Acts 8:30Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

See Philip's love of wisdom. He did not reproach him or say, "You do not know; I will teach you." He did not say, "I know this well."

Nor did he flatter him and say, "Blessed are you who read." His words were foreign both to arrogance and to flattery. Rather, they expressed care and love for mankind.

The eunuch himself needed to ask and needed to desire.

By saying, "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip shows that he knows the man understands nothing. At the same time he shows that a great treasure lies within what has been read.

"Philip ran up and heard him reading." The approach shows Philip's desire to speak, while the reading is a sign of the eunuch's zeal.

He was reading at the time when the sun produces its strongest heat.

"Do you understand what you are reading?" He asks in a marvelous way. He neither flatters nor praises him, nor again reproaches him for ignorance. Rather, he asks so as to awaken a greater desire, showing that a great treasure lies in what is being read.

In the Acts of the Apostles, the holy eunuch, or man, for Scripture calls him by both names, was reading the prophet Isaiah. When Philip asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" he answered, "How can I understand, unless someone guides me?" Acts 8:30-31.

I will say, in passing, concerning myself, that I am not holier or more diligent than this eunuch.

He left the royal court and came from Ethiopia, that is, from the farthest borders of the world, to the temple.

He loved the Law and divine knowledge so much that he read Holy Scripture even in his carriage. Yet, holding the book, pondering the words of the Lord, and pronouncing them with tongue and lips, he still did not understand Him.

Without knowing it, he was venerating Him in the book.

Approaching the chariot at the prompting of the Spirit of God, Philip heard that the eunuch was reading the fifty-third chapter of the prophet Isaiah.

He begins the work of evangelization by asking the eunuch, "Do you understand what you are reading?" For he supposes that the courtier does not understand the passage correctly.

That is, he does not see in it the image of the Savior of the world suffering for the sins of men.

The courtier appears so immersed in meditation on God, and so humbly and diligently striving for knowledge of the truth, that he simply admits that he does not understand what he reads.

He also asks Philip to come up into the chariot and sit with him. From Philip's question he guesses that Philip possesses knowledge of Scripture and can explain what is being read.

And now he was returning to his homeland, riding in a carriage and accompanied by his retinue. In accordance with the rules of the rabbis, he spent the time reading Holy Scripture.

At that very moment he was reading aloud, from the Greek translation of the Seventy, the prophecy of Isaiah: "As a sheep He was led to the slaughter. And as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so He does not open His mouth.

In His humiliation His judgment was taken away. But who shall declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth," Is 53:7-8.

Philip asked him whether he understood what he was reading. The eunuch admitted that all this was dark to him. He invited Philip to sit with him in the carriage and asked who the one was of whom the prophet spoke.

In this way Philip received the opportunity to unfold the Christian interpretation of this great prophecy.

"Hearing that he was reading." The eunuch was evidently reading aloud, so that Philip, having come close to the chariot, heard that he was reading and what he was reading.

Listening closely, Philip asks the reader a question that is softened by a certain play on words. This softens what might have seemed somewhat abrupt toward an unknown courtier.

"Do you understand what you are reading?" ἀρα γε γινώσκεις ἅ ἀναγινώσκεις.

The question is put in such a form that Philip seems to doubt whether the eunuch rightly understands the passage being read. Namely, whether he understands it concerning the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.

Philip expected a negative answer, and he was not mistaken.

Philip, having surrendered himself to the Angel's guidance, now receives an inward indication from the Spirit of God Himself. He clearly distinguishes Him from his own soul, so that he inwardly hears the word of the Holy Spirit: "Go near and join yourself to this chariot."

"You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake," the Lord foretold to His disciples. "Do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say.

For what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking in you," Mt 10:18-20.

This is exactly what took place here with the Apostle Philip.

Saint Philip asks the eunuch, "Do you understand what you are reading?" He answered, "How can I understand, unless someone guides me?"

How often those who read the word of God and the writings of the Fathers experience the same thing. What is read does not fit into the mind.

The mind cannot attend to it or grasp it, as though the speech concerned something foreign to it, matters from an unknown realm.

Here one needs an interpreter who is familiar with the subject of the text. Saint Philip had the same Spirit who gave the prophecies, and it was not difficult for him to explain what troubled the eunuch.

So it is for us now. We must find a person who stands at the level of life and knowledge touched by the writing that troubles us. He will explain it without difficulty.