CONCERNING SAINT PHILIP, ONE OF THE FIRST SEVEN DEACONS,
BISHOP OF THE TRALLIANS IN ASIA.
SECTION I.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Concerning his deeds, and the Eunuch baptized by him, his Episcopate, and his cult.
Philip, one of the first seven Deacons, at Caesarea in Palestine (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
After the Evangelist Luke, in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter VI, had set forth the reason for ordaining the first Deacons in the Church; and among them had named Philip first after S. Stephen, and the other five in order; concerning these latter indeed he makes no further mention, but concerning the first two he makes much; and just as in Chapter VII he explains at length the preaching and martyrdom of Stephen, so he devotes a good part of Chapter VIII to Philip. After the faith was preached in Samaria;
Concerning him, then, he relates how, when all the Disciples except the Apostles had been dispersed through the regions of Judaea and Samaria, and were evangelizing throughout them, Philip, going down into Samaria, preached Christ to them. And the multitudes gave heed with one accord to those things which were spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the signs which he did. For many of those who had unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out: and many that were paralytic and lame were healed. And so there was great joy in that city … and men and women were baptized. Then Simon Magus also himself believed, and clung to Philip, until Peter exposed his hypocrisy.
[2] When these and John had returned to Jerusalem, an Angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying: he is carried by the spirit to the Eunuch, Arise, and go toward the south, to the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. And rising, he went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a Eunuch, of great authority under Candace (in Greek δυναστὴς Κανδάκης) Queen of the Ethiopians, who was over all her treasures, had come to worship in Jerusalem; and he was returning, sitting upon his chariot, and reading the Prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip: Go near, and join thyself to that chariot. And Philip, running up, heard him reading the Prophet Isaiah; and he said, Thinkest thou, and instructs and baptizes him; dost thou understand what thou readest? And he said, And how can I, unless someone shew me? And he besought Philip to come up and sit with him … And Philip, opening his mouth … preached unto him Christ. And as they went on the way, they came to a certain water; and the Eunuch said: Behold water: what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with thy whole heart, thou mayest. And answering he said: I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the Eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, and the Eunuch saw him no more; but he went on his way rejoicing.
[3] The Menologium of Basil Porphyrogenitus, relating these same things, explains thus: He was in the city of Joppe, from the journey by which they both went to Gaza, preaching Christ; and at the exhortation of the most holy Spirit, going from Joppe toward the city of Gaza, he met the Dynast of the Queen of the Ethiopians, who was a Eunuch, and was called Candace, seated upon a chariot of horses, and reading the Prophet Isaiah.
And Philip was in the city of Joppe preaching Christ: and when at the admonition of the most holy Spirit he was going from Joppe into the city of Gaza, here he is wrongly said to be named Candax, he met a certain Dynast of the Queen of the Ethiopians, who was a Eunuch, and was named Candaces; and sitting upon a chariot of horses he was reading the Prophet Isaiah. That the Saint came from Joppe is not contrary to Scripture, since he could have turned aside from the journey by which he was going to Gaza onto the way which leads thither from Jerusalem; although both Joppe and Jerusalem, remote from one another by a space of fifteen hours, are distant from Gaza by almost an equal interval of twenty-three hours. It accords less with the sacred text that the Eunuch himself should have had the name Candax or Candaces; since that belongs to the Queen.
[4] The Synopsis concerning the Apostles and Disciples of the Lord, ascribed to Dorotheus of Tyre, says of the Eunuch that in Arabia Felix (for that the Queen Candace pertains hither, just as that ancient Queen of Saba, or of the Sabaeans, is the common and more probable opinion, he is better believed to have come from Sabaea of Arabia and the community or affinity of language with the Jews favors it) — it says, I say, of the aforesaid Eunuch, whatever Dorotheus may be, that in Arabia Felix and on the island of Taprobane, lying opposite India, and throughout the whole Erythra, that is, the regions lying near the Red Sea, he preached the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is also reported that he gloriously endured martyrdom, and was buried there: and his cemetery is an unconquerable monument to the faithful, and that he died there a Martyr, putting wicked barbarians to flight, driving away diseases, and working healings, even unto the present day. Thus he; with which there is no dissonance in what our Petrus Maffaeus writes in book 3 of his Indian Histories concerning the island of Ceylon, which is believed to be the Taprobane of the ancients; on its loftiest mountain, he says, there is the footprint of a man renowned for sanctity, to which pilgrims of all orders from more than a thousand leagues, and especially the Jogues (these are the Philosophers and Religious of the Indians, formerly called Brahmins) hasten for the sake of piety: and in that footprint, impressed upon a stone two cubits in size projecting like a table, there is an opinion, not indeed unlikely, that the Eunuch of Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, is venerated. And looking to this Apostolate of the Eunuch, crowned with martyrdom, the third Sticheron concerning S. Philip in the Menaea of the 11th of October congratulates S. Philip, that he himself instructed and baptized him whom — θεῖον κήρυκα, ὁ Πανουργὸς ἀπειργάσατο πάσης Αἰθιοπείας, καὶ Μαρτύρων ἀκροθίνιον — whom, I say, almighty God made a divine herald to all Ethiopia, and the first-fruits of the Martyrs, namely in that same Arabian Ethiopia. And I have related these things because the baptism of that Eunuch is indeed commemorated in the Menaea, by a simple distich, on the 27th of August; but no mention is made of him as a Saint in the whole of the Greek calendars; nor yet among the Abyssinians, so far at least as I have been able to gather from the metrical Hagiology of that people, which Job Ludolf, having more deeply scrutinized Ethiopian history, lent to us; wherefore I wished to gather these things together here:
[5] Concerning Philip the sacred Text continues thus the narration it had begun, Philip then dwelt at Caesarea with his four daughters, But Philip was found at Azotus; and passing through he preached to all the cities, until he came to Caesarea. Hence the Menaea assert that he was born at Caesarea; and they say that, joined here in marriage, he begot four daughters, who afterward shone forth with the prophetic spirit. Certainly about the year 55 of the common era, Paul and Luke, coming to Caesarea (Acts XXI), and entering the house of Philip the Evangelist, who was one of the seven, abode with him: and this man had four daughters, virgins, who prophesied. Whence Jerome in the Life of Paula asserts that she, having arrived at Caesarea, saw the little dwellings of Philip, and the chambers of the four Virgin prophetesses, which at that time were indeed still standing. but he did not also die there: Hence Usuard (for no other, so far at least as I know, before him) wrote thus: On the eighth day before the Ides of June, the Natal day of B. Philip: who was one of the seven Deacons. This man, renowned for signs and prodigies, reposed at Caesarea; beside whom three Virgins, his daughters, prophetesses, lie entombed. Notker erred even more gravely, when, confusing the two Philips — the Apostle, who had three, and the Deacon, who had four prophetess daughters — he mixed everything together. Yet he had several other followers among the Latins, and the very correctors of the Roman Martyrology together with Baronius, by whom the Natal day of B. Philip is ascribed to Caesarea in Palestine, and the four daughters are added; as if Polycrates had written concerning them in Eusebius what he has concerning the three daughters of Philip the Apostle; of whom two (not three) grew old as virgins with their father at Hierapolis; and another daughter of his (not the fourth, but the third) remained at Ephesus. But concerning these let the Henschenian Commentary on the 1st of May, §2, be consulted.
[6] but at Tralles in Lydia, The Greeks, in whom here greater faith is to be placed, inasmuch as they are nearer to more certain knowledge, write that Philip the Deacon was Bishop of the Trallians, and died among them. Among these Basil Porphyrogenitus, more ancient than the rest, says, In Tralle of Asia, having become Bishop, he fell asleep. More fully the printed Menaea: After these things he came to Tralle which is in Asia, in which, having worked miracles, and having built a church, he departed to the Lord. [After these things (such, namely, as had been related from the Acts of the Apostles) having set out for Tralle which is in Asia, and having worked many miracles there, a church having been built in the same place, he migrated to the Lord. — where he founded a Church.] But what is here named Tralle by more recent usage, was by all the more ancient writers written Trallis, in the singular or the plural, a city on the river Maeander, once the most opulent of all Asia and Episcopal, in the old notices attributed to the Province of Lydia, in so far as this is distinguished from the Province of Asia. This I add, lest there be doubt concerning the antiquity of the Trallian Church, to which also S. Ignatius is found to have written an epistle, because it is not numbered among the seven churches of Asia, to whose Bishops John at the beginning of his Apocalypse is bidden to write.
[7] That he died a Martyr no one has hitherto said. Joseph the Hymnographer, whose Canon concerning him stands in the Menaea, about to finish the Ninth Ode, says: The earth indeed covered thy body, which had undergone many contests, sending forth flashes of healings; and being buried he became renowned for miracles. but heaven bears thy holy spirit, rejoicing together with the Apostles. And in the Seventh Ode the same sacred Poet had thus addressed him: Thou wast seen, O great Philip, as a glorious star and the ornament of the city of Tralles; in which thy venerable body lying, O wise one, works marvels of prodigies, unto the illumination of all who piously call thee blessed.
[8] The Latins, who venerate S. Philip, one of the twelve, on the 1st of May, in all even the most ancient Martyrologies, by the Greeks on the 2nd of October, assign this 6th of June to the Deacon, in Usuard and the other Martyrologists who followed him, and in the present Roman one, and in certain old Additions to Bede. A certain Turinese Synaxary of the Duke of Savoy, in manuscript, has the same on the 1st of May, on which the Latins (as I have said) treat of the Apostle. The other Greeks venerate him with a solemn Office on the 11th of October: and indeed the Canon which I have mentioned S. Joseph the Hymnographer wove into this Acrostic, Τὸ τοῦ Φιλίππου θεῖον αἰνέσω κλέος. ΙΩΣΗΦ. I will praise the divine glory of the divine Philip. Joseph. And to the eulogy drawn from the Acts of the Apostles, with the addition of those things which I have touched on above, this Distich is prefixed. Ὧνπερ διηκόνησας ἐν γῇ πραγμάτων, Ἐν οὐρανοῖς, Φίλιππε, μισθὸν λαμβάνεις. With the reward of the labor ministered on earth, joyful, O Philip, thou enjoyest God in heaven. Although, however, on the same day the Greeks also venerate S. Theophanes, surnamed Graptus, a distinguished Confessor under the Iconoclasts, with a doubled Office on his account; yet they always have Philip in the first place, both in the printed Menaea, and in the Typicon and in any manuscript Synaxaries whatsoever, as also the Muscovites or Ruthenians, who followed them, in their pictured Ephemeris and Synaxaries, likewise by the Muscovites, so that it does not seem that both could have been omitted in the metrical Ephemeris, except through the carelessness of the transcriber.
[9] The Abyssinians, whose months, compared with the months of the Greeks and Latins, and by the Abyssinians, anticipate the beginning of these by three days, consequently also commemorate Philip on the 14th of October, whom these on the 11th. And so their Metrical Hagiology which I have mentioned says, Hail, Philip the Apostle, from Caesarea of Palestine, with thy four daughters prophesying; fill up my thirst with thy doctrine, as of old thou didst satisfy Samaria and Asia. Nothing there further concerning him, nothing concerning Queen Candace and her Eunuch; nor indeed anywhere in the whole poem. Wherefore, when I see our moderns drawing the worship of the true God among the Abyssinians not from the Eunuch back to the Queen of Saba, as if she had been instructed in it by Solomon; but referring the acknowledgment of Christ to the Eunuch of Candace; I vehemently suspect that this most vain opinion was first thrust upon that people by our Europeans carried thither in the last century, or at least that it is not very ancient, nor received together with the Christian faith. Both praises, therefore, I leave to Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist, but converted to Christ by S. Matthew. to whom Ethiopia (which we can understand as Abyssinia) fell by lot; and whom this Region, venerating on the 21st of September with the Latins, but not on the 16th of November with the Greeks, thus invokes in the aforecited Poem: Hail Matthew, Virgin, Apostle, and bearer of the new Gospel: O Doctor and Ascetic, bless us thy disciples, each and every one, since in thy hand is the Cross.
[10] Certain fabulous things, We treated on the 1st of May of S. Philip the Apostle, one of the twelve, and after his Acts certain things, first published from ancient Latin manuscripts, then from Metaphrastes, we copied some miracles from the Menaea, which, because they were related as having been done at Hierapolis, we judged to pertain to him, who preached and died there; but all the things related in the same place before these, judging that they rather concern Philip the Deacon, we deferred to June. We were moved by this, that after a long contest concerning the faith before the Athenians with the Chief of the Scribes — who had been summoned from Jerusalem and brought into Greece to refute him; and after his companions, when that most obstinate one had been gradually consumed by the gaping earth, had been baptized — the Saint was said to have passed through the cities of Candace; and having boarded a ship to have come to Azotus, where he freed from grievous pains of the eyes the half-blind daughter of his host. For the dominions of Queen Candace seemed to be indicated, which Philip further confirmed, when they had already begun to be instructed by the Eunuch; whereas before, not at Athens in Greece, but at Aden in Arabia he had preached, and had sustained the aforesaid contest, and had set a certain Narcissus over the church founded there. Nor did it appear incredible that the same Philip had at some time returned to Azotus, where formerly he had been found, attributed to one or the other Philip when the Spirit caught him away from the side of the Eunuch. Now, the matter having been examined again and more accurately, the whole narration seems so insipid and fabulous that I can scarcely be persuaded that any truth underlies it. For what can be more alien from the truth than that the aforesaid Chief of the Scribes is feigned to demand Philip of the Athenians, or if you prefer the men of Aden, to be led to Jerusalem, where King Archelaus would have put him to death as an example to many; whereas after the son of Herod the Infanticide — deprived of his kingdom while Christ was still a youth — no Archelaus reigned in Judaea? Therefore we judged that medley unworthy to be brought forth in this place; are omitted. and much more another, more prolix one, which we found in the Vatican under this title: Πράξεις τοῦ ἁγίου Φιλίππου τοῦ Ἀποστόλου, τὸ Β᾽ εἰς τὴν Ἑλλάδα τῶν Ἀθηνῶν. The Acts of S. Philip the Apostle, the second, into the Hellas of the Athenians (understand: having set out thither), where thirty Philosophers, fearing for their reputation from his new doctrine, confirmed by great miracles, are reported to have written about him to Ananias the great Pontiff of the Jews; whom, struck with blindness, and healed in vain, the earth at last gradually consumed; but Philip himself is said, after two years spent at Athens, and a Bishop and Presbyters ordained, to have departed to preach in Parthia.