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Biography

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Philip the Apostle was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ and is known principally from the Gospel of John, which gives him a more distinct personal role than the Synoptic Gospels, where he appears chiefly in the apostolic lists. According to John 1:44, he came from Bethsaida in Galilee, the town of Andrew and Peter. The Fourth Gospel presents his call in direct terms: Jesus found Philip and said to him, "Follow me." Philip then sought out Nathanael (often identified in later tradition with Bartholomew) and announced that the one of whom Moses and the prophets had written had been found, Jesus of Nazareth. When Nathanael objected that nothing good could come from Nazareth, Philip answered, "Come and see." His Greek name, Philippos, and his origin in Bethsaida, a lakeside town with a mixed population near Gaulanitis and the Decapolis, have often been noted in connection with later episodes in which he serves as an intermediary for Greek-speaking inquirers.

In the account of the feeding of the five thousand (John 6:5-7), Jesus tested Philip by asking where bread might be bought for the crowd; Philip replied that two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each to have a little. In John 12:20-22, certain Greeks who had come up to worship at the feast approached Philip with the request to see Jesus; Philip told Andrew, and together they brought the request to Jesus. At the Last Supper Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us," prompting Jesus' reply that whoever had seen him had seen the Father (John 14:8-9). These scenes portray him as practical, approachable, and still growing in understanding of Jesus' identity. The Synoptic lists include him among the Twelve (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:14), and Acts 1:13 names him among those in the upper room after the Ascension. The New Testament does not describe his later missionary career. The Philip who preaches in Samaria and baptizes the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 is Philip the Evangelist, one of the Seven Deacons, a figure whom later writers have sometimes conflated with the Apostle.

Early extra-biblical testimony about the Apostle's later life is limited and is not free of possible confusion with Philip the Evangelist, who according to Acts 21:8-9 lived at Caesarea and had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. Polycrates of Ephesus, writing in the late second century and quoted by Eusebius of Caesarea in the Ecclesiastical History, referred to Philip, "one of the twelve apostles," as having fallen asleep at Hierapolis in Phrygia, where two aged virgin daughters were also buried, while another daughter was buried at Ephesus. Clement of Alexandria, discussing marriage among the apostles, stated that Philip gave his daughters in marriage. Whether these notices concern the Apostle, the Evangelist, or a blending of the two remains disputed among historians. Later legend, above all the apocryphal Acts of Philip (generally dated to the fourth or fifth century), describes journeys in Greece, Scythia, Syria, and Asia Minor, often with Bartholomew and a sister named Mariamne, and a confrontation at Hierapolis with a serpent cult, after which Philip was tortured and killed, in some versions crucified upside down or suspended from a pillar. Such narratives are hagiographical rather than critically demonstrable history, yet they fixed Hierapolis as the traditional place of his death and of an early cult.

Veneration of Philip is ancient in both East and West. A martyrium at Hierapolis became a center of pilgrimage; archaeological work in the modern period has uncovered a basilica complex linked to his memory, including a tomb structure identified by the excavators with the apostle's shrine. In Rome, relics attributed to Philip and to James the son of Alphaeus (James the Less) have long been venerated in the Basilica of the Twelve Holy Apostles (Santi Apostoli). The Western pairing of the two apostles in a single feast grew from the dedication of that church; the feast was historically kept on 1 May and is now observed on 3 May in the General Roman Calendar. The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates Philip on 14 November, with a further remembrance among the Twelve Apostles. In Christian art he is often shown as a bearded man holding a cross, sometimes a tall or tau-shaped cross associated with the manner of his legendary martyrdom, or holding loaves of bread in allusion to John 6. Traditional lists of patronage associate him with hatters and pastry chefs and with a number of places named for him, including Luxembourg and Uruguay in some directories. Like the other apostles, he was venerated as a saint from the earliest Christian centuries, long before the later formal processes of beatification and canonization.

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