EUNUCH OF ETHIOPIA. - Minister of Candace, queen of Ethiopia, converted and baptized by the deacon Philip (Acts 8:26-39).
That this person 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 13:7) that God had chosen him for the first conquests among the Gentiles would seem to exclude II. The e. may have been a Jew (there were many in Upper Egypt, as attested by the Elephantine papyri, in Ethiopia, according to Philo [In Flaccum, 6]), or even a proselyte admitted to the people of God by circumcision. His physical condition does not constitute an insurmountable difficulty, since the prohibition of Deut. 23:1 regarding the admission of eunuchs into the community of Israel had been mitigated over time. Moreover, the term "eunuch" was sometimes used (cf. Gen. 39:1) improperly to denote those who covered deficiencies proper to eunuchs in former times. But this does not seem to be the case in Acts 8:27, where the qualification "minister" (ἐννοχος) follows, which would almost be a tautology.
The e. was a kind of finance minister at the court of Candace (a title, according to Knobel, common to the queens of Ethiopia). The reading of Scripture was recommended by the rabbis to those traveling alone to practice it aloud normally. Thus the e. must have been reading the passage from Isaiah about the "servant of Yahweh," almost certainly in the Septuagint version, when he was approached by Philip, who, starting from this prophetic passage, preached Jesus to him and prepared him to receive Baptism.
It is impossible to verify the accuracy of the information given by St. Irenaeus (III, 12, 8; PG 7, 902), Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., II, 1; PG 20, 137), and St. Jerome (In Isaiam, 53, 7 seq.; PL 24, 527 sq.), according to which the e. became an apostle of Ethiopia.