Philip

Philip the Apostle is counted among the Twelve Apostles of Jesus in the New Testament. The Gospel of John states that he came from Bethsaida, the same town as Andrew and Peter, and that Jesus called him personally, after which Philip brought Nathanael to Jesus. The Synoptic Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles include his name in the apostolic lists but do not add independent stories about him. No ancient source that meets ordinary historical standards records the year of his birth or of his death; he belongs to the first century in Galilee and the wider Roman East. Later dates sometimes attached to his martyrdom are traditional rather than documented.

In John’s Gospel Philip figures in several scenes that characterize him as practical, approachable, and still learning. Before the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus asks him where they might buy bread for the crowd; Philip replies that even a large sum would not suffice. When Greeks at Passover asked to see Jesus, they came to Philip, who went with Andrew to tell Jesus. At the Last Supper Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied,” and received the answer that to see Jesus is to see the Father. The canonical writings do not mention a wife or children of this Philip, nor membership in any later religious order.

Christian memory has often mixed this apostle with Philip the Evangelist, one of the Seven named in Acts, who preached in Samaria, baptized the Ethiopian official, and resided at Caesarea with four daughters who prophesied. Eusebius of Caesarea, using Papias and other early notices, discusses Philip and prophetic daughters in connection with Hierapolis, and scholars continue to debate how far the apostle and the evangelist were conflated. Because of that confusion, extra-biblical acts, martyrdoms, and local cults attached to the name Philip cannot be assigned to the apostle with certainty.

Apocryphal literature, especially the Acts of Philip, and later hagiography place his preaching in Greece, Syria, and Phrygia and his death at Hierapolis in Asia Minor, by crucifixion or another form of execution, sometimes with a companion named Mariamne. These stories are not independently verified. Archaeological work at Hierapolis has uncovered a church complex associated in Byzantine tradition with Philip, but the identification remains debated. In the Latin Church the combined feast of Philip and James, once kept on 1 May, is now observed on 3 May; the Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates the Apostle Philip on 14 November. He has been venerated as a saint since Christian antiquity and was not the subject of a medieval or modern papal canonization process.