Acts 13:7

Acts 13:7. The deputy of the country. The word rendered ‘deputy' is the Greek term for the Latin ‘proconsul.' In the Roman empire there were two classes of provincial governments. The one class was under the direction of the senate and people. In these senatorial provinces the presence of an armed force was not supposed to be needed to ensure a peaceful administration. The rulers of these peaceful provinces were termed proconsuls; they carried with them into their governments the ensigns of a consul, the lictors and the fasces. These held office at first only for a year, but this restriction was after a time relaxed, and these governors remained five years, or longer, in office. Such a province was Cyprus.

The other class of provinces less peaceful, as it was supposed, needing the presence of a military force to preserve order were governed by a military officer styled a ‘propraetor' or ‘legatus,' appointed by and removed at the pleasure of the emperor. Syria was a province of this description. The sub - districts of these ‘imperial' provinces were under the charge of procurators. Judea, at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, was under the charge of one of these, the procurator Pontius Pilate, whose commanding officer was the legatus of Syria.

Sergius Paulus. Nothing certain is known of this Roman official. Renan (St. Paul, chap. 1) suggests that he may fairly be identified with the naturalist of this name mentioned by Pliny.

A prudent man better rendered a ‘man of understanding.' The proconsul was one of those many high-class Romans of that period, who, finding no satisfaction in the strange, fantastic system of idolatry at Rome and the East, sought for a nobler faith. It was this restless, uneasy spirit which led Sergius Paulus, while seeking truth, to make a friend of the wandering Magian Elymas, who professed to be a Jew one of that strange nation which claimed for ages the title of the exclusive servants of the one true God.