{{use mdy dates|date=March 2024}}{{Page numbers needed|date = March 2024}}{{Short description|Figure in the New Testament's Acts chapter 8}}File:Rembrandt, The Baptism of the Eunuch, 1626, Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Rembrandt, The Baptism of the Eunuch The Baptism of the EunuchFile:Baptisms-ethiopean-jesus.jpg|thumb|upright|A stained glass diptych showing the baptisms of the Ethiopian eunuch by St. Philip the Evangelist and of Jesus Christ by St. John the Baptist, from the Cathedral of the Incarnation (Garden City, New York)Cathedral of the Incarnation (Garden City, New York)The Ethiopian eunuch () is a figure in the New Testament of the Bible; the story of his conversion to Christianity is recounted in Acts 8.
Biblical narrative
Philip the Evangelist was told by an angel to go to the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, and there he encountered the Ethiopian eunuch, the treasurer of Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians (Ancient Greek: ÎšÎ±Î½Î´Î¬ÎºÎ·, "Candace" was the Meroitic term for "queen" or possibly "royal woman"). The eunuch had been to Jerusalem to worship{{bibleverse|Acts|8:27}} and was returning home. Sitting in his chariot, he was reading the Book of Isaiah, specifically {{bibleverse|Isaiah|53:7-8}}. Philip asked the Ethiopian, "Do you understand what you are reading?" He said he did not ("How can I understand unless I have a teacher to teach me?"), and asked Philip to explain the text to him. Philip told him the Gospel of Jesus, and the Ethiopian asked to be baptized. They went down into a water source, traditionally thought to be the Dhirweh fountain near Halhul,BOOK, Conder, C.R., C. R. Conder, Tent Work in Palestine, 2, Bentley; Palestine Exploration Fund, 1879, London, en,weblink 76, 23589738, and Philip baptized him.In the King James Version and the Catholic Douay-Rheims Version, the Ethiopian says, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God" (verse 37), but this is omitted in most modern versions. D.A. Hubbard suggests that confession is "not supported in the better manuscripts [i.e. the Alexandrian text-type])", although the Ethiopian is still "one of the outstanding converts in Acts."After this, Philip was suddenly taken away by the Spirit of the Lord, and the eunuch "went on his way rejoicing" (verse 39).
Christian traditions
{{see also|List of names for the biblical nameless#Ethiopian Eunuch baptized by the deacon Philip}}Church Father St. Irenaeus of Lyons in his book Adversus haereses (Against the Heresies, an early anti-Gnostic theological work) 3:12:8 (180 AD), wrote regarding the Ethiopian eunuch, "This man (Simeon Bachos the Eunuch) was also sent into the regions of Ethiopia, to preach what he had himself believed, that there was one God preached by the prophets, but that the Son of this (God) had already made (His) appearance in human flesh, and had been led as a sheep to the slaughter; and all the other statements which the prophets made regarding Him." In Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo tradition he was referred to as Bachos and is known as an Ethiopian Jew with the name Simeon also called the Black, a name used in {{bibleref|Acts|13:1}}.THESIS, PhD, Yohannes, Paulos, Filsata: The Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and the Mariological Tradition of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, 1988, Princeton Theological Seminary, New Jersey,weblink 22377610, {{page needed|date = March 2024}}{{page needed|date = March 2024}}WEB,weblink History of the Church, stmichaeleoc.org, 2012-07-29, 2021-08-02,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20210802090232weblink">weblink dead, One of the traditional sites of the baptism is the Dhirweh fountain, near Halhul. Others place the traditional site of baptism at the Ein Hanya Spring.{{cn|date = March 2024}}
Assessment and interpretation
Religion
The Ethiopian eunuch's religion of origin is significant because of the subsequent implications of his conversion to Christianity. There are many competing theories for the eunuch's pre-conversion religious status in relation to Judaism and Christianity. {| class="wikitable"!Religious Status!Evidence!Supporters|Jew
Irenaeus wrote, "Conversion is more difficult with gentiles than with Jews," indicating that the eunuch was a Jew.AGAINST HERESIES FIRST=ST PUBLISHER=VERITATIS SPLENDOR PUBLICATIONS EDITOR-FIRST=PAUL date = March 2024}}{{page needed Charles Francis Potter suggested the eunuch may have been an Essenes>Essene.POTTER>FIRST=CHARLES FRANCIS PUBLISHER=FAWCETT GOLD MEDAL ISBN=0449130398 LOCATION=NEW YORK, 103, Pontius of Carthage>Pontius (died c. 260),LIFE AND PASSION OF SAINT CYPRIAN>AUTHOR=PONTIUS THE DEACON LANGUAGE=EN, {{full date = March 2024}} Irenaeus (c. 130 â€“ 202){{page needed|date = March 2024}}
|Jew-Gentile
God-fearer.QUEERING THE ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH: STRATEGIES OF AMBIGUITY IN ACTS FIRST=SEAN D. PUBLISHER=FORTRESS PRESS ISBN=978-1-4514-6565-5, {{page needed date = March 2024}} Jerome (c. 347 â€“ 420)THE PRINCIPAL WORKS OF ST. JEROME AUTHOR=JEROME TRANSLATOR-LAST=FREEMANTLE PUBLISHER=EERDMANS DATE=1954 date = March 2024}}{{page needed|date = March 2024}}
|Gentile|Eunuch must have been a Gentile because he was Ethiopian.
Eusebius (c. 275 â€“ 339),THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH FROM CHRIST TO CONSTANTINE AUTHOR-LINK=EUSEBIUS PUBLISHER=PENGUIN EDITOR-FIRST=ANDREW LANGUAGE=EN TRANSLATOR-FIRST=G., {{page needed date = March 2024}} Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306 â€“ 373),{{cn Bede (c. 672 â€“ 725),{{cn>date = March 2024}} Nicephorus Callistus (c. 1256 â€“ 1335),{{cn Nicholas of Lyra (c. 1270 â€“ 1349),{{cn>date = March 2024}} and Martin Luther (1483â€“1546){{page needed|date = March 2024}}
|proselyte
proselyte (a full Conversion to Judaism>convert to Judaism) since Acts presents Cornelius the Centurion as the first gentile to be baptized into the Christian community."{{page needed|date = March 2024}} FIRST=D. A. INTERVARSITY PRESS>YEAR=1962 EDITOR-FIRST=J. D. CHAPTER=ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH, Lancelot Andrewes (1555â€“1626),NINETY-SIX SERMONS>LAST=ANDREWES AUTHOR-LINK=LANCELOT ANDREWES PUBLISHER=NABU PRESS LANGUAGE=EN, {{page needed date = March 2024}} John Calvin (1509â€“1564),CALVIN'S NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARIES, VOLUME 6: ACTS 1-13>LAST=CALVIN DATE=1995 PUBLISHER=WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY LOCATION=GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.; CARLISLE ENGLAND date = March 2024}}{{page needed John Wesley (1703-1791)JOHN WESLEY'S NOTES ON THE WHOLE BIBLE: NEW TESTAMENT FIRST=JOHN AUTHOR-LINK=JOHN WESLEY ISBN=9781849026352 date = March 2024}}{{page needed|date = March 2024}}
|God-fearer
God-fearer "since Deut 23:1 would have prohibited a castrated male from becoming a proselyte."{{page needed>date = March 2024}} FIRST=PAUL MUMO PUBLISHER=HARPER COLLINS-ZONDERVAN EDITOR-LAST=ADEYEMO PAGE=1314 C. K. Barrett,BARRETT AUTHOR-LINK=C. K. BARRETT URL=HTTPS://BOOKS.GOOGLE.COM/BOOKS?ID=ZHOLAQAAIAAJ YEAR=1998 LOCATION=EDINBURGH, UK date = March 2024}}{{page needed Justo L. GonzÃ¡lez,ACTS: THE GOSPEL OF THE SPIRIT FIRST=JUSTO L. PUBLISHER=ORBIS BOOKS EDITION=FIRST LANGUAGE=EN, {{page needed date = March 2024}} many other contemporary scholars.{{cn|date = March 2024}}
File:Menologion of Basil 006.jpg |thumb|right|300px|Illustration from the Menologion of Basil II Basil IIModern scholarship tends to place the Ethiopian eunuch in the "intermediate position between Jew and Gentile."{{page needed|date = March 2024}} Scott Shauf suggests that the "primary point of the story is about carrying the gospel to the end of the earth, not about establishing a mission to Gentiles," and thus Luke "does not bring the Gentile status of the Ethiopian into the foreground." However, "the suggestion that the eunuch is or at least might be a Gentile in the story, by both his ethnic and possibly physical description" may leave more formative possibility than if he had been explicitly categorized.JOURNAL, Shauf, Scott, Locating the Eunuch: Characterization and Narrative Context in Acts 8:26-40, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, CBQ, 2009, 71, 4, 774, 43726615, Ernst Haenchen builds on Ferdinand Christian Baur's work (1792â€“1860) in concluding that "the author of Acts made the eunuch's religious identity ambiguous intentionally" so as to preserve the tradition that claimed Cornelius as the first Gentile convert as well as the tradition that claimed the Ethiopian Eunuch as the first Gentile convert.{{page needed|date = March 2024}}
Sexuality
Commentators generally suggest that the combination of "eunuch" together with the title "court official" indicates a literal eunuch, who would have been excluded from the Temple by the restriction in Deuteronomy 23:1.BOOK, New Testament Commentary, Volume 6: Acts 1-12, John, MacArthur, 254,weblink 1994, Moody, 0-8024-0759-5, BOOK, The Acts of the Apostles, Luke T., Johnson, Daniel J., Harrington, 155,weblink 1992, Liturgical Press, 0-8146-5807-5, Some scholars point out that eunuchs were excluded from Jewish worship and extend the New Testament's inclusion of these men to other sexual minorities; gay Catholic priest John J. McNeill, citing non-literal uses of "eunuch" in other New Testament passages such as {{bibleverse|Matthew||19:12}},BOOK, The Church and the Homosexual, John J., McNeill, 63â€“65,weblink registration, 1993, Beacon Press, 4, 9780807079317, writes that he likes to think of the eunuch as "the first baptized gay Christian,"BOOK, McNeill, John J., Freedom, Glorious Freedom: The Spiritual Journey to the Fullness of Life for Gays, Lesbians, and Everybody Else, 2010, Lethe, 211,weblink 9781590211489, while Jack Rogers writes that "the fact that the first Gentile convert to Christianity is from a sexual minority and a different race, ethnicity and nationality together" calls Christians to be radically inclusive and welcoming.BOOK, Rogers, Jack, Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality, 2009, Westminster John Knox, Jack Rogers (clergy), 135,
Race and origins
File:The Baptism of Queen Candace's Eunuch attributed to Hendrick van Balen and Jan Brueghel (II) Mauritshuis 282.jpg|thumb|400px|The Baptism of Queen Candace's Eunuch (c. 1625â€“30, attributed to Hendrick van Balen and Jan Brueghel the Younger Jan Brueghel the Younger"Candace" was the name given in Greco-Roman historiography to all the female rulers or consorts of the Kingdom of Kush (now part of Sudan). The capital city was MeroÃ«, and the title of "Candace" derives from a Meroitic word, kdke, that referred to any royal woman.BOOK, Adams, William Yewdale, Nubia: Corridor to Africa,weblink 1977, Princeton University Press, 978-0-691-09370-3, 260, "Ethiopian" was a Greek term for black-skinned peoples generally, often applied to Kush (which was well known to the Hebrews and often mentioned in the Hebrew Bible). The eunuch was not from the land today known as Ethiopia, which corresponds to the ancient Kingdom of Aksum, which conquered Kush in the fourth century. The first writer to call it Ethiopia was Philostorgius around 440.BOOK, Edwin M. Yamauchi, Edwin M., Yamauchi, Acts 8:26-40: Why the Ethiopian Eunuch Was Not from Ethiopia, Darrell L., Bock, Buist M., Fanning, Interpreting the New Testament Text: Introduction to the Art and Science of Exegesis, Crossway, 2006, 351â€“66, Some scholars, such as Frank M. Snowden, Jr., interpret the story as emphasizing that early Christian communities accepted members regardless of race: "Ethiopians were the yardstick by which antiquity measured colored peoples."BOOK, Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience, Frank M., Snowden, 2,weblink 1970, 3rd, Harvard University Press, 0-674-07626-5, BOOK, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, Ben, Witherington, 295,weblink 1998, Eerdmans, 0-8028-4501-0, Others, such as Clarice Martin, write that it is a commentary on the religion rather than on its adherents, showing Christianity's geographical extent; Gay L. Byron goes further, saying, "The Ethiopian eunuch was used by Luke to indicate that salvation could extend even to Ethiopians and Blacks."BOOK, Byron, Gay L., Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference in Early Christian Literature, 105â€“115,weblink 2002, Psychology Press, 9780203471470, David Tuesday Adamo suggests that the word used here (Î‘á¼°Î¸Î¯Î¿Ïˆ, aithiops) is best translated simply as "African."BOOK, Africa and Africans in the New Testament, Adamo, David Tuesday, University Press of America, 2006, Lanham, 89â€“91,
Related figures
C. K. Barrett contrasts the Ethiopian eunuch's story with that of Cornelius the Centurion, another convert. He notes that while the Ethiopian continues on his journey home and passes out of the narrative, Cornelius and his followers form another church in Judea, and speculates that this reflects a desire to focus on Peter rather than Philip.{{rp|421}} Robert O'Toole argues that the way Philip is taken away parallels the way Jesus disappears after he has been talking to the disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24.JOURNAL, O'Toole, R.F., Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts VIII 25-40), Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 5, 17, 2016, 25â€“34, 0142-064X, 10.1177/0142064X8300501705, 161231768, There are literary parallels between the story of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts and that of Ebed-Melech, an Ethiopian eunuch in the Book of Jeremiah.JOURNAL, Juan Vicente, Estigarribia,weblink Commentaries on the Historicity of Acts of the Apostles 8, 26â€“39, BeitrÃ¤ge zur Sudanforschung, 5, 1992, 39â€“46,
Further reading

BOOK, s:A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture/LXXXIX. The Sacrament of Confirmationâ€”Baptism of the Officer of Queen Candace., The Sacrament of Confirmationâ€”Baptism of the Officer of Queen Candace.]], A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture, 1910, B. Herder, Friedrich Justus, Knecht,

References
{{reflist}}
External links
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