Annotation CCVII

”These therefore came to Philip.” — John 12:21

On Philip.

Thomas Aquinas, in the commentaries on John — [those] which are said to be his — affirms that Philip the Apostle, who led the Gentiles to Christ, is the same [Philip] whom Luke, in the eighth chapter of Acts, reports to have preached to the Samaritans, and to have baptized the eunuch of Queen Candace. Eusebius opposes this opinion, in book 2 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 1; [and] Chrysostom, in the 18th homily on Acts, saying that he [Philip] was one of the seven deacons, the second after Stephen. The same Oecumenius confirms in the Collectanea, asserting that he conferred baptism on the Samaritans, but by no means the Holy Spirit — because this office pertained not to the deacons, but to the Apostles, by whom afterward Peter and John were sent, who bestowed on the Samaritans the Spirit of confirmation by the imposition of hands,

which Philip, because he was not an Apostle, could not furnish. This same [thing] Bede approves in the commentary on the Acts of the Apostles.