✝✡Deacon Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch II: Jew-ish

The Popeular History Podcast

Conversion of Ethiopian Eunuch

Acts 8:26-40

LINKS

Deacon Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch Part I: The Living Water

Acts Timeline

https://www.2belikechrist.com/articles/timeline-of-the-book-of-acts

Ethiopian Eunuch queer interpretation

https://qspirit.net/ethiopian-eunuch-church-queers/

Secret Third Thing Memes and Jokes

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.knowyourmeme.com/memes/a-secret-third-thing

Some Ethopian Eunuch commentary

https://www.americamagazine.org/content/good-word/acts-apostles-online-commentary-25

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TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to Popeular History, a library of Catholic knowledge and insights brought to you daily. My name is Gregg; there's transcripts in the show notes now; and in today's episode we're picking our main narrative back up after several weeks of special content dedicated to the fresh batch of new Cardinals Pope Francis created last month.

I probably could have cut things off in a more natural place than between Parts I and II of our discussion of Deacon Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch, but hey, what's done is done.

In the first part of this discussion, which came out on September 8th and is linked in those show notes I mentioned for your convenience, we got deep into Philip's baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch, talking about its implications as a candidate for the first baptism of a Gentile and ultimately- I hope successfully- showing how following received tradition can lead one to boldly do new things without fear when that's what you know you're supposed to do.

Today I tear all that apart, or at least half apart, because though this event was significant, I don't think it's actually a good candidate for the first baptism of a gentile, as much as I like the secret third thing theory.

What's the secret third thing?

Well, very often when you're given two choices, the actual most correct answer is a secret third thing. Like how historians love to say well it's complicated when asked if the answer is A or B, and then they proceed to explain how it's a little bit A and a little bit B. Was the French Revolution caused by the incompetence of the monarchs or the ambition of the lawyers? A secret third thing! Was Churchill a hero or a racist? A secret third thing! Did FDR know about Pearl Harbor? …you get the idea.

So naturally, was it Peter or the men from Cyprus and Cyrene that we talked about who really baptized the first Gentiles? Now of course my money is still on the secret third thing option here, as in it was probably neither of those events in actuality. But before we go any further I should explain why I also don't think it was the Ethiopian Eunuch, either.

First and foremost, the dude was travelling from friggin' Ethiopia to Jerusalem to worship, and second, he was studying a scroll of Isaiah along the way. Just, quick first impression, do these things that *sound* like the behavior of a full-on Gentile to you?

If he wasn't a Jew, my guess is it's because there was something preventing him. Perhaps his race, sure, but such conversions did happen, after all an ethiopian was just as much a non-Israelite as a moabite, and King David's great-grandmother Ruth was a moabite who had converted to Judaism.

No, it's not the Ethiopian part that would have kept him out of being fully integrated into Judaism, rather it's the Eunuch part. Without going too far down a path I am a laughably inadequate guide for, it seems Deuteronomy 23:1, quote, "No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord" End quote would most likely have been standing in The Eunuch's way. If my understanding of how that bit of Torah was applied in 1st Century Judea is correct, and to be clear it may well not be, so call me out if I'm wrong, but if my guess is correct this wasn't the baptism of a gentile, but it also wasn't exactly the baptism of another garden-variety Jew, either. It was a baptism that occurred within a secret third category, a liminal space. In modern parlance, which lets me be extra evocative but let's not get too carried away with anachronistic interpretations here, it was the baptism of a gender minority.

Of course, when there's a secret third thing made visible, it's very likely that there's another secret option available, and indeed there is. Earlier in the chapter, we hear about how Philip has been baptizing Samaritans.

Now, I was hoping to cover that section and its nuances today, much like how I was hoping to originally have all of this be, you know, a single episode on Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. But it looks like we've managed to hit another spot where I need to once again swallow my pride and refuse to exceed my hard word count limit for these core episodes lest they get to be too long.

I promise next time will indeed be the end of the surprisingly extensive "first gentile Christian" discussion, because I already have the rest written so it can't run over a third time. See you tomorrow! Thank you for listening; God bless you all!