Acts xiii. 6-11 as a "sorcerer, a false prophet," who, when Paul and Barnabas came to Cyprus, was found in the company of Sergius Paulus, the Roman proconsul. He also bore the title of "Elymas" (= sorcerer; perhaps related to 
, Deut. xiii. 2; explained also from the Arabic alim = wise). He opposed Paul in his attempt to convert the proconsul; whereupon Paul, "filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him," and cursed him with temporary blindness, calling him "son of the Devil" ("Ben Belial"); and "immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness," and he had to be led by the hand. The proconsul, "when he saw what was done," was converted. Simon Magus, to whom Bar Jesus bears a striking resemblance, is apparently the person mentioned by Josephus ("Ant." xx. 7, § 2), as "Simon . . . a Jew, born in Cyprus," who "pretended to be a magician," one of the friends of Felix, the procurator of Judea, and employed by him to seduce Drusilla from her husband, Azizus, king of Emesa. The same Simon Magus occurs in the story of Peter the Apostle (Acts viii. 20-24), of which the Paul story obviously forms a counterpart. New Testament critics therefore doubt the authenticity of the whole story (see Holzmann, on Acts xiii., and P. W. Schmiedel, in "Encyc. Bibl.")
The Syriac, taking offense at "Son of Jesus" being called "Son of the Devil," has changed the name "Bar Jesus" into "Bar Shuma" (Son of the Name); one Latin translation has "Bar Jesuba," which again has led modern writers like August Klostermann to new conjectures.
Bibliography:
Cheyne, Encyc. Biblica, s.v.;
Hastings, Dict. of the Bible, s.v.
BAR-JESUS.—The name of ‘a certain Magian, a false prophet, a Jew’ (Act 13:6) whom St. Paul, on his visit to Cyprus, found in the retinue of Sergius Paulus, the Roman proconsul. The title Elymas (Act 13:8) is equivalent to Magus (Act 13:6), and is probably derived from an Arabic root signifying ‘wise.’ The knowledge of the Magians was half-mystical, half-scientific; amongst them were some devout seekers after truth, but many were mere tricksters. In the Apostolic age such men often acquired great influence, and Bar-jesus represents, as Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveller, p. 79) says, ‘the strongest influence on the human will that existed in the Roman world, an influence which must destroy or be destroyed by Christianity, if the latter tried to conquer the Empire.’ The narrative implies that the proconsul was too intelligent to be deceived by the Magian’s pretensions, the motive of whose opposition to the Christian teachers is expressed in a Bezan addition to Act 13:8, which states that Sergius Paulus ‘was listening with much pleasure to them.’ In St. Paul’s judgment on this false prophet (Act 13:10) there is a play upon words: Elymas was full of deceit and not of wisdom; Bar-jesus, i.e. ‘son of Jesus,’ had become a ‘son of the devil.’ This is Pauline (cf. Php 3:2).
J. G. Tasker.
The East was flooding the Roman Empire with its new and wonderful religious systems, which, culminating in neo-Platonism, were the great rivals of Christianity both in their cruder and in their more strictly religious forms. Superstition was extremely prevalent, and wonder-workers of all kinds, whether imposters or honest exponents of some new faith, found their task easy through the credulity of the public. Babylonia was the home of magic, for charms are found on the oldest tablets. “Magos” was originally applied to the priests of the Persians who overran Babylonia, but the title degenerated when it was assumed by baser persons for baser articles Juvenal (vi.562, etc.), Horace (Sat. i.2.1) and other Latin authors mention Chaldean astrologers and impostors, probably Babylonian Jews. Many of the Magians, however, were the scientists of their day, the heirs of the science of Babylon and the lore of Persia, and not merely pretenders or conjurers (see MAGIC). It may have been as the representative of some oriental system, a compound of “science” and religion, that Bar-Jesus was attached to the train of Sergius Paulus.
Both Sergius and Elymas had heard about the teaching of the apostles, and this aroused the curiosity of Sergius and the fear of Elymas. When the apostles came, obedient to the command of the proconsul, their doctrine visibly produced on him a considerable impression. Fearing lest his position of influence and gain would be taken by the new teachers, Elymas “withstood them, seeking to turn aside the proconsul from the faith” (Act 13:8). Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, worked a wonder on the wonder-worker by striking him blind with his word, Thus revealing to the proconsul that behind him was Divine power. Sergius Paulus believed, “being astonished at the teaching of the Lord” (Act 13:12).
In Act_13:6 Bar-Jesus is described as ‘a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew’ whom Barnabas and Paul found at Paphos in the retinue of the proconsul in Cyprus. The comparison of him with ‘the modern gipsy teller of fortunes’ is ‘misleading and gives a false idea of the influence exerted on the Roman world by Oriental person-ages like this Magian’ (Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, 78); nor can he be called an impostor. He was a representative of a class of men, very numerous in that day, ‘skilled in the lore and uncanny arts and strange powers of the Median priests’ (cf. Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) , article ‘Barjesus’), who possessed a familiarity with the forces of Nature not shared by their fellows, and which was commonly regarded as supernatural in its origin. They were both magicians and men of science; moreover, their system presented a religious aspect to the world. The presence of an influential exponent of such a current religious and philosophical system in the train of the comites of a Roman governor was quite natural; nor is there any need to suppose that Sergius Paulus (who was ‘a man of understanding’) was dominated by the Magian in any other sense than that Bar-Jesus had considerable influence and credit with his patron-on influence he was able to turn to his own private advantage. Hearing of Barnabas and Paul as travelling teachers in the island, the governor, a highly educated man, interested in science and philosophy, invited them to his court. He listened with such pleasure to their exposition that it became clear to all his retinue that they were making a marked effect on him. This was a challenge to Bar-Jesus, who had been the dominant religious influence in the court. He took steps to minimize the effect and to retain the governor’s interest in himself and his system. The challenge was accepted by Paul, who superseded Barnabas as the chief Christian protagonist at this point. Special interest attached to the incident as an early but typical case of the meeting of two religious systems; it was the first collision of Christianity with the great religious force of Magianism. The result was a striking manifestation of the superior power residing in the Christian missionary, by which Bar-Jesus was struck blind for a season, and which deeply impressed the proconsul in favour of Christianity.
A phrase occurs in Act_13:8 which has caused perplexity: ‘Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation).’ All attempts to explain Elymas as the interpretation of Bar-Jesus have failed. This has been used to discredit the historicity of the narrative. Thus Schmiedel says it suggests the ‘amalgamation of two sources,’ and illustrates the tendency of Acts to establish a ‘parallelism between Peter and Paul’ (Encyclopaedia Biblica i. 480f.)-a theory urged by Weizsäcker, who considers this portion of Acts ‘is far from being historical’ (i. 275, 239-240), and finds a proof of double authorship in the use of the two names ‘Saul who is also called Paul.’ But Ramsay has explained the latter usage most convincingly. It was the fashion in bilingual countries to have two names, the native and the Greek. Amongst Jewish surroundings Paul’s Jewish name ‘Saul’ was used naturally; but ‘by a marvellous stroke of historic brevity’ (Ramsay, 83) the author sets forth by a formula how in the court of the Roman governor, when the Apostle challenged the system represented by Bar-Jesus, he stood forth as Paul the Roman citizen, a freeborn member of that Greek-Roman world to which he carried his universal gospel. Does not the same explanation hold good for his opponent? Bar-Jesus is a Jewish name-the name of ‘a Jew, a false prophet.’ Elymas is the man’s Greek name. It is the Greek form of an Arab word alîm meaning ‘wise,’ and ὁ ìÜãïò (‘the sorcerer,’ Authorized Version and Revised Version ) is its translation. From the Jewish point of view the encounter was between Saul the Jewish teacher and Bar-Jesus the Jewish prophet. From the wider point of view it was between Paul the Roman citizen who championed Christianity, and Elymas the Greek philosopher and magician. It was not only Bar-Jesus the Jewish false prophet whom Paul blinded, but Elymas the Magian, the representative of that Oriental theosophy which Christianity was destined to meet so often. Luke the historian has special interest in describing the first encounter between the systems, and the signal victory won by the Christian Apostle over one who practised the occult arts. Paul probably shared the opinion of educated Judaism, that magic was associated with idolatry and the realm of darkness, and was therefore to be shunned as demoniacal. This explains the vigour of his denunciation.
Literature.-articles in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) on ‘Barjesus’ (Massie) and ‘Magic’ (Whitehouse), and in Encyclopaedia Biblica (Schmiedel) on ‘Barjesus’; W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, London, 1895, pp. 73-88 (cf. Was Christ born in Bethlehem?, do. 1898, p. 54); C. v. Weizsäcker, Apostolic Age, i.2 do. 1897, pp. 80, 111, 240, 274; A. C. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, Edinburgh, 1897, pp. 174-176; Expositor’s Greek Testament on ‘Acts,’ 1900, p. 287.
J. E. Roberts.