Philip (Deacon)

Philip baptizes the eunuch of Ethiopia , baptismal font in the parish church of St. Martin, Unteressendorf (Upper Swabia)

Philip is one of the Seven Deacons who were selected by the members of the early Jerusalem Church at the suggestion of the Apostles to support them. He must be distinguished from the apostle of the same name mentioned in the Gospels , even if the two biographies of Philip were mistakenly linked in the legend.

Biblical account and legend

According to the Acts of the Apostles , Philip was called to be a deacon of the early Jerusalem church. The initiative to call deacons came from the circle of the apostles. The criteria by which deacons should be called were also established by the apostles themselves ( men of good repute and full of spirit and wisdom ). The choice of deacons was up to the congregation. In addition to Philip, who also made a name for himself in preaching the gospel , Stephen , Prochorus , Nikanor , Timon , Parmenas and Nicholas were called into this service.

During the time of the first persecution of Christians in Jerusalem, Philip worked in Samaria ( Acts 8 : 4–13  EU ). He preached and healed the lame and the crippled . From many possessed, unclean spirits came out with loud shouts.

According to the biblical story in Acts ( Acts 8 : 26–40  EU ), Philip was led in a supernatural way onto the desert road near Gaza . There he met the chamberlain of Kandake , the Queen of Ethiopia , referred to in the original Greek as a eunuch , who was on his way back from Jerusalem to his African homeland. Philip sat down with him in the chariot and pointed out a passage from the book of Isaiah ( Isa. 53.7  EU ). The chamberlain then requested that Philip be baptized. Extra-biblical stories see this baptism of the eunuch as the beginning of the Ethiopian Church .

Afterwards - as reported in the Acts of the Apostles - Philip worked in the area of Caesarea ( Acts 21: 8–9  EU ), most recently together with his four daughters in the Phrygian Hierapolis . There, according to non-biblical reports, the five are said to have been seized, crucified and stoned in the process.

Memorial days

• Evangelical: October 11th on the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod calendar
• Roman Catholic: October 11th
• Orthodox: October 11th and January 4th
• Armenian: February 27 , April 9 and October 11
• Coptic: October 11th

literature

• Marco Frenschkowski:  Philip, deacon and evangelist. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 7, Bautz, Herzberg 1994, ISBN 3-88309-048-4 , Sp. 507-510.
• Bernd Kollmann: Philip the Evangelist and the beginnings of the Gentile mission . In: Biblica 81 (2000), pp. 551-565
• Axel von Dobbeler: The evangelist Philip in the history of early Christianity. A prosopographical sketch . Texts and works on the New Testament age 30. Francke, Tübingen u. a. 2000 ISBN 3-7720-2822-5

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Reading in the biblical text :: bibelwissenschaft.de. Retrieved January 13, 2018 . 
2. ↑ Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints: Philip the Evangelist , accessed on August 6, 2020.
3. ^ Philip in the Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints

Web links

Commons : Philip the Evangelist  - Collection of images, videos and audio files