Sceva

a Jew, and chief of the priests, Act 19:14-16. He was probably a person of authority in the synagogue at Ephesus, and had seven sons.

A Jew at Ephesus, a leader among the priests, perhaps the head of one of the twenty-four courses. His seven sons pretended to practice exorcism, and presumed to call on evil spirits to come out from persons possessed, in the name of Jesus. Their ignominious discomfiture by a man possessed by and evil spirit, promoted the cause of the gospel at Ephesus, Mal 19:14-16 .\par

Sce’va. A Jew, residing at Ephesus, at the time of St. Paul’s second visit to that town. Act 19:14-16. (A.D. 52).

A "chief priest", i.e. once having been high priest, or else chief of the priests at Ephesus, or of one of the 24 courses. His seven sons, Jews, exorcised demons in Jesus’ name, whereupon the demon-possessed leaped on two of them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded: (Act 19:14-16; the Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Alexandrinus manuscripts read "prevailed against both".)

[Sce’va]

A Jew at Ephesus, a chief of the priests, whose seven sons sought by the name of Jesus to cast out a demon. The demon acknowledged that he knew Jesus and Paul, but demanded "Who are ye?" and then by means of the possessed man attacked them, so that they fled away naked and wounded. Act 19:14-16. Here Satan showed his power as the ’strong man.’ The One stronger than he would not let His power be used by these men.

SCEVA.—At Ephesus, where St. Paul worked ‘special powers’ (Act 19:11 ff.), certain itinerant Jews (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘strolling’ perhaps conveys too much the idea of ‘vagabond’) endeavoured to exorcise evil spirits by naming over them the name of Jesus. Among them were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish ‘chief priest’ (probably one of the high-priestly family). In Act 19:16 the demoniac overcomes ‘both of them’ (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ). Sceva himself is not said to have been present. The incident led to many conversions, and several brought and destroyed their books of magic.

There is a difficulty in the text. Seven sons are mentioned in Act 19:14, and these are reduced to two in Act 19:16. Perhaps St. Luke is here abbreviating a written source which detailed the incident more fully, and explained that two out of the seven sons tried to exorcise this particular demon. Inferior MSS (followed by AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ) substitute ‘them’ for ‘both of them,’ and the Bezan Codex (D [Note: Deuteronomist.] ) omits the word ‘seven’ altogether, calls Sceva merely ‘a priest,’ and adds other phrases which are expansions of our text. But these seem to be but explanations of a difficult original text; and the RV [Note: Revised Version.] is probably correct. The word ‘seven’ could never have been inserted if it were not St. Luke’s.

Prof. Ramsay thinks that the whole passage is unworthy of Luke (St. Paul the Traveller⁶, p. 272f.). But it is unsafe to judge first-century thought by that of our own day. The Apostolic age firmly believed in possession by evil spirits; and there is really nothing in this chapter unlike what we read elsewhere in NT.

A. J. Maclean.

sē´va (Σκευᾶ, Skeuá): A Jew, a chief priest, resident in Ephesus, whose seven sons were exorcists (Act 19:14 ff). Ewald regards the name as being Hebrew sh^ekhabhyāh. He was not an officiating priest, as there were only synagogues in Asia Minor. He may have belonged to a high-priestly family, or perhaps at one time he had been at the head of one of the 24 courses in the temple.

In the narrative the construction is loose. There were seven sons (Act 19:14), and it would appear (Act 19:16) that in this particular case all were present. But (Act 19:16) the demon-possessed man over-powered “both of them.” Textus Receptus of the New Testament gets over the difficulty by omitting “both,” but Codices Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus, Bezae, so Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, von Soden, and the best critics, retain the difficult reading. The explanation is that Act 19:14 states the custom: “who did this” being hoi toúto poioúntes, “who used to do this.” Act 19:15 and Act 19:16 state a particular case in which two took part, but the incident is introduced in a careless manner.

Ewald would translate amphotérōn as “in both sides,” but this is impossible. Baur understood “disciples” for “sons.” Codex Bezae and Syriac have an interesting expansion which Blass considers original (Act 19:14): “Among whom also the sons (Syriac ’seven’) of a certain Sceva, a priest, wished to do the same, (who) were in the custom of exorcising such. And entering into the demon-possessed man they began to call upon the Name, saying, ’We charge you by Jesus whom Paul preaches to come out.’ “

See Exorcism.