THE title of “Proconsul”1 given to this insular governor is one of those minute touches of accuracy which occur on every page of the Acts of the Apostles.
It might have been a serious difficulty that the name of Sergius Paulus does not occur in the Fastiof the Consuls till long after this period,2 but the difficulty vanishes when we find that the title of Proconsul was given to the Governor of a senatorial province, whatever may have been his previous rank.3 But another and more serious difficulty was once urged. There were two kinds of provinces, the imperial and the senatorial, both of which were called Eparchies (ἐπαρχίαι). The imperial were those to which the governors were sent by the Emperor, because their circumstances involved the necessity of military command. Augustus, under pretence of relieving the Senate from the burden of the more disturbed provinces, had astutely reserved for his personal administration those regions of the empire where the presence of an army was required. As the title Praetor (in Greek, Στρατηγὸς, or general) still retained some shadow of its old military significance, the Governors of these provinces were called Propraetors, or Ἀντιστρστηγοι, for which, in the New Testament, the more general term Ἡγεμών is often used. This Greek word for “Governor” serves as an equivalent both for “Procurator” and also for Praeses or Legatus, which was, for instance, the ordinary designation of the Governor of Syria. These Praesides, Legati, or Propraetors held their commands at the Emperor’s pleasure, and, especially in the reign of Tiberius, were often left for years undisturbed in their tenure of office. The Proconsuls, or Ἀνθύπατοι, on the other hand, who were appointed by the Senate, only held their posts for a single year. Now it appears from Strabo that when, in B.C. 27, Augustus divided the provinces between himself and the Senate, Cyprus was reserved as one of the imperial districts (στρατηγικὴ ἐπαρχία), and with this Dion Cassius agrees.4 Consequently even eminent writers like Grotius thought that St. Luke had here fallen into an error; and Baronius supposes that Cyprus must at this time have been an honorary adjunct to the Proconsulship of Cilicia, while Grotius suggests that Greek flattery might have often given to a Propraetor the more distinguished title of Proconsul, and that St. Luke might have used it in accordance with the common parlance. But a little more research has resulted in the discovery that though Cyprus originally was an imperial province, and ultimately reverted to the same condition, yet Augustus restored both it and Gallia Narbonensis to the Senate in exchange for Dalmatia, because he found that they did not need the presence of many soldiers.5 And to set the matter finally at rest, copper coins and inscriptions of this very epoch have been found at Curium and Citium in which the title of Proconsul is given to Cominius Proclus, Julius Cordus, and L. Aunus Bassus, who must have been immediate predecessors or successors of Sergius Paulus.6
The name Sergius Paulus is itself interesting. Of this particular Proconsul, indeed, we know nothing beyond the eulogy of the sacred historian that he was a man of sense,7 and that he was deeply impressed by the teaching of St. Paul. But Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, three times refers to a Sergius Paulus as a person interested in intelligent researches; and it is not impossible that this Sergius Paulus may be none other than our Cyprian Proconsul.8 If so, the character given him in one passing word by St. Luke will be confirmed, and we feel additional pleasure in tracing similar characteristics in others of the same name who may well have been his descendants; for instance, in the Sergius Paulus who, more than a hundred years afterwards, receives the encomium of the physician Galen for his eminence both as a theoretic and a practical philosopher.9