Acts 8:5

The Acts of Philip the Deacon. Philip preaches in Samaria, Acts 8:5-13.

Acts 8:5. Then Philip. This famous missionary is the second named in the list of the seven deacons (Acts 6:5), Stephen being the first. It may easily be assumed that the persecution would be especially directed against the distinguished colleagues of the martyred Stephen; and these seven seem, as we have noticed above, from the time of their official appointment, to have taken a very prominent position in the Church at Jerusalem. Philip is called the evangelist (Acts 21:8), where he is also mentioned as being married, and having four daughters virgins who prophesied. The title of evangelist, by which he is commonly known in ecclesiastical history, is owing partly to the fact that he was the first who, outside the holy city, proclaimed the Evangel, good news of Christ.

Went down to the city of Samaria. Philip appears at once to have gone down to this old city, once the capital of the kingdom. Built originally by King Omri, father of Ahab, it remained the chief city of Israel while that kingdom endured. In B.C. 719, Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, took it after a two years' siege, and razed it to the ground.

It never regained anything of its old importance until the days of Herod the Great, who restored it to its ancient splendour, changing its name to Sebaste, the Greek equivalent of Augusta, in honour of Cæsar Augustus; the new city was, however, still often called by its old name Samaria (Josephus, Ant. xx. 6. 2).