The Failed Exorcism by the Sons of Sceva is an episode in Acts 19:13–17 in which seven itinerant exorcists attempt to drive out an evil spirit by invoking the name of Jesus, without belonging to the community that bears that name. The spirit’s reply—“Jesus I know and Paul I know; but who are you?”—exposes the gap between borrowing a name and possessing the power the exorcists claim. The attempt ends in their defeat and flight, making the incident a sharp contrast with the believers who turn away from magic in the aftermath.

Background and Participants

The episode takes place in the account of the movement in Ephesus. Its central figures are seven itinerant exorcists identified as children of the high priest Sceva. Exorcists and other charismatic miracle workers often traveled from place to place. The account thus presents their action as one instance of a wider practice, rather than as a ministry rooted in the local community.

The book also notes a complication in the exorcists’ identification: Jewish records remember no high priest named Sceva. The narrative nevertheless identifies the seven by that title and kinship, while its emphasis falls on what they do—attempting to invoke Jesus’ name in an exorcism.

The exorcists act in a culture where many people believed that knowing a spirit’s name gave a person access to its power. Their use of Jesus’ name belongs to this logic of spiritual leverage: they treat the name as something that can be deployed to achieve a desired effect. The episode’s interpretation, however, distinguishes that approach from the name’s place in the community of the Realm.

The Attempt and Its Reversal

The seven try to exorcise a person by invoking the name of Jesus. The account sets their attempt against the fact that they are not members of the community of the Realm. In its theological reading, this makes them imposters: they claim the name without sharing in the community to which it belongs.

The spirit answers, “Jesus I know and Paul I know; but who are you?” The brief reply reverses the exorcists’ attempted show of authority. Rather than accepting their invocation as effective, the spirit distinguishes Jesus and Paul from the seven who are trying to use their names. The story’s turn is not simply that the exorcism fails; the claimants themselves are exposed as powerless.

The person inhabited by the spirit then overpowers the seven, and they flee. In the book’s account, they are left overpowered and naked. Their promised result—freedom from demonic power—does not materialize; instead, the force they sought to command overwhelms them. The episode presents this reversal without depicting the confrontation in detail.

Name, Power, and the Community

The episode turns on competing understandings of power. The exorcists treat the name of Jesus as a means of controlling a spirit, consistent with the wider belief that knowledge of a spirit’s name grants access to its power. The book’s interpretation instead locates Jesus’ name within the community of the Realm. The exorcists’ failure follows from the contrast between claiming the name as a technique and participating in the community whose witness it signifies.

This contrast also shapes the episode’s account of the old age and the Realm. Though the exorcists are not described as inhabited by demons, the interpretation says they behave as creatures of the old age: they try to handle the name in the very mode of manipulation the story rejects. Their defeat becomes a warning about promising the Realm’s gifts without being able to deliver them.

The episode’s challenge is not confined to its seven figures. The book suggests that the congregation can ask whether ideas, behaviors, or groups in its own setting promise freedom while lacking the means to offer it. The exorcists’ fate gives that question a consequence: their attempt to control demonic power by an old-age method makes them victims of the power they sought to manipulate. The interpretation stresses that God does not destroy them; their false behavior brings about its own destruction.

Aftermath and Contrast

The next movement of the account contrasts the exorcists’ fate with the response of those who believe. The seven are overpowered and flee; the believers are filled with awe and give up magic. They gather the books containing the spells and formulas used in magical practice and burn them publicly.

The scale of that renunciation is specified: the books are valued at fifty thousand silver coins. Since one silver coin was worth one day’s wages, the sum conveys the magnitude of what the believers destroy. They do not sell the books. The interpretation understands their decision as an effort to remove the temptation to return to the old-age behavior represented by magic.

The episode therefore ends not with the failed exorcists regaining authority, but with a communal change in practice. The believers’ public destruction of the books provides a counter-image to the seven’s attempt to wield spiritual power: rather than trying to possess and manipulate it, they relinquish the materials associated with their former practice. Their response marks a change in allegiance as well as a concrete consequence of the incident.