Acts 21:8

φ. τοῦ εὐαγγ.: the title, as Wendt and Hilgenfeld think, may have been given to Philip on account of his evangelising work, cf. Acts 8:12; Acts 8:40; “the Evangelist”: the honourable title gained by some signal service to the Gospel; and the two incidents noted in his career, his preaching to the Samaritans, and to the Ethiopian eunuch, each mark an advance in the free development of the Church (Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 299). He had originally been set apart for other work, Acts 6:2, but both he and St. Stephen had been called to higher duties, and it is not sufficient to say that he was called an “evangelist” to distinguish him from Philip the Apostle, for that would have been done sufficiently by calling him “one of the Seven”. The word only occurs twice elsewhere in the N.T., Ephesians 4:11, 2 Timothy 4:5. In the former passage the Evangelists are placed between the Apostles and Prophets on the one hand, and the Pastors and Teachers on the other. The latter two offices suggested those who were attached to a settled community, whilst the Apostles and Prophets were non-local. Between the two pairs stood the Evangelists, whose work like that of Philip was to preach the Word. But it is to be carefully noted that as the title is used of the work of Philip, “one of the Seven,” and of that of Timothy, an Apostolic delegate, 2 Timothy 4:5, it may have denoted an employment rather than an office, “a work rather than an order,” and it might be truly said that every Apostle was an Evangelist, but that not every Evangelist was an Apostle. At the same time their work may well have been more restricted locally than that of the Apostles, cf. Theodoret on Ephesians 4:11, and also Eusebius, H.E., ii., 3, iii., 37, itinerant work of an Evangelist, “Evangelist,” B.D. 2. The title is not found in the Apostolic Fathers or in the Didaché, and the latter omission Harnack would explain on the ground that the “Apostles” in the Didaché were just Evangelists; but it would seem, if we admit the reference to 2 Timothy 4:5, that the title was already in general use, and that it was not limited to Apostles. Meyer sees in the Evangelists those who transmitted orally the facts of our Lord's life and teaching, before the existence of written Gospels; but however tempting this view may be, we can scarcely define the Evangelists' work so precisely, and still less thus distinguish it from that of the Apostles; but see, however, as favouring Meyer's view, “Evangelist,” Hastings' B.D. Ewald's remarks on Philip as an Evangelist are still of interest, Die drei ersten Evangelien, i., 48 ff.; on the mistake which confused this Philip with Philip the Apostle, see Salmon, Introd., 313. εἰς Κ.: on two occasions St. Paul had already visited Cæsarea, Acts 9:30; Acts 18:22, and he would probably have met Philip previously; but we have no knowledge of any previous meeting between St. Luke and Philip. We can conceive something of the importance of such a meeting when we remember the advantage which the latter's knowledge of the events in the early history of the Church would possess for the future historian. Philip's presence in Cæsarea at once connects itself with the notice in Acts 8:40, and thus indicates a unity of authorship in the whole book. ὄντος ἐκ τῶν ἑπτά : the notice shows us how the early part of the book is taken for granted by the writer of the latter part (so Lightfoot and Salmon). This is surely more intelligible and satisfactory than to refer the words to the “author to Theophilus,” or to regard it with Clemen as a later addition perhaps by his R., who already betrayed, Acts 14:8, a knowledge of the sources of the first part of the book, or perhaps by R.J., who then connected Historia Petri and Historia Pauli. Jüngst refers the notice in Acts 8:40 to a Reviser who thus seeks to connect the Philip of chap. 8 with Cæsarea, and so to identify him with the Philip here.