PHILIP THE APOSTLE, Saint. — One of the “Twelve,” from Bethsaida (q.v.), fifth in the lists (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:14; Acts 1:13). In the Gospels, only John provides biographical information about him. Called by Jesus, he informed his friend Nathaniel (?) Bartholomew of this, saying: “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and the prophets wrote: Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:43–45). He spoke according to common opinion, still ignorant of the mystery. When Jesus was about to multiply the loaves, Philip, asked by Him—perhaps to test him—“where to buy bread for all,” replied that “two hundred denarii would not suffice to give each a little” (John 6:5–7). From this it does not follow that Philip was the steward of the apostolic college.
The Greek proselytes of Judaism, wishing to approach Jesus, turned to Philip, who spoke to Andrew, and together they presented them to the Master, obtaining an answer confirmed by a voice from heaven (John 12:21–31). At the Last Supper, to Philip’s other question, “Lord, show us the Father,” Jesus replied, among other things: “Philip, he who has seen me has seen the Father... Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me...?” (John 14:9–11).
Tradition agrees in attributing to Philip the evangelization of Phrygia; it is uncertain regarding the rest of his life. Some have confused him with Philip the Deacon (q.v.). The Pseudo-Abdias attributes to him the evangelization of Scythia. According to Polycrates (in Eusebius, *Hist. Eccl.*, III, 31; PG 20, 28c), he died at Hierapolis in Phrygia. From his three daughters, Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, learned that Philip raised a dead man (Eusebius, *loc. cit.*, 39). The manner of his martyrdom is uncertain: many attest that he was crucified upside down. Legendary are the *spintriae* of Philip (q.V. below). The Church celebrates him together with St. James the Less on May 1, in memory of the dedication of the church now called the Church of the Twelve Apostles in Rome.
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THE ACTS OF PHILIP. — An apocryphal work whose origins date to the first half of the 4th century.
The textual tradition is very complicated. The complete text has not been preserved, but only fragments of individual Acts, which probably represent different recensions of the original text, even in Eastern languages (Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, Arabic); the difficult literary problem has not yet been well studied. The author of these Acts, of low intellectual level, knew the great apocryphal Acts of the Apostles and was a heretic of the Messalian type, perhaps living in Asia Minor. Cf. the Coptic Manichaean Psalter (*A Manichaean Psalm-Book*, II, 24, 9–11).
