Acts 19:18 - Exposition

Many also of them that had believed for and many that believed, A.V.; confessing and declaring for and confessed and showed, A.V. Many also of them that had believed . This and the following verse speak of that class of converts who had previously been addicted to magic arts. It gives us a curious view of the extent to which magic prevailed among the Jews at this time. Nor was it less prevalent in heathen Ephesus. The magic formulae of Ephesus were famous under the name of ἐφέσια γράμματα , and the belief in magic seems to have been universal. Hesychius gives as the names of the oldest Ephesian charms, Aski, Kataski, Lix, Petrax, Damnameneus, AE sion, which he explains as meaning severally "Darkness, Light," "the Earth," "the Year," "the Truth".