✝✡Deacon Philip and the Samaritans

Conversion of Ethiopian Eunuch:

Acts 8:12

Samaritan Newsletter Online

http://www.thesamaritanupdate.com/

Samaritan Museum

https://samaritanmuseum.com/

Some Ethopian Eunuch commentary

https://www.americamagazine.org/content/good-word/acts-apostles-online-commentary-25

Welcome to Popeular History, a library of Catholic knowledge and insights brought to you daily. My name is Gregg, yes there are more transcripts in the show notes again, that's going to be an ongoing thing, and last episode we concluded our discussion of Philip's baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch, making the case that it should almost certainly not be considered the first baptism of a gentile, though it very likely did represent the baptism of someone very much on the fringe of the Jewish world. Today we look at a group on that fringe that Philip had actually baptized earlier: the Samaritans. If being on the fringe counts, they should get credit over Simeon Bachos, the Ethiopian Eunuch. What, did you think the guy had no name? Of course he had a name, it just wasn't recorded in Acts, more on that later. But enough about him, he got two whole episodes and now this aside to boot. Let's get on to the Samaritans Philip baptized in Acts 8:12.

Samaritans have always had a complicated relationship with Jews. You see, the Samaritans claim to be the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, returned to the land after they were exiled by the Assyrians. The fact that they're best known as the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel and not the Ten Found Tribes of Israel gives some hint as to what the Jews thought of such claims.

In the First Century, there were a pretty good number of Samaritans around, and like our friend the Eunuch they appeared to operate on the edge of Jewish society. Even today that's still the case, and yes it turns out there are still Samaritans around today- 874 of them as of 2022 be precise. That number is actually up from around 100 as of 1700. Anyways, while both these Samaritan converts and the Ethiopian Eunuch are decent enough candidates for secret third and Fourth thing options, I am actually going to argue neither of them makes the cut for being the first Gentiles brought into the Church. After all, the Rabbis of modern Israel consider the Samaritans Jews, though with some caveats, and I already made my arguments about the Ethiopian Eunuch.

So what's our secret fifth thing that's the real, real, *real* answer then? Well, keep in mind there definitely seemed to be a lot of gentiles kicking around when the Holy Spirit got everyone in the splash zone speaking in Tongues at Pentecost, but I'd say that's a bit of an exception itself since no baptism was involved and it's hard to argue someone is suddenly a Christian when they really have no idea what's going on and are likely very confused. Not exactly a recipe for a vibrant spiritual life in the absence of further faith formation, in any event. If we look back even further, before there technically was a Church at all, it seems highly likely that John the Baptist would have baptized a few gentiles, or at least some liminal characters like eunuchs and Samaritans. But when we've reached John we've really gone too far back. Fundamentally the question is who was the first gentile to be baptized in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the Holy Spirit, which I expect was not the exact recipe John was using though who knows, maybe it was. Either way John was just too early, I'm definitely keeping the start date for Church History as Pentecost.

So who was the first gentile baptized?

Look, in the end, it was probably someone completely lost to history. Jesus told the Apostles to Baptize all the nations, and then the Apostles ran off to the four corners of the Earth to fulfill the Great Commission. They weren't as worried about keeping good records as they were about winning souls for Christ before the world ended, and Christ had already told them the present generation would not pass away before that time came, so the clock, as they understood it, was ticking. There have now been tens of billions of Christians throughout history, most of them gentiles, and those gentile Christians had to come from somewhere. Somewhere along the way the first gentile was baptized, and I'm willing to pick the year 100 as a guess for when gentile Christians started to outnumber Jewish Christians. Once the ball got rolling, despite various tensions, it wasn't going to stop.

We'll revisit both Jewish Christians and Judaism in future episodes, but I promise this is the last time you'll hear me give my thoughts and theories on the first gentile convert. Let's put that milestone in Church history behind us. We're gonna take a break for the weekend, with our Saturday modern cardinal and our encyclopedia Sunday, but then, tune in on Monday as we turn to look at Simon Magus. Thank you for listening; God bless you all!