Exorcisms & Failed Sorcery
5 documented wonders in the chamber of Exorcisms & Failed Sorcery — each with its place, its period and the sources behind it.
Exorcisms & Failed Sorcery · c. AD 53–55, during Paul's third missionary journey
The Sons of Sceva
In Ephesus, seven sons of a Jewish chief priest tried to expel a demon by invoking the name of Jesus as a magic formula, without faith or the Spirit who alone gives that Name its power; the possessed man overpowered and stripped them, and the terrified city burned its books of magic. The episode revealed that Christ's name cannot be wielded as a spell.
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Exorcisms & Failed Sorcery · c. AD 34–36, shortly after the martyrdom of Stephen
Simon Magus
Simon, a sorcerer who had astonished Samaria with magic, believed and was baptized under Philip's preaching, but then offered Peter and John money to purchase the power of imparting the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands. Peter rebuked him sharply, and the sorcerer's name became the root of the word 'simony,' the buying or selling of what belongs to God alone.
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Exorcisms & Failed Sorcery · c. AD 49-51, during Paul's second missionary journey
The Slave Girl at Philippi
In the Roman colony of Philippi, a slave girl possessed by a spirit of divination followed Paul and his companions for many days, proclaiming true words about their mission until Paul, wearied by an endorsement from an alien source, cast the spirit out in the name of Jesus Christ; her enslavers, their profit from her divination gone, had Paul and Silas beaten and imprisoned.
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Exorcisms & Failed Sorcery · c. AD 45-47, during Paul's first missionary journey
Elymas the Sorcerer
On Cyprus, the sorcerer Bar-Jesus, called Elymas, opposed Paul before the proconsul Sergius Paulus and tried to turn him from the faith; Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, denounced him and struck him with temporary blindness measured to match the darkness he had sold to others, and the astonished proconsul believed the teaching of the Lord.
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Exorcisms & Failed Sorcery · First century AD, during and after Christ's Galilean ministry
Mary Magdalene and the Seven Demons
Luke and Mark record that seven demons went out of Mary of Magdala, who became a woman of means supporting Christ's ministry, stood at the cross when most had fled, and was the first witness of the Resurrection; medieval Western tradition wrongly conflated her with the sinful woman of Luke 7 and with Mary of Bethany, a conflation the 1969 Roman Calendar reform corrected.
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