BAEBAEIAX
BAE-JESUS
137
of faith (He IP^). He was one of those "who 6ia TvLffTeus 'waxed mighty in war, turned to flight armies of aliens' (11**). James Steahan.
BARBARIAN.— The Greeks of the age of in- dependence divided mankind into two classes — Hellenes or Greeks, and Barbarians, the latter term having a special reference to those who did not speak the Greek language and were thus un- intelligible to the inhabitants of Hellas. The word itself is almost certainly onomatopoetic, being an imitation of the way in which the peoples seemed to speak. It occurs for the first time in Homer {II. ii. 867), and is used of the Carians (Kapes pap!3ap6^uvoi). Plato divides the human race into Hellenes and Barbarians [Polit. 262 D). Even the Eomans called themselves Barbarians till Greek literature came to be naturalized in Rome ; and both Philo and Josephus regard the Jews and their tongue as barbarous. By and by the word came to be used as descriptive of all the defects wliich the Greeks thought foreign to them- selves and natural to all other peoples, but the first and the main idea conveyed by the term is that of difi'erence of language.
In the NT history of the early Church we find the term used in four dill'erent places. — (1) In Ac 28-"^ it is applied by St. Luke to the Phcenician inhabitants of Malta, perhaps ■with a slight hint of contempt on the part of the author, (2) The Apostle Paul in 1 Co 14^^ refers to the ecstatic speaking with tongues, and declares that if any speak in an unknown tongue, ' I shall be to him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh will be a barbarian unto me.' Here the word is used in the original sense of one who speaks in an unknown tongue. (3) In the statement (Ko 1"), ' I am a debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians,' St Paul uses the common conventional division of mankind; and, like Philo and Josephus, classes the Jews among the Barbarians. (4) In Col 3^^ we have a looser use of the term ' Greek and Jew , . . barbarian and Scythian.' The Apostle has been speaking of the abolition of all distinction in the otter of the gospel, and the classes selected are not mutually exclusive but mentioned with refer- ence to heresies in the Colossian Church (cf. J. B. Lightfoot, Colossians^, 1879, p. 216). The Apostle otters the gospel not merely to learned Greeks but to barbarians, and even to Scythians, who are popularly regarded as the lowest type of this class.
Literature. — Grimm-Thayer, g.v. ; see also artt. in HDB and EBi. W, F, BOYD.
BAR-JESUS.— In Ac 13« Bar-Jesus is described as *a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew' whom Barnabas and Paul found at Paphos in the retinue of the proconsul in Cyprus. The comparison of him with ' the modern gipsy teller of fortunes ' is ' misleading and gives a false idea of the influence exerted on the Roman world by Oriental person- ages like this Magian ' (Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, 78) ; nor can he be called an impostor. He was a representative of a class of men, very numerous in that day, ' skilled in the lore and uncanny arts and strange powers of the Median priests' (cf. HDB, art. 'Barjesus'), who possessed a familiarity with the forces of Nature not shared by their fellows, and which was commonly re- garded as supernatural in its origin. They were both magicians and men of science ; moreover, their system presented a religious aspect to the world. The presence of an influential exponent of such a current religious and philosophical system in the train of the comites of a Roman governor was quite natural ; nor is there any need to suppose that Sergius Paulus (who was ' a man of under- standing') was dominated by the Magian in any
other sense than that Bar- Jesus had considerable influence and credit with his patron — an influence he was able to turn to his own private advantage. Hearing of Barnabas and Paul as travelling teachers in tiie island, the governor, a highly educated man, interested in science and philosophy, invited them to his court. He listened with such pleasure to their exposition that it became clear to all his reti- nue that they were making a marked eflect on him. This was a challenge to Bar-Jesus, who had been the dominant religious influence in the court. He took steps to minimize the eflect and to retain the governor's interest in himself and his system. The challenge was accepted by Paul, who superseded Barnabas as the chief Christian protagonist at this point. Special interest attached to the incident as an early but typical case of the meeting of two religious systems; it was the first collision of Christianity with the great religious force of Magianism, The result was a striking manifesta- tion of the superior power residing in the Christian missionary, by which Bar-Jesus was struck blind for a season, and which deeply impressed the pro- consul in favour of Christianity.
A phrase occurs in v.^ which has caused perplex- ity : ' Eljmias the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation).' All attempts to explain Elymas as the interpretation of Bar-Jesus have failed. This has been used to discredit the historicity of the narrative. Thus Schmiedel says it suggests the 'amalgamation of two sources,' and illustrates the tendency of Acts to establish a ' parallelism between Peter and Paul' {EBi i. 480 f.) — a theory urged by Weizsacker, who considers this portion of Acts ' is far from being historical ' (i. 275, 239-240), and finds a proof of double authorship in the use of the two names ' Saul who is also called Paul.' But Ramsay has explained the latter usage most convincingly. It was the fashion in bilingual countries to have two names, the native and the Greek, Amongst JeAvish surroundings Paul's Jew- ish name ' Saul ' was used naturally ; but ' by a marvellous stroke of historic brevity ' (Ramsay, 83) the author sets forth by a formula how in the court ot the Roman governor, when the Apostle challenged the system represented by Bar-Jesus, he stood forth as Paul the Roman citizen, a freeborn member of that Greek-Roman world to which he carried his universal gospel. Does not the same ex- planation hold good for his opponent ? Bar- Jesus is a Jewish name — the name of ' a Jew, a false prophet.' Elymas is the man's Greek name. It is the Greek form of an Arab word alim meaning ' wise,' and 6 iJ.a.yos ('the sorcerer,' AV and RV) is its transla- tion. From the Jewish point of view the encounter was between Saul the Jewish teacher and Bar-Jesus the Jewish prophet. From the wider point of view it was between Paul the Roman citizen who championed Christianity, and Elymas the Greek philosopher and magician. It was not only Bar- Jesus the Jewish false prophet whom Paul blinded, but Elymas the Magian, the representative of that Oriental theosophy which Christianity was destined to meet so often. Luke the historian has special interest in describing the first encounter between the systems, and the signal victory won by the Christian Apostle over one who practised the occult arts. Paul probably shared the opinion of educated Judaism, that magic was associated with idolatry and the realm of darkness, and was therefore to be shunned as demoniacal. This explains the vigour of his denunciation.