Acts 8:27

Acts 8:27. A man of Ethiopia. This man was not, as some have suggested, a Jew who lived in Ethiopia, but most probably was a heathen convert to Judaism, and now was returning home from a pilgrimage to the chief shrine of his adopted religion. We know that at this time there were many Jews in Ethiopia.

Under Candace queen of the Ethiopians. Candace was the ordinary name of the female rulers of Meroe, the north part of Ethiopia. Eusebius, H. E. ii. 1, writing some three hundred years later, tells us that even in his days the custom still prevailed in Ethiopia of the supreme power being held by a female ruler. The title Candace was the customary title of the sovereign, as Pharaoh had been in Egypt, and Cæsar continued to be in Rome.