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picture by a man of the people of the life of the people.
In the Acts we hear a good deal about magic: we have two sorcerers, Simon and Elymas. But the most remarkable example is the curious story in the 19th chapter. Here we first find some Jews acting as 'exorcists,' practising, that is, a comparatively innocent and beneficent form of magic against evil demons, and attempting to use the name of Jesus with disastrous results to themselves. And this so impresses the inhabitants of Ephesus, that they determine in large numbers to give up magical practices, and bring their magical books to be burnt, the writer adding the curious fact that their value was definitely estimated at over £1700 of our money. An interesting touch is added by the statement that many of the converts to Christianity were fain to confess that they had been dabbling in magic, shewing, what indeed we might expect, that the ordinary convert did not at once throw off his original superstitions. In all this there is no word of astrology. It is possible indeed that as 'mage' was a term used indifferently for sorcerer and astrologer, we may be intended to understand that Simon and Elymas combined both arts, and the Ephesian books may have included astrological spells, like those mentioned at the end of the last section. But this is a very different thing from formal or scientific astrology, and the complete absence of this in the Acts goes
