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Djan Darada | |
|---|---|
| Ethiopian Eunuch Martyr | |
| Born | Unknown c.1st century BC or1st century AD presumablyEthiopia |
| Venerated in | Eastern Orthodox Church Oriental Orthodoxy (Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church) Protestantism (Episcopal Church) |
| Feast | 4 January, 17 June, and 27 August (in theEastern Orthodox Church) |
TheEthiopian eunuch, also called asDjan Darada (Russian: Джан Дарада), is a figure in theNew Testament of the Bible and an earlyChristiansaint. His feast days are on 4 January, 17 June, and on 27 August. The story of hisconversion to Christianity at the preaching ofPhilip the Evangelist is recounted inActs 8. He is a foundational figure of theEthiopian Orthodox Church.
Philip the Evangelist was told by anangel to go to the road fromJerusalem toGaza, and there he encountered the Ethiopianeunuch, the treasurer ofCandace, Queen of the Ethiopians (Ancient Greek:Κανδάκη, "Candace" was theMeroitic term for "queen" or possibly "royal woman"). The eunuch had been to Jerusalem to worship[1] and was returning home. Sitting in hischariot, he was reading theBook of Isaiah, specificallyIsaiah 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 theGospel ofJesus, and theEthiopian asked to be baptized. They went down into a water source, traditionally thought to be theDhirweh fountain nearHalhul,[2] and Philipbaptized him.
In theKing James Version and the CatholicDouay-Rheims Version, the Ethiopian says, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God" (verse 37), but this isomitted in most modern versions. D.A. Hubbard suggests that confession is "not supported in thebetter manuscripts [i.e. theAlexandrian text-type])", although the Ethiopian is still "one of the outstanding converts inActs."[3]
After this, Philip was suddenly taken away by theSpirit of the Lord, and the eunuch "went on his way rejoicing" (verse 39).
Church FatherSt. Irenaeus of Lyons in his bookAdversus 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." InEthiopian Orthodox Tewahedo tradition he was referred to as Bachos and is known as an Ethiopian Jew with the nameSimeon also called the Black, a name used inActs 13:1.[4][page needed][5]
One of the traditional sites of the baptism is theDhirweh fountain, nearHalhul.[2] Others place the traditional site of baptism at theEin Hanya Spring.[citation needed]
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.
| Religious Status | Evidence | Supporters |
|---|---|---|
| Jew | After the story of the Ethiopian eunuch,Irenaeus wrote, "Conversion is more difficult with gentiles than with Jews," indicating that the eunuch was a Jew.[6][page needed]Charles Francis Potter suggested the eunuch may have been anEssene.[7] | Pontius (died c. 260),[8][full citation needed]Irenaeus (c. 130 – 202)[6][page needed] |
| Jew-Gentile | Eunuch occupies an "intermediary position between Jew and gentile", which could indicate the status of proselyte orGod-fearer.[9][page needed] | Jerome (c. 347 – 420)[10][page needed] |
| Gentile | Eunuch must have been a Gentile because he was Ethiopian. | Eusebius (c. 275 – 339),[11][page needed]Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306 – 373),[citation needed]Bede (c. 672 – 725),[citation needed]Nicephorus Callistus (c. 1256 – 1335),[citation needed]Nicholas of Lyra (c. 1270 – 1349),[citation needed] andMartin Luther (1483–1546)[9][page needed] |
| proselyte | Eunuch "must be read as aproselyte (a fullconvert to Judaism) since Acts presentsCornelius the Centurion as the first gentile to be baptized into the Christian community."[9][page needed] | D. A Hubbard,[3]Lancelot Andrewes (1555–1626),[12][page needed]John Calvin (1509–1564),[13][page needed]John Wesley (1703–1791)[14][page needed] |
| God-fearer | Eunuch cannot have been a proselyte and must have been aGod-fearer "since Deut 23:1 would have prohibited a castrated male from becoming a proselyte."[9][page needed] | Paul Mumo Kisau,[15]C. K. Barrett,[16][page needed]Justo L. González,[17][page needed] many other contemporary scholars.[citation needed] |
Modern scholarship tends to place the Ethiopian eunuch in the "intermediate position between Jew and Gentile."[9][page needed] 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 toGentiles," and thusLuke "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.[18] Ernst Haenchen builds onFerdinand Christian Baur's work (1792–1860) 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.[9][page needed]
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.[19][20] 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 priestJohn J. McNeill, citing non-literal uses of "eunuch" in other New Testament passages such asMatthew 19:12,[21] writes that he likes to think of the eunuch as "the first baptized gay Christian,"[22] whileJack Rogers writes that "the fact that the firstGentileconvert to Christianity is from a sexual minority and a different race, ethnicity and nationality together" calls Christians to be radically inclusive and welcoming.[23]
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"Candace" was the name given in Greco-Roman historiography to all the female rulers or consorts of theKingdom of Kush (now part of Sudan). The capital city wasMeroë, and the title of "Candace" derives from aMeroitic word,kdke, that referred to any royal woman.[24] "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 ancientKingdom of Aksum, which conquered Kush in the fourth century. The first writer to call it Ethiopia wasPhilostorgius around 440.[25]
Some scholars, such asFrank M. Snowden, Jr., interpret the story as emphasizing thatearly Christian communities accepted members regardless of race: "Ethiopians were the yardstick by whichantiquity measured colored peoples."[26][27] 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."[28] David Tuesday Adamo suggests that the word used here (Αἰθίοψ,aithiops) is best translated simply as "African."[29]
C. K. Barrett contrasts the Ethiopian eunuch's story with that ofCornelius the Centurion, anotherconvert. He notes that while the Ethiopian continues on his journey home and passes out of the narrative, Cornelius and his followers form another church inJudea, and speculates that this reflects a desire to focus onPeter rather than Philip.[16]: 421 Robert O'Toole argues that the way Philip is taken away parallels the way Jesus disappears after he has been talking to the discipleson the road to Emmaus inLuke 24.[30]
There are literary parallels between the story of the Ethiopian eunuch inActs and that ofEbed-Melech, an Ethiopian character portrayed as a eunuch in some manuscripts (but not the Septuagint version) of theBook of Jeremiah.[31]
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