ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH. - Minister of Candace, queen of Ethiopia, converted and baptized by the deacon Philip (Acts 8:26-39).
Whether this personage was a pagan, one of those "God-fearers" to whom the centurion Cornelius also belonged (Acts 10:2), is not certain; indeed, Peter's statement (Acts 15:7) that God had chosen him for the first conquests among the Gentiles would seem to exclude it. The eunuch could have been a Jew (there were many in Upper Egypt, as the Elephantine papyri attest, and in Ethiopia, according to Philo (In Flaccum, 6)), or even a proselyte joined to the people of God by circumcision. His physical condition does not constitute an insuperable difficulty, since the prohibition of Deut. 23:1 against the entry of eunuchs into the community of Israel had been gradually mitigated over time. On the other hand, the term "eunuch" was sometimes used (cf. Gen. 39:1) improperly, to designate those who held offices that had once belonged to eunuchs. But this does not seem to be the case in Acts 8:27, where the qualification of "minister" (δυνάστης) follows, which would then amount almost to a tautology.
The eunuch was a kind of minister of finance at the court of Candace (hieroglyphic Knik): probably a title common to the queens of the Ethiopians. The reading of the Bible was recommended by the rabbis to those who traveled alone and was normally practiced aloud. Thus the eunuch must have been reading the passage from Isaiah on the "servant of Yahweh," almost certainly in the Septuagint version, when he was approached by Philip, who, starting from this prophetic passage, evangelized Jesus to him and disposed him to receive Baptism.
It is impossible to verify the accuracy of the information given by St. Irenaeus (III, 12, 8; PG 7, 902), by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., II, 1; PG 20, 137) and by St. Jerome (In Isaiam, 53, 7 agg.; PL 24, 527 ff.), according to which the eunuch became an apostle of Ethiopia.
Bibliography3 works
Teodorico da Castel San Pietro