medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Philip the Deacon (d. 1st cent.; also P. of Caesarea) immediately follows St. Stephen in the list of apostolically chosen deacons of Jerusalem at Acts 6:5. In Acts 8:51-3 he converts many in Samaria, including Simon Magus. In Acts 8:26-40 he travels on the road to Gaza and before he reaches Caesarea converts and baptizes an Ethiopian eunuch serving as an official of queen Candace. In Acts 21:8-9 Paul and his companions stay at Caesarea with the preacher Philip and we learn that he had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. In Jerome's day one could visit Philip's house in Caesarea and see the rooms occupied by his daughters. Traditionally one of the Seventy Apostles / Disciples, Philip is said to have died a confessor, either in Caesarea or in Tralles.
In the medieval Latin West Philip was commemorated on 6. June along with his daughters, as he also was in the Roman Martyrology until its revision of 2001 (when the daughters were dropped from the elogium and the commemoration was changed to 11. October, Philip's traditional feast day in Byzantine-Rite churches).
Some period-pertinent images of St. Philip the Deacon:
a) as depicted in a later tenth-century icon in the Holy Monastery of the God-trodden Mount Sinai at St. Catherine (South Sinai governorate) in Egypt:
http://vrc.princeton.edu/sinai/files/original/6108/3538.jpg
b) as twice depicted (meeting the Ethiopian eunuch; praying) in the later tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, cod. Vat. gr. 1613, p. 107):
http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1613/0129
http://tinyurl.com/zogbeog
c) as depicted in the eleventh- or early twelfth-century frescoes of the Karanlik Church (Dark Church) at Göreme (Nevşehir province) in Turkey:
http://tinyurl.com/2eldsk7
d) as depicted (at far left in the lower register of the panel at lower right) in an earlier fourteenth-century pictorial menologion from Thessaloniki (betw. 1322 and 1340; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Gr. th. f. 1, fol. 12v):
http://image.ox.ac.uk/images/bodleian/msgrthf1/12v.jpg
e) as twice depicted (preaching; baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch) by the Fauvel Master in an earlier fourteenth-century copy of books 1-8 of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language translation by Jean de Vignay (betw. 1326 and 1333; Paris, BnF, ms. Français 316, fol. 370r):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10507212h/f745.item.zoom
f) as four times depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of recent events, the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
1) in the nave: instructing the Ethiopian eunuch [Acts 8:32-36]:
http://tinyurl.com/h328ea5
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/hjdk3ul
2) in the nave: baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch [Acts 8:38]:
http://tinyurl.com/25u8p5d
3) in the nave: the Spirit of the Lord catching Philip away [Acts 8:39]:
http://tinyurl.com/267hvl4
4) in the narthex: at left in a pair of calendar portraits for 11. October (at right, St. Theophanes Graptus):
http://tinyurl.com/yf8z62u
g) as twice depicted (preaching; baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch) in a later fourteenth-century copy of part of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (ca. 1370-1380; Paris, BnF, ms. Nouvelle acquisition française 15940, fol. 65v):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8449693p/f138.item.zoom
h) as depicted (baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch) in an earlier fifteenth-century _Bible historiale_ (ca. 1430; Den Haag, KB, ms. KB, 78 D 38 II, fol. 208r):
http://manuscripts.kb.nl/zoom/BYVANCKB%3Amimi_78d38%3Adl2_208r_min
Best,
John Dillon
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