[4] So they, sent forth by the holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and from there sailed to Cyprus. [5] When they arrived in Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. They had John also as their assistant. [6] When they had traveled through the whole island as far as Paphos, they met a magician named Bar-Jesus who was a Jewish false prophet. [7] He was with the proconsul Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who had summoned Barnabas and Saul and wanted to hear the word of God. [8] But Elymas the magician (for that is what his name means) opposed them in an attempt to turn the proconsul away from the faith.
(CCC 2110) The first commandment forbids honoring gods other than the one Lord who has revealed himself to his people. It proscribes superstition and irreligion. Superstition in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion; irreligion is the vice contrary by defect to the virtue of religion. (CCC 2117) All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity. (CCC 2118) God's first commandment condemns the main sins of irreligion: tempting God, in words or deeds, sacrilege, and simony.
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