Acts 19:13

Acts 19:13. Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits. There were, as heathen writers tell us, numbers of these Jews in various parts of the world, who wandered about trading on the credulity of men and women, professing to be magicians, fortune tellers, practising the exorcism of evil spirits. Among the Hebrew race there seems always to have existed a strange hankering after these dealings with unlawful arts, and we find in the Pentateuch repeated laws and enactments against these sorcerers, witches, dealers in enchantments, and the like. At the time of our Lord many of the Jewish exorcists pretended to possess a power of casting out evil spirits by some occult art, which they professed was derived from King Solomon. This legend Josephus relates in the following terms: ‘God enabled Solomon to learn the art of expelling demons; he left behind him the method of using exorcism by which demons are driven away so that they never return, and this manner of cure is of great power unto this day.' These impostors, seeing with their own eyes that Paul could really do what they only pretended to do, attempted to use what they fancied was his powerful incantation; powerful it was indeed, only they were ignorant how that glorious name alone could be used!