Acts 21:8

Acts 21:8. And came to Cæsarea. The little company now travelled by land. Their route led them round Carmel along the coast for some thirty to forty miles to Cæsarea. This was the third visit St. Paul had paid to this city: (1) On his journey from Jerusalem to Tarsus (chap. Acts 9:30); (2) on his return to Antioch from his Second Missionary Journey (Acts 18:22); (3) in his last mission to Jerusalem now about to be described. For an account of Cæsarea see note on chap. Acts 8:40 .

And we entered into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one of the seven. We have already met with this Philip. In the early years of the Church's story, seven men were chosen by the believers in Jerusalem as assistants to the ‘Twelve;' of these seven two seem to have come rapidly into great prominence, Stephen and Philip. The first of these, Stephen, after acquiring a fame unequalled in the first years of the faith, endured a martyr's death, and thus followed his Master. The second, Philip, like Stephen, became a great preacher. We read of him in Samaria (chap. Acts 8:5), and again on the way to Gaza (chap. Acts 8:26), then as preaching in many nameless cities (‘in all the cities,' chap. Acts 8:40), and finally apparently settling in Cæsarea. This was about A.D. 35-36, nearly a quarter of a century before the visit of St. Paul to the home of Philip on his way to the Holy City.

As regards the first title of Philip, ‘ a deacon ,' the inferior title and also the original duties of the office had, in the case of the seven chosen assistants of the ‘Twelve,' been quickly forgotten, owing doubtless to the important work which rapidly fell to the lot of these favoured men; with Philip the lesser duties had become merged in the higher ones which belonged to the office of evangelist.

The ‘evangelists' of the early church are thus described by Eusebius (H. E., iii. 37): ‘After laying the foundation of the faith in foreign parts, as the peculiar object of their mission, and after appointing others as shepherds to the flock, and committing to them the care of those that had been recently introduced, they went again to other regions and nations with the grace and co-operation of God.' They were thus the missionaries of the first days, to use the words of Dr. Westcott (Introduction to the Gospels, chap. 3): ‘The evangelist was not the compiler of a history, but the missionary who carried the good tidings to fresh countries; the bearer and not the author of the message. Till the end of the first century, and probably till the time of Justin Martyr (about A.D. 140), “the Gospel,” “Evangel,” uniformly signifies the substance and not the records of the life of Christ.' We can thus trace how, when the story of the life of Christ at first only told orally by the evangelist or missionary was written down in the form of narrative, the inspired writers became known as the evangelists: after the four written records became widely known, it is probable that the title ‘Evangelist' was appropriated only to them.

Professor Plumptre has an interesting note here on the meeting which must have taken place between Philip and Luke the companion of Paul: ‘As far as we know, Philip and Luke had not met before, and we can imagine the satisfaction with which the latter (Luke), himself probably an evangelist in both senses of the word (2 Corinthians 8:18), and already contemplating his work as an historian, would welcome the acquaintance of the former (Philip); how he would ask many questions as to-the early history of the Church, and learn from him all or nearly all that we find in the first eleven Chapter s of this book.'