sergius paulus Summary and Overview

a "prudent man" (R.V., "man of understanding"), the deputy (R.V., "proconsul") of Cyprus (Acts 13:6-13). He became a convert to Christianity under Paul, who visited this island on his first mission to the heathen. A remarkable memorial of this proconsul was recently (1887) discovered at Rome. On a boundary stone of Claudius his name is found, among others, as having been appointed (A.D. 47) one of the curators of the banks and the channel of the river Tiber. After serving his three years as proconsul at Cyprus, he returned to Rome, where he held the office referred to. As he is not saluted in Paul's letter to the Romans, he probably died before it was written.

was the proconsul of Cyprus when the apostle Paul visited that island with Barnabas on his first missionary tour. #Ac 13:7| seq. (A.D. 44.) He is described as an intelligent man, truth-seeking, eager for information from all sources within his reach. Though at first admitting to his society Elymas the magician, he afterward, on becoming acquainted with the claims of the gospel, yielded his mind to the evidence of its truth.

SER'GIUS PAU'LUS , the proconsul or deputy governor of Cyprus at the time of Paul and Barnabas' visit. He showed his intelligence and candor by sending for the apostles and accepting the overthrow of Elymas, the sorcerer, as demonstration of the overthrow of the creed Elymas represented. He embraced the gospel. Acts 13:7, Jud 4:12. Some think the apostle Paul took this name instead of Saul, in compliment to his distinguished convert: which is improbable. It is a proof of Luke's minute accuracy that he calls Sergius Paulus a proconsul because the island had been governed by a propraetor during the reign of Augustus, but in the reign of Claudius, the time of the visit, as is proved by coins, it was under proconsular government.

Proconsul of Cyprus, when Paul and Barnabas visited it on their first missionary circuit (Acts 13:7). (See CYPRUS; PAUL; PROVINCE; DEPUTY; ELYMAS.) He was at first under the influence of Elymas, but being "a prudent man" (i.e. intelligent and searching for the truth), he called for Barnabas and Paul, and having heard the word of God, and having seen the miraculous infliction of blindness on the sorcerer, "believed, being astonished at the (divine power accompanying the) doctrine of the Lord."