PHILIP AND THE ETHIOPIAN by Paolo de Matteis, Piano del Cilento, Salerno 1662-1728 Naples
PAOLO DE MATTEIS, Piano del Cilento, Salerno 1662-1728 Naples
Philip and the Ethiopian
Pen, brown ink and grey wash, 9.05 x 10.03 in. (230 x 255 mm..
8:26-40 Philip and the Ethiopian
"26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian[a] eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”
30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.
31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
32 This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”[b]
34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
36 As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” [37] [c] 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40 Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea."
Acts 8:34
On the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, a man reads a same page, again and again. Another sees him, nears, and asks, "Do you comprehend what you're reading?"
"How can I," the man replies, "unless someone explains it to me?" "Come and sit," he says and reads him the passage.
He reads to him of a third man who "was led like a sheep to the slaughter” and kept silent as he was taken away from the land of life, while nobody protested.
The other looks at the reader, at the unsuspicious, almost disconnected afternoon, with its two clouds, mostly grey, and the blue of the sky, a shade lighter above them. By the barely marked road, unmoving its metal, dull leaves, there is an olive tree.
He opens his mouth, “Tell me, please, whom is he talking about, himself or somebody else?”
A bunting springs up in the air. The man smiles. He suddenly understands that, no matter whom he is talking about, he talks about himself. He now understands that everyone in the book is one, the sufferer and the shearer, the silent and the prophet to come, that, page after page, the book is about one, the one writing the book.
He understands that he and the stranger who stopped by are one. That the bunting, the man, and the two clouds are one. That Gaza and Jerusalem are one. That, like the olive tree leaves, everything is one. That blue is the only color there is.
His incomprehension combusts. His doubt disappears. The other vanishes. Upon itself, the book of the evening closes.
--Stefan Balan