[77] _And they had also John to their minister_, 13:5. What _John_ was this? Answer, see chap. 15:37 to 40. This appears to have been that John, whose surname was Mark, who was the cause of the angry separation of Paul from Barnabas. [78] Another branch of his trade, already mentioned in this same chapter, as having been carried on by him in this same place, namely, Ephesus,--and which, where circumstances created a demand for the article, appears to have been more profitable than that of expelling devils or diseases,--is _that_, of which the Holy Ghost was the subject. This power of conferring--that is to say, of being thought to confer--the Holy Ghost,--such, and of such sort was the value of it, that Simon Magus, as there may be occasion to mention in another chapter, had, not less than one-and-twenty years before this, offered the Apostles money for it. Acts 8:18-24, A.D. 34. This power, two preceding verses of the same 19th chapter, namely the 5th and 6th, represent Paul as exercising: and, whatsoever was the benefit derived, twelve is the number of the persons here spoken of as having received it. Acts 19:5-7. After "they," the above twelve, v. 7, disciples, v. 9, "were baptized, v. 5, in the name of the Lord Jesus;" when Paul, v. 6, "had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied." Here then, if, by thus laying on of hands, it is by _Paul_ that any operation is performed, it is the conferring of "the Holy Ghost." But this power, whence had Paul received it? Not from Jesus, had the self-constituted Apostle received this gift, whatever it was, any more than he had baptism, by which ceremony, as appears from Acts 8:16, it was regularly preceded: as in the case of the magician it actually had been. Not from Jesus: no such thing is anywhere so much as pretended. Not from the Apostles, or any of them; from two, for example, by commission from the rest--as in the case of Peter and John, Acts 8:14-19:--no such thing is anywhere so much as pretended. In no such persons could this--would this--their self-declared superior, have vouchsafed to acknowledge the existence, of a power in which he had no share. On this occasion, as on every other, independently of the Apostles did he act, and in spite of the Apostles.