Propagating The Gospel: The Ethiopian Eunuch As An Impotent Power

Propagating the Gospel
Unmanly Men: Refigurations of Masculinity in

Luke-Acts
Brittany E. Wilson
Print publication date: 2015

Print ISBN-13: 9780199325009
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: April 2015
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199325009.001.0001

The Ethiopian Eunuch as an Impotent Power (acts 8)
Brittany E. Wilson
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199325009.003.0005
Abstract and Keywords

Chapter 4 examines the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, a character who signifies
the spread of the gospel to “the end of the earth” and who blurs gender, ethnic,
and status boundaries in the process. This chapter explores how Luke presents
the Ethiopian eunuch as a model “man,” despite his “unmanly” identity markers.
It begins by surveying depictions of eunuchs and their intersection with
depictions of Ethiopians in the ancient world. To many, the Ethiopian eunuch
would have been the antithesis of “manliness,” but Luke portrays him as an ideal
convert who eagerly pursues admittance to “the Way.” Luke also associates the
eunuch with the Suffering Servant from Isaiah, the figure about whom the
eunuch is reading and whom the disciple Philip identifies as Jesus. The eunuch
thus closely coincides with Jesus and in many respects embodies Jesus’ own
impotent power.
Keywords: Acts 8, Ethiopian eunuch, Ethiopians, eunuchs, Suffering Servant, Isaiah, Jesus, gender,
ethnicity, status, power
IN ACTS 8, Luke offers us a glimpse of another minor male character who

destabilizes masculine norms via his body: a nameless figure known as the
Ethiopian eunuch. Like Zechariah, the Ethiopian eunuch occurs at a significant
juncture in the text, for the eunuch signifies the spread of the gospel to “the end
of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Unlike Zechariah, the Ethiopian eunuch has generated a
sizable amount of scholarly reflection. The majority of such scholarship,
however, does not focus on the eunuch’s gender but on his ethnicity, especially
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with respect to his identity as a Jew or Gentile and, more recently, his identity as
an Ethiopian.1 Yet even those who do attend to gender in Luke-Acts often
overlook the Ethiopian eunuch, which is surprising given that the eunuch—by
virtue of being a eunuch—arguably lacks a potent symbol of masculinity in the
Greco-Roman world.2 While (p.114) scholars have more recently started to
examine the Ethiopian eunuch in light of gender, this earlier oversight appears
to arise from the widespread assumption that the eunuch, as an official to the
queen of Ethiopia (8:27), is a personage of great importance who simply reflects
Luke’s interest in high-status individuals.3 The eunuch, according to many
commentators, is a “respectable” convert who furthers Luke’s larger apologetic
purpose of legitimizing “the Way” to those of high status.4
Such claims concerning the eunuch’s importance and power are in part correct,
for the eunuch is a dominant, exemplary character throughout Acts 8:26–40. The
eunuch is designated as an “official,” or δυνάστης, a cognate of other “power”
words that permeate Luke’s two volumes.5 He is (p.115) someone with access
to political power and also wealth since he is in charge of the queen’s entire
treasury (v. 27). He is literate since he is reading aloud from Isaiah (vv. 28, 30),
and he has a fine command of language, as evidenced by his use of the optative
(v. 31). Overall, the eunuch is a well-educated person of import, who poses
questions (vv. 31, 34, 36), issues commands (v. 38; cf. v. 31), and initiates his
own baptism (vv. 36–39). As an ideal convert who joyfully receives the good news
(v. 39), the Ethiopian eunuch appears at a pivotal point in the progression of “the
Way” and in turn models the way to receive the gospel.
Scholarly assumptions concerning the eunuch’s high status, however, overlook

the inextricable connection between status, gender, and ethnicity in the Greco-
Roman world and the import of Luke’s repeated designation “the eunuch” (8:27,
34, 36, 38, 39). By attending to the eunuch’s descriptors as both a
“eunuch” (εὐνοῦχος) and an “Ethiopian” (Αἰθίοψ), this chapter argues that the
eunuch primarily emerges as an unmanly man who is, to use Philo’s turn of
phrase, “neither male nor female” (Somn. 2.184). Instead of being a high-status,
respectable convert, the Ethiopian eunuch of Acts 8 comes up short with respect
to elite representations of masculinity in the Greco-Roman world. At the same
time, Luke presents the Ethiopian eunuch as a model convert whose gender
liminality in many ways exemplifies Jesus’ own embodiment of paradoxical
power.
After briefly situating the Ethiopian eunuch’s conversion within the larger Lukan
narrative, this chapter falls into two main parts. The first half of the chapter
explores the eunuch’s emergence as an unmanly man in light of representations
of eunuchs and Ethiopians in the ancient world. The second half of the chapter
turns to the eunuch’s portrayal as a model convert and embodiment of impotent
power. The eunuch’s embodiment of impotent power is especially evident in the
passage from Isaiah 53 that the eunuch is reading aloud. Here the eunuch reads
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of the humiliation and exaltation of the Suffering Servant, a figure who

intersects with both the eunuch and Jesus.
Overall, we shall see that the story of the Ethiopian eunuch not only
demonstrates the progression of the good news to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8)
but the boundary-crossing nature of the gospel. In Acts 8:26–40, the Ethiopian
eunuch is a figure who is powerful yet lowly, exemplary yet unmanly. Indeed,
with the story of the eunuch, Luke points to God’s paradoxical power in Jesus,
the Suffering Servant who is slaughtered and shorn, silent and subordinate (Acts
8:32–33; cf. Isa 53:7–8).
(p.116) The Ethiopian Eunuch and “the End of the Earth”

Despite scholarly assertions that Acts 8:26–40 can easily be excised without any
difficulties, the story of the Ethiopian eunuch occurs at a key juncture in the
narrative of Acts and has far-reaching implications that extend beyond the
passage’s surface self-containment.6 In Acts 1:8, the so-called roadmap of Luke’s
second volume, Jesus commands his disciples to be his witnesses “in Jerusalem,
in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Philip’s conversion of an
Ethiopian in Acts 8 recalls Jesus’ earlier command to witness to “the end of the
earth” (ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς) since ancient authors frequently depicted Ethiopia in
these terms.7 Throughout Acts, the geographical progression of the gospel
unfolds according to Jesus’ programmatic statement, and the Ethiopian eunuch’s
conversion in Acts 8 fulfills (at least in part) Jesus’ words concerning the
outward expansion of the gospel.8
A second significant point of contact between Acts 8:26–40 and the larger
narrative of Acts lies in the placement of the eunuch’s conversion within the
extension of the gospel to the Gentiles. Here, however, the question of the
eunuch’s ethnicity comes to the fore: is the eunuch a Gentile or a Jew? If the
eunuch is a Gentile, than he would represent the first Gentile convert in Acts.
Such an interpretation is plausible since the phrase “the end of the
earth” (ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς) in Acts 1:8 may also allude to the inclusion of the
Gentiles. Luke uses this same phrase later in Acts 13:47 when Paul and
Barnabas are designated as “a light for the Gentiles [ἐθνῶν] and a means of
salvation to the end of the earth [ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς].”9 The eunuch himself is also
from a Gentile nation (Ethiopia) and would have presumably been denied full
participation in Judaism due to his status as a eunuch (see discussion below).
However, within the larger context of Acts, the eunuch appears to be Jewish
since Luke emphasizes that the first Gentile convert is in fact Cornelius in
chapter 10.10
(p.117) Although the question of the eunuch’s ethnicity occupies the majority
of scholarship on the eunuch, Eric Barreto’s recent study on the fluid nature of
ethnicity in Acts paves a helpful way forward.11 Barreto argues that ethnic
categories in Acts are not static, but flexible and hybrid, occupying “an
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interstitial ethnic space between the competing and overlapping ethnic claims of
Jews, Romans, Greeks, and the other peoples that populate the pages of Acts.”12
This notion that the eunuch’s ethnicity is liminal—somewhere between Jew and
Gentile—coheres well with the eunuch’s overall gender liminality, as we shall
see. The eunuch may appear to be a Gentile within Acts 8 itself and a Jew within
the larger Acts narrative, but either way, he overlaps with both these ethnic
categories and that is precisely the point. Indeed, Acts 8:26–40 is at a pivotal
point in the narrative by virtue of its liminal posture: the eunuch’s conversion
sits at the intersection of the acceptance of the gospel by Jews (2:1–8:25) and
Gentiles (10:1–11:18), signaling that something new is occurring even as it
provides continuity with what has transpired beforehand.
Neither Male nor Female: The Ethiopian Eunuch as an Unmanly Man

Luke introduces the eunuch by bestowing on him an unusual amount of
narrative detail, saying: “Behold! An Ethiopian eunuch, an official of Candace,
queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury” (8:27). Of these
numerous descriptors initially piled on the eunuch, however, his identification as
a “eunuch” (εὐνοῦχος) is the only one to appear again. Indeed, “the eunuch” (ὁ
εὐνοῦχος) is how Luke identifies him throughout the remainder of the story, for a
total of five times (vv. 27, 34, 36, 38, 39). Luke does not provide us with the
eunuch’s name, but marks him mainly in terms of his lack of physical manhood.
Luke’s repeated designation of the character as “the eunuch” suggests that this
designation is central and should thus be the guiding principle in our
interpretation.
Yet some scholars argue that the eunuch’s dominant designation as a “eunuch”
does not imply that he is a castrated male. The term “eunuch” (εὐνοῦχος) does
not necessarily convey the sense of a “physical eunuch,” so (p.118) the
argument goes, but rather a “court official.”13 Such arguments are unlikely,
however, on four main fronts. First, Luke immediately follows the descriptor
εὐνοῦχος with δυνάστης, or “official,” which thus renders a translation of
εὐνοῦχος as “official” superfluous.14 Second, Luke specifies that the eunuch
serves a queen (v. 27), and eunuchs who served queens in the ancient world
were typically chosen for their service because they were physical eunuchs.15
Third, Luke’s description of a physical eunuch’s conversion fulfills Jewish
scriptural texts that foretell God’s inclusion of physical eunuchs in the eschaton
(Isa 56:3–5; Wis 3:13–14).16 Finally, the term εὐνοῦχος frequently references
physical eunuchs in the Greco-Roman world.17 Even in instances where authors
do not explicitly state that the eunuch is physically castrated, physical castration
is not explicitly denied either.18 Overall, Luke’s repeated use of the term
εὐνοῦχος (alongside other elements of his (p.119) characterization as we shall
see) would have denoted a physical eunuch to his Greek-speaking audience.
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Attempts to dissociate the eunuch from being a “physical eunuch” (i.e., lacking a
phallus or functional male genitalia) arise in part from the debate over the
eunuch’s ethnicity described above. That is, some scholars resolve the question
of the eunuch’s ethnicity by arguing that the eunuch is not a physical eunuch
and thus could be circumcised or fully participate in Judaism. Such attempts
may also arise, however, from a discomfort with Luke’s “powerful” depiction of
an impotent man. Among early Christian interpreters at least, this discomfort
manifests itself in attempts to “virilize” the eunuch, as when Jerome, for
example, claims that the eunuch obtains the name of “man” (vir) due to the vigor
of his faith (Jov. 1.12).19 Many interpreters in the ancient world would have
shared Jerome’s unease with a eunuch’s positive portrayal, for as we shall now
see, eunuchs lacked a crucial symbol of masculinity: a phallus with generative
capabilities.
Eunuchs in the Greco-Roman World

Eunuchs in the Greco-Roman world were considered the ultimate “nonmen”
since they lacked one of the main features—if not the main feature—of
masculinity, namely, a functioning phallus. Given the increased emphasis placed
on not just the phallus but the large phallus during the Roman Empire, the
eunuch’s so-called deficient phallus made him an object of even more scorn
during this period.20 Without functioning male genitalia, eunuchs could neither
penetrate others (in some instances) nor father children and thus lacked both
physical and procreative power. Court eunuchs in particular lacked control over
their bodies since they were subjected to involuntary castration.21 By virtue of
their castrated state, eunuchs were unable to attain the status of “true” men,
and men in turn could become eunuchs through castration (involuntary or
otherwise). As Diogenes Laertius relates, “men can become eunuchs, but
eunuchs never become (p.120) men” (4.43). This “unmanning” also meant that
eunuchs embodied all that was unmanly. Indeed, eunuchs were typically
associated with women, both with respect to their outward appearance and
inward morality, or they were depicted as monstrous figures who were not even
human at all.22
Throughout Greek and Roman texts, eunuchs emerge as gender-liminal figures

with one foot in the realm of women and one foot in the realm of men. As
unmanned men, or “nonmen,” eunuchs embodied all the characteristics of
effeminate men, but they were also portrayed as ambiguous figures who upset
the male-female gender binary.23 The second-century C.E. satirist Lucian
epitomizes the perceived ambiguity of eunuchs when he writes that “a eunuch
was neither man nor woman but something composite, hybrid, and monstrous,
outside of human nature” (Eunuch. 6). Because of their liminal status, eunuchs
were allowed both in “private,” domestic space with women and in “public,”
political space with men, often acting as couriers between these two gendered
realms.24 The ambiguity of eunuchs also manifests itself in depictions of their
sexuality. On the one hand, eunuchs were often regarded as lacking libido and
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were thus in charge of guarding the sexual integrity of women on behalf of men
or were in the employ of wealthy women themselves.25 On the other hand, they
were also depicted as licentious lovers of both women and men.26 Some men
even feared that eunuchs could penetrate women, since not all forms of
castration involved the amputation of the phallus.27 (p.121) As effeminate,
gender liminal figures with ambiguous social and sexual roles, eunuchs typically
appear on the written page as the most unmanly of men.
Greek and Roman authors believed that eunuchs embodied all that was unmanly,
but also all that was nonelite and “foreign.” Within the Roman Empire itself,
officials employed drastic means to prevent the creation of such ambiguous men-
women. The emperor Domitian, for example, issued a castration ban at the end
of the first century C.E.28 Due in part to such prohibitions, many eunuchs within
the Roman Empire were slaves who were transported from outside the empire.29
Self-castration was also condemned, as exemplified by depictions of the self-
castrating eunuch priests known as the galli who belonged to the cult of the
Syrian goddess Cybele. Roman law forbade elite Roman males to perform
castration (and thus become members of the cult), and both Greek and Roman
authors describe the galli as effeminate, “foreign” followers of the Syrian
goddess.30 These same slurs of foreignness and effeminacy characterize
descriptions of the well-known rhetorician Favorinus, a congenital eunuch who
was born in Gaul but gained a popular following in the Greek East during the
first half of the second century C.E. Although Favorinus was one of the few
socially prominent eunuchs in the Roman Empire (p.122) during this period,
his critics lambasted his “effeminate” rhetorical style and status as a eunuch
from Gaul.31
To be sure, some eunuchs in the late Roman Empire did assume high-status
positions of political power.32 As with Favorinus, however, the fact that they
were eunuchs seriously undermined their status in the opinion of elite Greco-
Roman authors. Such eunuchs were “unmanly upstarts” who displaced the
elites’ own political power and who were the very definition of what was not
manly and not Roman.33 What is more, eunuchs did not begin to rise to positions
of political authority in the Roman Empire until the third century, well after Luke
finished his two-volume work.34 Prior to this, eunuchs were part of the
emperor’s inner court but they were predominantly slaves who functioned more
as concubines and minor administrative officials.35 Of course eunuchs had long
held positions of political power in ancient Eastern kingdoms such as Persia.36
According to Greek and Roman authors, however, such appointments typified
the “effeminacy” of these Eastern kingdoms and were not fitting for the Roman
Empire itself.37
(p.123) Elite Jewish authors roughly contemporaneous with Luke likewise

portray eunuchs as effeminate, gender-bending figures. The philosopher Philo
writes that eunuchs are “neither male nor female [οὔτ’ ἄρρεν οὔτε
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θῆλυ]” (Somn. 2.184). He elsewhere maintains that the law excludes from the
sacred assembly “those whose generative organs are crushed or cut off, who …
refashion the masculine [ἄρρενα] type into a feminine form
[θηλύμορφον]” (Spec. 1.324–325).38 The historian Josephus likewise urges his
audience to drive off “those who have deprived themselves of their manhood
[ἄρρεν]” because “their soul has become effeminate [τεθηλυσμένης]” (Ant.
4.290–291).
Josephus and Philo reflect the gendered rhetoric of their contemporaries, but
they base their arguments on Jewish Scripture, which likewise points to the
boundary-blurring nature of eunuchs.39 In Leviticus 21:17–23, men of priestly
lineage who had physical blemishes or “imperfections” could not approach “the
Lord’s” altar, including the blind, the lame, the mutilated, and the eunuch (“a
man with … crushed testicles,” 21:20; cf. 22:24). Deuteronomy 23:1 widens this
view to prohibit all eunuchs from public worship: “No one whose testicles are
crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.”
As living violations of Israelite purity codes, eunuchs were considered ritually
unclean because they mixed boundaries and their genitals did not meet the
standards of bodily wholeness. Eunuchs were neither male nor female and so did
not have a distinctive place on the purity map of the social body.40
While Luke’s Jewish contemporaries largely rely on Pentateuchal prohibitions

against eunuchs, Jewish scriptural texts elsewhere depict eunuchs as included
outsiders. In the book of the prophet Jeremiah, the Ethiopian eunuch
Ebedmelech rescues Jeremiah, acting on behalf of the king of Judah, and is later
spared by God for this act (38:7–13; 39:15–18).41 The author of (p.124) the
Wisdom of Solomon looks ahead to the eschaton and blesses those who are
childless, both the barren woman and the law-abiding eunuch (3:13–14).42 Isaiah
also envisions a coming day when the covenant will be extended to the outcasts
of Israel, including the foreigner and the eunuch (56:3–8). Although legal texts
from Leviticus and Deuteronomy were more influential for authors such as
Josephus and Philo, other scriptural texts depict eunuchs as mediators between
Israelites and foreign powers and as included members of God’s salvific
covenant.
When we return to the eunuch of Acts 8 with these ancient representations in

view, we find that Luke’s portrayal of the Ethiopian eunuch sits uneasily
alongside many of his contemporaries’ own portrayals of eunuchs. When the
eunuch asks Philip, “What is to hinder me from being baptized?” (v. 37), Philip
could have justifiably responded: “The fact that you are a eunuch.” There is
scriptural precedent for such a response, not to mention prevalent
characterizations of eunuchs as unmanly, gender-liminal figures. Philip, however,
says nothing of the sort (indeed, he says nothing at all!).43 Instead, Luke
presents the eunuch as an included member of “the Way,” signaling the
eschatological in-breaking of God’s action in the world (Isa 56:3–5; Wis 3:13–14).
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While Luke evokes Jewish scriptural texts that foretell God’s inclusion of the
foreigner and eunuch, for many of Luke’s hearers, pervasive depictions of
eunuchs as ambiguous, unmanly men would not be far from view.44 Indeed,
Jesus’ infamous saying about self-castration—or “eunuchs who have made
themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven”—in Matt 19:12 is the only
approximate correlate to Acts 8:26–40 among circa first-century Jewish and
Christian authors.45 Yet (p.125) even here Matthew arguably softens the saying
by situating it within a larger discourse about marriage and suggesting self-
castration signifies celibacy (19:1–12).
Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman World

Although the eunuch’s designation as a “eunuch” dominates his description,
Luke also specifies that he is an “Ethiopian” (Αἰθίοψ) who serves the “queen of
the Ethiopians” (βασιλίσσης Αἰθιόπων, 8:27). The eunuch, we are told, is an
Ethiopian official who has journeyed to Jerusalem to worship and is now
returning to Ethiopia (vv. 26–28). The eunuch’s journey accounts for his
presence on the “way” (ὁδός, vv. 26, 36), and, after his conversion, he continues
on “his way” (ὁδὸν αὐτοῦ, v. 39) back to Ethiopia, where he will presumably
share the good news. Although scholarship has typically overlooked the
gendered significance of his ethnicity, Luke’s identification of the eunuch as an
Ethiopian inextricably intersects with his depiction as a eunuch.46 Gender and
ethnicity cannot be separated and both serve to depict the eunuch as neither
male nor female.
Luke’s identification of the eunuch as an Ethiopian brings the eunuch’s gender

liminality into sharper focus because Greco-Roman authors viewed Ethiopia
itself as a liminal nation vis-à-vis the Mediterranean world and the larger Roman
Empire. Among some thinkers, Ethiopia was the threshold to an entirely
undiscovered world, and among Romans in particular, Ethiopia remained a
nation on the border of the empire.47 For both Greeks and Romans, Ethiopia
signified a place below Egypt with undefined borders that would approximate
modern-day Sudan. Indeed, Greco-Roman authors refer to Ethiopia, along with
Egypt, as a place “down south” that marked the (p.126) boundaries of the
“inhabited world” (οἰκουμένη or orbis terrarum).48 Such nations were “the ends
of the earth” or the “margins” of the so-called civilized world that brought their
own nation—understood as the “center” of the world—into sharper definition.49
For example, the Greek geographer Strabo, writing during the early first century
C.E., categorizes Ethiopians, alongside other “barbarians,” as a people who are
“defective and inferior to the temperate part [i.e., to Greeks and other
Mediterranean peoples]” due to their geographical location on the “extremities
of the inhabited world” (Geogr. 17.2.1). “Ethiopian” (Αἰθίοψ) literally meant
“burnt face” and denoted a person with dark skin who was somatically different
from the majority of people living in the Roman Empire.50 Among those writing
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in the Greco-Roman world, Ethiopians represent the consummate outsider: that

is, the non-Roman, the non-Greek, and even the non-Jew.
When it comes to Ethiopians and other “distant” peoples, Greco-Roman authors

tend to either demonize or idealize those who live in “far-away” lands.51 The
idealizing tradition goes back to Homer and identifies Ethiopians as members of
a utopian world who have attributes typically ascribed to all utopian peoples,
including innocence, love of freedom, military prowess, wealth, wisdom,
longevity, attractiveness, semidivine tallness of stature, and piety.52 At the same
time, Greek and Roman authors also identify Ethiopians as an uncivilized,
“barbaric,” and at times monstrous people.53 (p.127) Even texts that idealize
Ethiopians, such as the circa third-century Greek romance novels the Ethiopian
Story and the Alexander Romance, primarily idealize members of Ethiopian
royalty and not the majority of the “barbaric” population.54 They also reflect
wider assumptions concerning the negative color symbolism of dark skin and
situate Ethiopia’s political might as a feature of the distant past.55
Because of their status as “distant” people beyond the borders of the “civilized”
world, Greco-Roman authors also depicted Ethiopians as people who
transgressed gender norms. Greek and Roman authors often portrayed
“barbarians” in general as gender transgressors, typically expressed in terms of
male effeminacy or female masculinity.56 Material culture also frequently
feminized foreign nations, as when reliefs from the Sebasteion in Aphrodisias
depict the emperor Claudius as a muscular soldier and the nations defeated by
Rome (including Ethiopia) as vanquished women.57 Ethiopians in particular were
often associated with the “womanish” traits of cowardice, promiscuity, and the
love of pleasure. Physiognomical works link Ethiopian somatic features to such
“female” moral failings, and both literary and material culture represent
Ethiopians as prostitutes and hypersexual figures.58 Ethiopians also typically
appear in Greco-Roman texts and (p.128) material culture as slaves, the very
antithesis of elite, manly men. Even though the majority of slaves within the
Roman Empire were not in fact Ethiopian, the prevalent depictions of dark-
skinned slaves symbolized Roman control over the “exotic” and coincided with
the perceived gender transgression of Ethiopians themselves.59
To no surprise, Greek and Roman authors also maintained that female rule was a
further sign of the effeminacy of “other” nations. Greek and Roman authors
often depicted foreign queens in a negative light, ascribing women political
authority in proportion to the perceived barbarity of the nation.60 Since such
women assumed a position of power typically held by men, they were often
portrayed as “manly women” who went beyond the bounds of proper female
comportment. The Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII, for example, was classified by
her enemies as the “courtesan queen” (meretrix regina) and held responsible for
“feminizing” Mark Antony.61 Like Cleopatra, the queens of Ethiopia (who were
known by the title “candace”) were also depicted as wealthy women who donned
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the masculine role of political and military rule.62 The Alexander Romance
emphasizes the beauty, wealth, and wisdom of “Queen Candace,” but she also
outsmarts Alexander the Great, who falls under “the power of a single
woman” (3.22). Strabo states the candaces’ gender transgression more explicitly
when he describes one of the candaces as “a masculine sort of woman [ἀνδρική
τις γυνὴ] with blindness in one eye” (Geogr. 17.1.54). Not only does the candace
transgress gender norms by being a “manly woman,” according to Strabo, but
her body transgresses corporeal norms by being blind in one (p.129) eye.63 In
the rhetoric of ancient physiognomy, Strabo hints that the candace’s “deficient”
eyesight mirrors her deficient insight as a ruler.
Although not to the same degree, Luke’s Jewish contemporaries likewise hint at
the marginal, feminized nature of Ethiopia. Philo allegorizes the “darkness” of
the Ethiopian as evil (QG 2.81) and argues that the word “Ethiopia” signifies
“lowness” and “cowardice” in contradistinction to “manliness” (ἀνδρεία) (Leg.
1.68, 85–86).64 Josephus claims that Rome has conquered the Ethiopians (J.W.
2.380–383) and includes gendered critiques of foreign female rulers, including
Cleopatra VII (Ant. 15.96–103).65 Josephus, however, elsewhere idealizes
Ethiopian royalty in a manner that recalls scriptural accounts of the queen of
Sheba (Ant. 8.165–175; cf. 1 Kings 10:1–13; 2 Chron 9:1–12).66 Both Josephus
and Philo also provide positive accounts of Moses’ so-called Ethiopian wife (Num
12:1 [LXX]), with Josephus identifying her as an Ethiopian princess (Ant. 2.251–
253) and Philo commenting that “even as in the eye the part that sees [i.e., the
pupil] is black [μέλαν], so the soul’s power of vision has been called Ethiopian
woman” (Leg. 2.67).67
Thus while Josephus and Philo reflect the rhetoric of their contemporaries, their
references to Ethiopians also derive from references to Ethiopians in Jewish
Scripture. Overall, Jewish scriptural texts position Jerusalem (or Israel) as the
center of the world and nations such as Ethiopia (or Cush [‫ )]כוׁש‬on the
periphery.68 Ethiopia frequently appears in conjunction with Egypt as a
powerful, wealthy nation and as a foreign, enemy nation that God (p.130) will
ultimately defeat.69 As with eunuchs, however, Jewish scriptural texts elsewhere
depict Ethiopians as included outsiders. Isaiah and Zephaniah pronounce that
Ethiopia will eventually recognize the God of Israel (Isa 18:1–7; 45:14; Zeph 3:9–
10), and Jeremiah notes that God spares the Ethiopian eunuch Ebedmelech (Jer
39:15–18).70 Although Ebedmelech, like other eunuchs in Jewish Scripture, hails
from a foreign, enemy nation, he bridges the ethnic divide via his mediating role
and represents God’s inclusion of the faithful outsider, something that the
second-century B.C.E. text 4 Baruch expands on in detail.71
Once again, Luke’s depiction of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 aligns best with
Jewish scriptural texts that indicate the inclusion of the outsider among God’s
people. Furthermore, Luke’s portrayal of the Ethiopian eunuch contrasts with
many of his coevals’ depictions of Ethiopians.72 The eunuch is not a passive
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“slave-like” figure, an ignorant “barbarian,” or a libidinous profligate. He is

instead an educated official, or “power” (δυνάστης), and a eunuch, or a figure
sometimes identified as lacking libido.73 To be sure, the eunuch’s positive
portrayal does have commonalities with the idealizing tradition found in Jewish
texts and the wider Greco-Roman world.74 Yet aside from exemplifying wealth
and piety, the (p.131) eunuch lacks other typical characteristics of utopian
peoples.75 More importantly, the eunuch’s status as a eunuch, within an elite
Greco-Roman context at least, situates him outside of respectable, “ideal”
norms.76 Indeed, Luke’s repetition of the term “eunuch” (εὐνοῦχος), along with
other aspects of the eunuch’s characterization, as we shall now see,
problematizes the assumption that the eunuch simply aligns with idealized
portraits of Ethiopians.
The Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8

Overall, Luke’s portrait of the Ethiopian eunuch fits best with Jewish scriptural
accounts that point to the inclusion of the eunuch and the foreigner (e.g., Isa
56:3–8). At the same time, to Luke’s audience living within the Mediterranean
basin, the Ethiopian eunuch of Acts would have embodied many of the
characteristics of an unmanly man. By identifying him as an Ethiopian, Luke
situates the eunuch as someone from a marginal nation vis-à-vis the Greco-
Roman world. Luke himself appears to think of Ethiopia in these terms with his
use of the phrase “the end of the earth” (ἐσχάτου τῆς γῆς) earlier in Acts 1:8: a
phrase that frequently references Ethiopia.77 In Acts 1:8, Jesus foretells the
outward expansion of the good news from Jerusalem—the “center” of the earth
according to Luke—to “the end” of the earth, and the acceptance of the gospel
by an Ethiopian confirms Jesus’ words.78 Thus with (p.132) the conversion of a
marginal character, Luke demonstrates the geographical progression of “the
Way” to the margins of the earth itself.79
Not only does Luke indicate that the eunuch represents the gospel’s spread to
the edge of the earth, but he locates the eunuch’s encounter with Philip on the
edge of civilization. At the very outset of the story, Philip is unexpectedly
commanded to get up and go to “the road [ὁδὸν] that goes down from Jerusalem
to Gaza” (v. 26). The road itself is designated as ἔρημος, meaning “wilderness,”
“desert,” or “deserted” (v. 26).80 This wilderness is in the middle of nowhere and
between two definite points: namely, Jerusalem and Gaza. The eunuch himself is
also between two definite points in terms of his overall journey since he has just
left Jerusalem and is returning home to Ethiopia (vv. 27–28). In terms of their
setting, the eunuch and Philip are spatially “betwixt and between”: they are
neither here nor there, but on a deserted road in the middle of the wilderness.81
As the ultimate boundary crosser, the eunuch is from a nation that lies on the
borders of the so-called civilized world, and he greets Philip on the borders of
civilization itself.
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Luke’s emphasis on the eunuch’s Ethiopian identity also associates the eunuch
with a nation considered effeminate by many within the Roman Empire.
Effeminate nations, so write elite Greek and Roman authors, correspondingly
have effeminate officials, often in the form of eunuchs.82 Effeminate nations also
have female rulers, so the argument goes, and Luke specifically notes that the
eunuch serves—not a king—but a “queen” (βασιλίσσης, 8:27). Luke specifies
that this queen is “Candace, queen of the Ethiopians” (v. 27), and this usage of
the term “Candace” (Κανδάκη) recalls that Ethiopia has a long history of female
(p.133) rulers.83 What is more, the eunuch is not a member of the candace’s
royal family, but a court official who is subordinate to the candace. The eunuch
is not royalty himself, but oversees the wealth of “her treasury” (γάζης αὐτῆς),
not his own (v. 27). To many of Luke’s hearers, then, the eunuch is in a state of
subordination to a woman, and a “manly woman” at that.
The eunuch’s association with wealth also suggests his unmanliness since elite
authors frequently connected effeminacy with both extravagance and “distant”
nations. In his characterization of the eunuch, Luke enumerates various details
of the eunuch’s luxurious lifestyle. The eunuch is in charge of the queen’s
“entire treasury” (πάσης τῆς γάζης, v. 27), and he travels by means of a
“chariot” (ἅρμα), a detail that Luke mentions three times (vv. 28, 29, 38). The
eunuch is thus associated with a vast amount of wealth and a means of
transportation typically reserved for people with wealth.84 The eunuch’s chariot
also appears to be quite spacious since it holds at least three people. Philip and
the eunuch are both able to sit in the chariot, and Luke indicates that it holds a
driver as well since the eunuch commands the chariot to stop in v. 38. Finally,
the eunuch is reading from a copy of the scroll of Isaiah, an item that would have
been expensive to commission and produce in the ancient world.85 In sum, the
eunuch is in charge of a vast treasure, reading from an expensive scroll, and
traveling with a driver (and perhaps other unnamed attendants) by means of a
spacious (p.134) chariot. In Acts 8, Luke associates the Ethiopian eunuch with
numerous signs of wealth and luxury, and Greco-Roman authors often
characterized distant “barbarians” as effeminate with a womanish penchant for
decadent excess. Luke himself critiques wealth and luxury elsewhere in his two
volumes, but Luke’s details of luxury with respect to the eunuch in Acts 8 hold
no rebuke.86 In contrast to Simon Magus, who tries to buy the Holy Spirit in the
passage directly beforehand (8:9–25), the eunuch’s wealth does not earn him
condemnation or obstruct him from the gospel. Instead, his luxury is what a
Greek-speaking audience would expect of a “foreign” eunuch. The eunuch’s
access to wealth and a lavish lifestyle would have completed the picture of an
effeminate man.
This connection between luxury and effeminacy is evident earlier in Luke’s

narrative when Jesus asks a crowd of people in the wilderness, “But what did
you come out to see? A person clothed in soft [μαλακοῖς] robes? Behold! Those
in expensive clothing and living in luxury are in palaces” (Luke 7:25; cf. Matt
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11:8). Here Luke applies the word μαλακός, which denotes both “softness” and
“effeminacy” in the ancient world, to convey a sense of opulent luxury.87 The
term μαλακός signals effeminacy elsewhere in the New Testament itself (1 Cor
6:9), appearing in a vice list alongside μοικοί (“adulterers”) and the notoriously
difficult to translate ἀρσενοκοῖται (“male penetrators”).88 In Luke 7, Jesus says
that luxurious, “soft” people live in “palaces” (βασιλείοις), and in Acts 8, the
eunuch himself is returning to the “queen” (βασίλισσα) he serves. Yet once
again, there is no hint of condemnation toward the eunuch and his wealth in
Acts 8. Because of this, commentators assume that the eunuch’s wealth points to
his elite status as a respectable person of great import.89 But to a Greco-Roman
audience, it is more likely that the eunuch’s lavish wealth (p.135) would have
contributed to his “disreputable” status as a gender-liminal, unmanly man.
The eunuch’s overall gender ambiguity emerges most clearly in Luke’s

juxtaposition of gendered terms in the eunuch’s opening introduction. Although
obscured in most English translations, Luke’s first descriptor of the eunuch is
ἀνήρ (v. 27), the specifically sexed word for “man” (as opposed to the more
general term ἄνθρωπος or “human being”).90 It is in fact possible to translate
the eunuch’s initial description as either, “Behold! An Ethiopian eunuch” or
“Behold! A man, an Ethiopian eunuch” (ἰδού ἀνὴρ Αἰθίοψ εὐνοῦχος, v. 27). On
the one hand, Luke’s application of the term ἀνήρ should not be pressed too far.
Luke elsewhere uses ἀνήρ to denote ethnicity, pairing ἀνήρ with a word of
national or local origin, and he frequently introduces characters with either ἀνήρ
(“man”) or γυνή (“woman”).91 On the other hand, Luke’s juxtaposition of these
terms creates a provocative paradox. Luke couples a gendered term (ἀνήρ) with
a character whose gender, for many, would be suspect. To such hearers, the
eunuch would not qualify as an ἀνήρ, for a eunuch was a nonman, someone who
was neither male nor female. By including the word ἀνήρ, Luke thus juxtaposes
two ostensibly contradictory descriptors: the eunuch is a “man” (ἀνήρ) but also a
“eunuch” (εὐνοῦχος), or “nonman.”92 What is more, this man–nonman is a
person of power (δυνάστης), yet also subordinate to a foreign queen
(βασιλίσσης Αἰθιόπων). In short, all of these opening descriptors hold the
eunuch’s numerous contradictions in tension and blur widely held gender,
ethnic, and status boundaries in the process.
Overall, the eunuch is a “betwixt and between,” paradoxical figure. He is a

“man” in service to a woman, yet at the same time a “nonman,” who lives
between the spheres of men and women. By virtue of being a eunuch, the
eunuch sits between the categories of man and woman, as well as Jew and
Gentile and elite and “lowly.” If the eunuch was not in fact a
“eunuch” (εὐνοῦχος), Luke’s early auditors would probably conclude that he was
a Diaspora Jew. Luke emphasizes that Cornelius is the first Gentile convert (p.
136) later in chapter 10, and Jewish Scripture speaks of a “remnant” in
Ethiopia (Isa 11:11–12; cf. Ps 87:4 [86:4 LXX]; Zeph 3:10). The eunuch has also
journeyed to Jerusalem to worship in the temple, and he is reading from the
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prophet Isaiah on his own accord. But the eunuch’s designation as a castrated
male raises the question of whether he could be circumcised or allowed into the
inner temple precincts and thus whether he could fully participate in Judaism as
a Jewish male. If the eunuch was not a eunuch from Ethiopia serving an
Ethiopian queen, Luke’s early auditors would probably assume that he was an
elite “insider,” a well-educated personage of great importance with access to
expensive items such as a chariot and scroll. Yet because he is a eunuch who
serves a foreign queen, he would not have been one of the respected elite in
Greco-Roman circles. When it comes to constructions of gender, as well as
ethnicity and status, the eunuch defies easy categorization.
Because of his primary identification as “the eunuch,” the eunuch emerges

above all as a gender-liminal character: a liminality that impinges on his overall
characterization. Because he is a eunuch, the eunuch is neither “here nor
there”: he is neither male nor female, Jew nor Gentile, elite nor nonelite. To
many of Luke’s hearers, the eunuch would have been regarded as an unmanly
man, who surprisingly embodies ideal faithfulness and pursuit of the gospel.
A Lowly “Power”: The Ethiopian Eunuch as a Model Man

Despite the perceived unmanliness of eunuchs in the ancient world, Luke lifts up
the Ethiopian eunuch as a model “man” (ἀνήρ, Acts 8:27) due to his exemplary
conversion. What is more, Luke also presents the eunuch as a person of power.
The eunuch is a dominant character in the narrative, appearing frequently as the
subject of main verbs and speaking more often than Philip and even the angel of
the Lord and the Spirit.93 He is an educated treasurer for a queen from a
historically powerful nation, and he (p.137) is an official, or powerful person
(δυνάστης, v. 27). Cognates of δυνάστης pervade Luke’s two volumes, but the
one other occurrence of the word δυνάστης itself appears in the Magnificat,
when Mary sings that God lifts up the lowly and brings down the “powerful
ones” (δυνάστας) from their thrones (Luke 1:52). Mary’s song of reversal sounds
a central theme for the Lukan narrative as a whole, yet with the Ethiopian
eunuch, we find a “powerful one” who is simultaneously shamed and exalted.
The Eunuch as a Model Convert

Throughout his encounter with Philip, the eunuch emerges as a model convert
due to his eager pursuit of his conversion and baptism.94 Philip is of course an
integral participant in the baptism, but the eunuch is already poised for
admittance to “the Way” without Philip’s aid. The eunuch has already gone to
worship in Jerusalem, the center of the Jewish world, and he is reading aloud
from the prophet Isaiah (vv. 27–28).95 Furthermore, all three of his questions to
Philip facilitate his conversion. The eunuch’s first question, “How can I if no one
guides me?” (v. 31), uttered in response to Philip’s query, “Do you know what
you are reading?” (v. 30), captures an important theme sounded earlier by Jesus
—namely, that Scripture requires interpretation (Luke 24:27, 44–48). Scripture
is not self-interpreting but instead requires guidance by Jesus and his followers
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in order to be understood correctly. The question induces Philip to provide that

guidance, which he does after the eunuch summons (παρεκάλεσέν) Philip to sit
with him (v. 31).96
The eunuch’s second and third questions likewise advance his acceptance of
“the Way.” With his second question, the eunuch anticipates that the prophet
Isaiah is speaking about “someone else” (v. 34) and thus (p.138) facilitates
Philip’s proclamation of Jesus (v. 35). The eunuch even initiates his baptism with
his final question (v. 36). When he and Philip come upon some water, the eunuch
interjects, “Behold, water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” (v. 36).
Without waiting for Philip to reply, the eunuch commands (ἐκέλευσεν) the
chariot to stop, and they both (ἀμφότεροι) descend into the water together (v.
38). Luke then switches to the singular “he baptized” (ἐβάπτισεν) without
specifying Philip as the subject of the verb (v. 38). Context determines that Philip
is in fact performing the baptism, but he is reduced to an implied subject and the
last person mentioned prior to this action is the eunuch himself.97 Throughout
this wilderness encounter, Philip’s relative passivity highlights the eunuch’s
eager pursuit of his own conversion.
After the baptism, the eunuch’s parting description completes his picture as an
ideal convert. Here Luke reverts to a plural subject when they ascend
(ἀνέβησαν) from the water, but then abruptly removes Philip from the scene and
turns to the eunuch yet again: “the spirit of the Lord snatched up Philip and the
eunuch did not see him any longer” (v. 39). Luke then continues with the
connector γάρ, suggesting that the eunuch’s inability to see Philip is not simply
impeded by Philip’s being “snatched up” but by the eunuch’s own joy-filled
journeying: “and [καὶ] the eunuch did not see him any longer, for [γὰρ] he was
traveling on his way rejoicing” (v. 39).98 The eunuch is already traveling on “his
way” and rejoicing (χαίρων)—a frequent response to God’s action in Luke-Acts—
and is thus too occupied to notice Philip’s sudden departure.99 The eunuch is
now a member of the Way and responds, quite rightly in Luke’s view, to God’s
agency, not Philip’s.100
Finally, the eunuch emerges as a model convert in contrast to the converts who
immediately precede and follow him: Simon Magus (8:9–25) and Saul (9:1–
19).101 Simon Magus acts as a foil to the eunuch since he offers (p.139) the
apostles money in exchange for their “authority” (ἐξουσίαν), earning a sharp
rebuke from Peter in return (8:18–23). Saul likewise acts as a foil to the eunuch
since he persecutes members of “the Way” (8:1–3; 9:1–2) and is converted only
after being blinded by “the Lord” (9:3–19a). Unlike Simon Magus, the eunuch
does not use his wealth to acquire authority. And unlike Saul, the eunuch
initiates his conversion and does not have to be “taken down” in order to
believe. The eunuch may have access to wealth and power, but his depiction as
an ideal convert lies in his willingness to be baptized into the Way.
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With respect to his willing baptism, the eunuch points ahead to the baptism of
the Gentile Cornelius (10:1–11:18).102 Whereas the eunuch signifies the margins
of the earth, Cornelius, as a centurion from the Italian cohort (10:1), signifies
the so-called center of the earth (at least in imperial terms). Yet both the eunuch
and Cornelius demonstrate faithfulness and both press the boundaries of who
may be included among followers of Jesus. Just as nothing can hinder (κωλύει)
the baptism of a eunuch (8:36), so can nothing hinder (κωλῦσαί) the baptism of
a Gentile (10:47; cf. 11:17). For Jews in particular, the eunuch hails from an
enemy nation and Cornelius himself would have been viewed as an enemy
oppressor.103 Thus for a Jewish audience at least, both the eunuch and Cornelius
are outsiders (and even enemy outsiders!), yet both are included as members of
the Way.
Akin to Cornelius, the eunuch is, without a doubt, a person of power. The eunuch
is a dominant character, an ideal convert, and a foil to the converts Simon
Magus and Saul. Yet Luke exalts the eunuch because he eagerly pursues the
Way, not because he wields money or power to achieve his ends. What is more,
Luke exalts the eunuch because his identity as an Ethiopian eunuch would have
rendered him “lowly” to many in the ancient world. With these identity markers,
the eunuch is akin to the “lowly” (ταπεινούς) whom God lifts up in Mary’s Song
(Luke 1:52), as well as the Suffering Servant who is lifted up in
“lowliness” (ταπεινώσει) in Isa 53:7–8, the text that the eunuch is reading (Acts
8:32–33). Via his vignette of the eunuch, Luke lifts up a eunuch official, or
impotent “power” (δυνάστης), and, as we shall now see, points to Jesus’ own
impotent power as the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, (p.140) the slaughtered
and shorn lamb who is humiliated and exalted, crucified and risen.
The Eunuch and the Suffering Servant (Acts 8:32–33; cf. Isa 53:7–8)
At the very center of the eunuch’s story resides the most explicit identification of
Jesus as the Suffering Servant in all of the New Testament. After we learn that
the eunuch is reading from the prophet Isaiah, Luke reveals that the Scripture
he is reading derives from one of the Isaianic Suffering Servant psalms,
specifically Isa 52:13–53:12 (here Isa 53:7–8): “Like a sheep led to the slaughter
and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his
humiliation, justice was taken away from him. Who can describe his generation?
Because his life is taken away from the earth.” Chiastic analyses of Acts 8:26–40
identify the citation and discussion of Isa 53:7–8 as the fulcrum of the passage
and hence highlight its interpretative import.104 Luke’s emphasis on Isaiah
throughout his two-volume narrative and his allusions to Jesus as the Suffering
Servant also make this extended Isaianic citation of central importance.105 With
this citation, Luke not only correlates Jesus with the Suffering Servant from
Isaiah but with the eunuch himself. Here the eunuch, an unmanly, gender-liminal
male, is reading of Jesus’ own liminality with respect to masculinity and power.
As the lengthiest citation from Isa 52:13–53:12 in all of Luke-Acts, indeed in all
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of the New Testament, the Isaianic citation in Acts 8:32–33 becomes key for
understanding the eunuch as well as the Lukan Jesus.
Acts 8:32 (cf. Isa 53:7)

Like a sheep led to the slaughter and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
so he does not open his mouth.
The Isaiah citation begins in Acts 8:32 by emphasizing in two parallel clauses
the Suffering Servant’s passivity and lack of control. Likened to a (p.141)
“sheep” (πρόβατον) and a “lamb” (ἀμνός), the Suffering Servant is first
compared to an animal that is often characterized as vulnerable and at the
mercy of wolves in Jewish and Greco-Roman literature.106 This lamb is “being
led [ἤχθη]” which highlights his passivity since the verb itself appears in the
passive form. He is also being led to “slaughter” (σφαγήν), an image that
conjures a bloody death inflicted by an outside source. The following phrase
parallels the sheep’s passivity, for here the lamb is situated “before” (ἐναντίον)
his shearer. Although Luke does not portray the eunuch as a passive figure in
Acts 8, numerous representations of eunuchs do convey their perceived feminine
passivity and lack of manly control. Furthermore, the imagery of a person being
before his shearer, or literally “the one who cut him” (τοῦ κείραντος αὐτὸν),
certainly resonates with the eunuch’s state as a castrated male.107
According to Pentateuchal purity traditions, the body of the Suffering Servant

would be considered imperfect and polluted since he is both slaughtered and
shorn.108 In Levitical law, dead bodies were regarded as unclean, including both
animal carcasses (Lev 11:24–40) and human corpses (Lev 21:1–4, 11).
Furthermore, priests were forbidden to shave, or “cut,” their heads and beards
(Lev 21:5). The Nazirite vow brings together these two taboo realms of dead and
shorn bodies and even intensifies the prohibitions surrounding them (Num 6:1–
21). Luke himself is familiar with these Levitical purity concerns, as well as the
Nazirite vow (Luke 1:15; 10:30–34; Acts 18:18; 21:21–26). Luke even uses the
verb κείρω (“to shear” or “to cut”) in Acts 18:18 to relate Paul’s observance of
the Nazirite law (cf. ξυράομαι, Lev 21:5). Since Pentateuchal law also contains
prohibitions concerning (p.142) eunuchs (Lev 21:17–23; Deut 23:1), the
eunuch is situated in a similar realm to the slaughtered, shorn Isaianic figure. By
certain Pentateuchal standards at least, the bodies of both the eunuch and the
Suffering Servant fall short of physical perfection and do not meet the standards
of bodily wholeness.
In addition to the Suffering Servant’s passivity and corporeal imperfections, his

silence further suggests his unmanly powerlessness. As we saw in chapter 3,
speech was the prerogative of men in the ancient world, yet here we have a
figure associated with a lowly beast who is “silent” (ἄφωνος) before his shearer
(v. 32). He literally lacks a voice (ἄ-φωνος), and his silence is immediately
repeated through synonymous parallelism: “thus he did not open his mouth” (v.
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32).109 Since the lamb-like figure’s silence is self-imposed, this latter phrase may
connote manly self-control. This connotation, however, is not readily apparent in
either its immediate or larger Isaianic context.110 Instead, the lamb’s silence
intersects with other unmanly markers in the text: the Suffering Servant is
slaughtered and shorn, passive and polluted, subordinate and silent. And while
the eunuch speaks throughout his encounter with Philip (and speaks quite well!),
eunuchs did not typically have a voice in the ancient world.111 Indeed, ancient
authors often claimed that a weak, high-pitched voice was indicative of women
and eunuchs, whereas a strong, deep voice was indicative of “real men.”112 The
author of a third-century physiognomical treatise even compares the speech of
effeminate men (or more specifically cinaedi/κίναιδοι) to the bleating of sheep
(Anon. Lat., Physiogn. 115).
(p.143) Acts 8:33 (cf. Isa 53:8)

In his humiliation, justice was taken away from him. Who can describe his
generation? Because his life is taken away from the earth.
On one level at least, the continuation of the Isaiah citation in Acts 8:33 furthers
the Suffering Servant’s unmanly passivity by focusing on his humiliation and
death.113 Verse 33 opens with: “In his humiliation [ταπεινώσει], his justice
[κρίσις] was taken away.” Isaiah places “humiliation” in a position of prominence
at the beginning of the phrase, and Luke specifically couches this humiliation as
“his” (αὐτοῦ) humiliation, a difference from Greek versions of Isa 53:8 that lack
αὐτοῦ. The figure’s “humiliation,” or “lowliness” (ταπεινώσει), not only recalls
the “lowly” (ταπεινούς) who are lifted up in Mary’s Song (Luke 1:52) but Mary’s
own lowliness (ταπείνωσιν, Luke 1:48) and others who are described as being in
a state of similar humiliation (e.g., Luke 14:11 [twice]; 18:14 [twice]; cf. Acts
20:19).114 The sense that his “justice” (κρίσις) was denied, or “taken
away” (ἤρθη), also recalls the theme of justice that runs throughout Luke-Acts, in
particular Pilate’s miscarriage of justice in Luke 23.115
Acts 8:33 next transitions to a lament and connects this lament to the final
phrase of the verse with the causal conjunction ὅτι: “Who can describe his
generation? Because [ὅτι] his life is taken away from the earth.” The content of
the lament, however, can be read in two different ways. On the one hand, the
author may be condoning the people, or “generation” (γενεάν), responsible for
the figure’s death since γενεά can reference an “age” or “era” roughly the span
of a lifetime. This interpretation is consonant, for instance, with Jesus’ earlier
condemnation of this “faithless (p.144) generation [γενεά]” in Luke 9:41.116 On
the other hand, the author may be lamenting the figure’s lack of “generation” in
the sense of his genealogical posterity or “descendants.”117 Due to the figure’s
untimely death, he leaves behind no posterity. This latter sense is especially
evocative in the context of Acts 8, for the eunuch, as one who lacks generative
capabilities, will likewise leave behind no descendants.118 Yet either way one
interprets the question “Who can describe his generation?,” the final two
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phrases of verse 33 respectively lament the figure’s death and render that death
with a passive verb: “his life is taken away [αἴρεται].”
Acts 8:33 (cf. Isa 53:8) Once Again

In his humiliation, his judgment was removed. Who can describe his
generation! Because his life is taken up from the earth.
At the same time, however, all three phrases in Acts 8:33 can be read in a
different, and indeed opposite, light. Verse 33 may not continue the emphasis on
the Suffering Servant’s humiliation and death, but express his vindication and
exaltation. To begin with, the first phrase, as we have seen, can read as follows:
“In his humiliation, justice [κρίσις] was taken away from him.” But it can also be
translated as: “In his humiliation, his judgment [κρίσις] was taken away.” In
other words, the figure’s judgment was removed. These two different
translations derive from the double valence of the word κρίσις, which can mean
both “justice” and “judgment.”119 Thus the question remains: is the figure
experiencing a denial of justice or a removal of judgment? Is he condemned or
vindicated?
The second phrase may also be read in an opposite light by conveying not
lament but praise. With the understanding of γενεά as posterity, the (p.145)
question may not be lamenting the figure’s lack of descendants, but praising the
figure’s innumerable descendants.120 Who indeed, the narrator may be asking, is
able to describe, or “recount” (διηγήσεται), the servant’s posterity? Despite his
death, the servant has left behind an indescribable generation. The connection
to the eunuch’s situation applies here as well, for although the eunuch cannot
leave behind a family of blood kin, he does presumably leave behind a family of
faith after his conversion. Luke does not narrate the eunuch preaching the
gospel in Ethiopia, but the hearer is in all likelihood to assume that this occurs
since the eunuch signifies the spread of the gospel to the end of the earth.
Despite his impotence, the eunuch still generates a family, albeit via conversion
and not procreation. Yet an interpretative question still remains: does the
question itself connote lament or praise? Does the suffering figure’s
“generation” cause sorrow or thanksgiving?
Finally, the third phrase may not simply reference the servant’s passive death,
but his God-initiated exaltation. This alternate interpretation is due to the double
valence of the verb αἴρω, which can mean either to “take away” or “take up.”
The phrase, then, could read, as initially translated, “his life is taken away
[αἴρεται] from the earth.” It may also read, however, as “his life is taken up
[αἴρεται] from the earth.” Jewish Scripture testifies to God “taking up” people
from earth to heaven, including most spectacularly Elijah (2 Kgs 2:1–12; cf. Gen
4:10; Sir 44:16; Heb 11:5). In Acts 8, Philip himself is in a sense “taken up”
when he is “snatched up” (ἥρπασεν) by the spirit of the Lord and resituated, not
in heaven, but in Azotus (vv. 39–40). Once again, the text here can be translated
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in two very different ways: is the suffering figure’s life removed from the earth
or taken up from the earth? Is he killed or exalted?
Most commentators on Acts 8:33 argue for one line of interpretation over
another. Some argue that the sense of vindication and exaltation is paramount,
whereas others argue that the sense of humiliation and death prevails.121 It is
more plausible, however, that both exaltation and humiliation should be held in
tension: it is not a question of an either/or, but a (p.146) both/and. It is not the
case, then, that the figure’s suffering in verse 32 is simply reversed or overcome
in verse 33, but that both suffering and reversal directly overlap in verse 33
itself. Both lines of interpretation are possible and that is precisely the point:
death and exaltation are held together so that it becomes impossible to speak of
one and not the other. Indeed, even with the sense that the servant is vindicated
in verse 33, it is only “in his humiliation” that this vindication occurs. Given
Hebrew poetry’s penchant for double valence and multiple meanings, the dual
connotations in this Isaianic verse should come as no surprise. Condemnation
and vindication, lament and praise, death and exaltation: all are possibilities and
all overlap in this poetic citation from Isaiah.
The Eunuch and Jesus

Luke’s characterization of the eunuch as an impotent power—an unmanly, yet
model, man—coincides with the both/and scenario found in Luke’s incorporation
of the Isaiah citation. Of course, the eunuch does experience a reversal or
vindication of sorts by the end of the passage. He is welcomed into the Way
without hindrance, signaling that his lack of manliness and generative prowess
does not preclude him from inclusion among God’s people. At the same time, the
eunuch remains a eunuch until the very end: his physical situation of “lowliness”
or unmanliness is not reversed. After his conversion and baptism, Luke still
identifies him as “the eunuch” (ὁ εὐνοῦχος, v. 39). The eunuch continues on his
way rejoicing as a person who still lacks generative power. Indeed, the eunuch
embodies impotent power because he is an impotent man who has had the
power of God bestowed on him.
Luke’s incorporation of the Isaianic citation, however, intersects not only with
the eunuch’s situation but with Jesus himself. When the eunuch asks whether
the prophet speaks about himself or someone else (v. 34), Philip immediately
identifies the “someone else” as Jesus: “beginning with this scripture [γραφῆς
ταύτης], he proclaimed the good news to him about Jesus” (v. 35). Just as Jesus
reveals his identity to the two travelers on the way to Emmaus by interpreting
Scripture (Luke 24:27), Philip does the same while he is on the way with the
eunuch.122
For Luke, this passage from Isaiah ultimately points to Jesus’ impotent power.
During the passion narrative, Jesus, like the servant in Isa 53:7–8, (p.147) is
silent (Luke 23:9) and passively led around by others to his death (Luke 22:54,
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66; 23:1, 7, 11, 14, 15, 26).123 Jesus is also denied justice during his trials and
experiences the humiliation of the cross. A faithless “generation” condemns him
to death, yet he leaves behind an unconventional progeny in the form of his
family of followers who number beyond description. Jesus’ life is “taken away”
during the crucifixion and also “taken up” during the ascension (Luke 24:51;
Acts 1:9).
Yet like that of the servant, Jesus’ exaltation does not simply “reverse” his
humiliation and death. Jesus’ exaltation is instead held in tandem with his
death.124 Jesus’ judgment may be removed by means of the resurrection, but
that removal still happens “in his humiliation” (Acts 8:33). Even in his
resurrected state, Jesus still bears the marks of the crucifixion, for he shows the
wounds on his hands and feet to his disciples (Luke 24:39–40). Luke does not
present the crucifixion and resurrection in terms of a simple one-to-one reversal,
but as something more complex in which one cannot speak about the
resurrection without speaking about the crucifixion and vice versa.
Jesus also has specific points of connection with the eunuch himself. Both Jesus
and the eunuch do not generate descendants by means of sexual relations and
thus relativize the procreative power of the phallus. We know that Jesus has a
phallus since he is circumcised in Luke 2:21, yet the generative potential of his
phallus does not figure into the growth of his newly formed family of God. Like
the eunuch, Jesus is a powerful person who does not use his access to power to
achieve his ends. Instead, Jesus submits to “powerful ones” who sit on thrones
by dying on a cross. Furthermore, both Jesus and the eunuch remain unmanly
after their respective reversals. Jesus’ body remains pierced after his
resurrection since the places where the nails penetrated his hands and feet are
still visible in his exalted state. Just as the eunuch remains a castrated man after
his conversion, Jesus remains a penetrated man after his resurrection.
As F. Scott Spencer remarks, “it comes as no surprise that the Jewish-

sympathizing Ethiopian eunuch in Acts gravitates to that portion of prophetic
(p.148) Scripture which features a pathetic, sheep-like figure, slaughtered and
shorn (cut), dead and dumb (weak of voice)—the victim of humiliation.”125 What
does come as a surprise, however, is that Luke associates Jesus so closely with a
figure who would have been despised by many of Luke’s contemporaries. The
most explicit identification of Jesus as the Isaianic Suffering Servant by a New
Testament author appears at the very center of the eunuch’s story, and Luke
puts these words of Isaiah in the mouth of a so-called contemptible figure. With
the eunuch, Luke presents a character who falls short of elite Greco-Roman
ideals of “respectability” and who instead recalls Jesus’ own transgression of
“respectable” norms as the humiliated lamb who suffered and died. Indeed, the
eunuch’s characterization as an impotent power underscores the paradox of
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Jesus, a person of power who died a powerless death. The eunuch, the Suffering
Servant, Jesus: all three figures intersect in terms of their impotent power.
Summary
As someone who lacks a central symbol of masculinity in the ancient world, the
Ethiopian eunuch of Acts 8:26–40 is an impotent, unmanly man. Yet despite the
eunuch’s impotence and lack of manly power, Luke still portrays him as a
powerful character via his narrative dominance, eager pursuit of “the Way,” and
designation as a δυνάστης, or person of power. Luke shows that the eunuch is a
person of power, yet at the same time a person without power since his
descriptors as an Ethiopian and a eunuch would have situated him outside the
realm of manly men. Unlike other men in Luke-Acts who have to be “taken
down,” such as Zechariah and Paul, the eunuch does not have to be taken down,
for he is already a “lowly,” unmanly man. He is a person of power who is at the
same time antithetical to prevalent manifestations of power: the eunuch is
literally an impotent power who bears this paradox within his very body.
The significance of the eunuch’s story does not only extend to the gospel’s
spread to the end of the earth, but also to the gospel’s gendered ramifications.
Admittance to the Way, Luke maintains, does not center around the physical and
procreative power of the phallus, but instead around faith in Jesus, who himself
embodies the absence of physical and procreative power. Indeed, the eunuch
contributes to the ongoing growth of the Christian community via conversion as
opposed to procreation (see esp. Luke 8:19–21) (p.149) and foreshadows the
Jerusalem council’s decision in chapter 15 to reject circumcision as a
requirement for Gentile inclusion in the Christian community.126 Moreover, the
eunuch’s defiance of gender categories (and thus also ethnic and status
categories) points to the heart of the boundary-breaking nature of the gospel.
Throughout Acts, Luke narrates the progression of the gospel across gender,
ethnic, and status lines, and in Acts 8:26–40, he positions the eunuch as an ideal
convert who falls in between all of these categories.127 The eunuch, as we shall
see in the next chapter, also points ahead to Paul’s own acceptance of “the Way.”
Paul’s conversion immediately follows the eunuch’s conversion and acts as an
interesting counterpoint since Paul has to be “unmanned” in order to believe. Yet
above all, the eunuch points to Jesus himself, whose own embodiment of
unmanliness likewise blurs the lines between “male” and “female.” According to
Luke, Jesus is the living example of God’s impotent power, for Jesus is the
crucified, risen “Lord.”
Notes:
(1) The perennial question in twentieth century scholarship on the Ethiopian
eunuch is whether he is a Jew or a Gentile. For a recent survey of this literature,
see Scott Shauf, “Locating the Eunuch: Characterization and Narrative Context
in Acts 8:26-40,” CBQ 71 (2009): 762–75. Studies that focus on the eunuch’s
Ethiopian identity include: Clarice J. Martin, “A Chamberlain’s Journey and the
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Challenge of Interpretation for Liberation,” Semeia 47 (1989): 105–35; Abraham

Smith, “ ‘Do You Understand What You Are Reading?’ A Literary Critical Reading
of the Ethiopian (Kushite) Episode (Acts 8:26-40),” Journal of the
Interdenominational Theological Center 22 (1994): 48–70, esp. 63–70; repr., “A
Second Step in African Biblical Interpretation: A Generic Reading Analysis of
Acts 8:26-40,” in Reading from This Place: Social Location and Biblical
Interpretation in the United States (ed. F. F. Segovia and M. A. Tolbert; 2 vols.;
Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 1.213–28. These studies rely largely on Frank M.
Snowden’s influential, yet now dated, Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the
Greco-Roman Experience (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970).
For a more nuanced approach, see Gay L. Byron, Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic
Difference in Early Christian Literature (London: Routledge, 2002), 109–15.
(2) For works that treat gender in Acts, see esp. Mary Rose D’Angelo, “The
ΑΝΗΡ Question in Luke-Acts: Imperial Masculinity and the Deployment of
Women in the Early Second Century,” in A Feminist Companion to Luke (ed. A.-J.
Levine with M. Blickenstaff; London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 44–69;
Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele, “Gendering Violence: Patterns of
Power and Constructs of Masculinity in the Acts of the Apostles,” in A Feminist
Companion to the Acts of the Apostles (ed. A.-J. Levine with M. Blickenstaff;
Edinburgh: &T T&T Clark, 2004), 193–209; Colleen M. Conway, Behold the Man:
Jesus and Greco-Roman Masculinity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008),
127–42. Of the references noted above, only Mary Rose D’Angelo mentions the
Ethiopian eunuch and she does so in passing (“ΑΝΗΡ Question in Luke-Acts,”
46–47, 66).
(3) For these examinations of the Ethiopian eunuch in light of gender and other
intersecting factors such as status and ethnicity, see the following: F. Scott
Spencer, “The Ethiopian Eunuch and His Bible: A Social-Science Analysis,” BTB
22 (1992): 155–65; Marianne Bjelland Kartzow and Halvor Moxnes, “Complex
Identities: Ethnicity, Gender and Religion in the Story of the Ethiopian Eunuch
(Acts 8:26–40),” R&T 17 (2010): 184–204; Sean D. Burke, “Early Christian Drag:
The Ethiopian Eunuch as a Queering Figure,” in Reading Ideologies: Essays on
the Bible and Interpretation in Honor of Mary Ann Tolbert (ed. T. B. Liew;
Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2011), 288–301; Burke, “Queering Early
Christian Discourse: The Ethiopian Eunuch,” in Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at
the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship (ed. T. J. Hornsby and K. Stone; Atlanta:
Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 175–89; Burke, Queering the Ethiopian
Eunuch: Strategies of Ambiguity in Acts (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013); Marianne
Bjelland Kartzow, “Borderline Identity: The Contested Body of the Ethiopian
Eunuch (Acts 8:26–40),” in Destabilizing the Margins: An Intersectional
Approach to Early Christian Memory (Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick, 2012), 46–58;
Martin Leutzsch, “Eunuch und Intersektionalität: Ein multiperspektivischer
Versuch zu Apg 8,26–40,” in Doing Gender—Doing Religion: Fallstudien zur
Intersektionalität im frühen Judentum, Christentum und Islam (ed. U. E. Eisen,
Page 23 of 38
C. Gerber, and A. Standhartinger; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 405–30;

Brittany E. Wilson, “ ‘Neither Male nor Female’: The Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts
8.26–40,” NTS 60 (2014): 1–20.
(4) On the eunuch’s assumed “respectability” among commentators, see, e.g.,

Luke Timothy Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical
Press, 1992), 158; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles: A New
Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 31; New York: Doubleday,
1998), 411–12; cf. Richard I. Pervo, Acts: A Commentary (Hermeneia;
Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), 222. See also Mary Rose D’Angelo, who comments
that the eunuch represents “a particularly elite example” of a “right-thinking
imperial outsider” (“ΑΝΗΡ Question in Luke-Acts,” 46-47).
(5) E.g., Luke 1:35, 49, 52; 5:17; 21:26; 22:69; 24:49; Acts 8:10; 10:38; 19:11.
(6) F. F. Bruce is representative of the position that Acts 8:26–40 could be easily
excised (“Philip and the Ethiopian,” JSS 34 [1989]: 377–86, here 378).
(7) For variations of this phrase with respect to Ethiopia, see esp. Herodotus,
Hist. 3.25; Homer, Od. 1.22–23; Strabo, Geogr. 1.1.6; 17.2.1. See also the
discussion of Ethiopians below.
(8) For surveys of what “the end of the earth” in Acts 1:8 may signify in addition
to Ethiopia, see Bertram L. Melbourne, “Acts 1:8 Re-examined: Is Acts 8 Its
Fulfillment?,” JRT 57–58 (2001–2005): 1–18; Thomas S. Moore, “ ‘To the End of
the Earth’: The Geographic and Ethnic Universalism of Acts 1:8 in Light of
Isaianic Influence on Luke,” JETS 40 (1997): 389–99.
(9) See also Isa 49:6; Luke 2:32; 24:47; Moore, “ ‘To the End of the Earth.’ ”
(10) See Shauf, “Locating the Eunuch.”
(11) Eric D. Barreto, Ethnic Negotiations: The Function of Race and Ethnicity in
Acts 16 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010).
(12) Barreto, Ethnic Negotiations, 25.
(13) Commentators sometimes draw this conclusion because the word εὐνοῦχος
can denote officials without any reference to their physical state. In the LXX, for
example, εὐνοῦχος typically translates the Hebrew ‫( סריס‬which does not always
explicitly reference castration), and δυνάστης translates ‫ סריס‬in Jer 34:19 (41:19
LXX). The married official Potiphar is also called a εὐνοῦχος in Gen 39:1 (LXX).
See, e.g., Rene Peter-Contesse, “Was Potiphar a Eunuch? (Genesis 37.36; 39.1),”
BT 47 (1996): 142–46. However, the term εὐνοῦχος also references physical
eunuchs in the LXX, both explicitly (Sir 20:4; 30:20) and implicitly (4 Kgdms 8:6;
9:32; 20:18; Esther 1:10, 12, 15; 2:3, 14, 15, 4:4, 5; Isa 39:7 [Aq.; Sm.; Th.]; Jer
29:2 [36:2 LXX]; 41:16 [48:16 LXX]). Furthermore, the LXX calls Potiphar a
Page 24 of 38
σπάδων in Gen 37:36, and later Jewish interpreters understood Potiphar to be a

physical eunuch (e.g., Philo, Ios. 37; 58–60; Leg. 3.236; Somn. 2.184; Gen. Rab.
86:3.) See Hayim Tadmor, “Was the Biblical sārîs a Eunuch?,” in Solving Riddles
and Untying Knots: Biblical, Epigraphic, and Semitic Studies in Honor of Jonas
C. Greenfield (ed. Z. Zevit, S. Gitin, and M. Sokoloff; Winona Lake, Ind.:
Eisenbrauns, 1995), 317–25; Janet Everhart, “Hidden Eunuchs of the Hebrew
Bible,” in Society of Biblical Literature 2002 Seminar Papers (Atlanta: Society of
Biblical Literature, 2002), 137–55; Burke, Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch, 19–
38.
(14) Spencer, for example, makes this point (“Ethiopian Eunuch,” 156). See also
Erich Dinkler, “Philippus und der ΑΝΗΡ ΑΙΘΙΟΨ (Apg 8,26-40),” in Jesus und
Paulus: Festschrift für Werner Georg Kümmel zum 70. Geburtstag (ed. E. E. Ellis
and E. Grässer; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975), 85–95, esp. 92.
(15) Spencer, “Ethiopian Eunuch,” 156. See also Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 1.33, and
the discussion below.
(16) Luke’s reliance on Isaiah elsewhere, as well as his praise of those who
cannot procreate, including the eunuch (Acts 8:26–40) and the barren (Luke
23:29), suggests that he has in view scriptural references such as Isa 56:3–5 and
Wis 3:13–14. For more on these allusions, see the discussion below.
(17) See Burke, Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch, 33–38, and the discussion below.
(18) Furthermore, if Luke wanted to clarify that this Ethiopian character was
strictly an official, he could have repeated the term δυνάστης throughout. F.
Scott Spencer, The Portrait of Philip in Acts: A Study of Roles and Relations
(JSNTSup 67; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), 166–67.
(19) Jov. 1.12 reads: spado … qui ob robur fidei viri nomen obtinuit. See also
Epist. 53.5. Cited in Mathew Kuefler, The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender
Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2001), 271, 388.
(20) On the newfound emphasis placed on the large phallus during the Roman
Empire and the corresponding emphasis on Priapic masculinity, see chapter 2.
(21) Burke, Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch, 99–103; Burke, “Queering Early
Christian Discourse,” 178–81.
(22) On eunuchs as monsters, nonhumans, or a third type of human being, see,

e.g., Dio Chrysostom, Invid. 36; Claudian, Against Eutropius 1.466–467; Claudius
Mamertinus, Julian 19.4; H. A., Alex. Sev. 23.7; Herodotus, Hist. 8.105–106;
Josephus, Ant. 4.290–291; Lucian, Eunuch. 6; Philo, Spec. 1.325; Somn. 2.184.
(23) See Burke, Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch, 95–121, esp. 107–10.
Page 25 of 38
(24) See, e.g., Chariton, Chaer. 5.9; Esth 1:1 (LXX), 10, 12, 15, 21 (S11); 2:3, 14,
15, 21; 4:4, 5; 6:2, 14; 7:9.
(25) E.g., Esth 2:3, 14, 15; 4:4, 5; Heliodorus, Aeth. 8.6; 9.25; Josephus, Ant.
15.226; Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 1.33; Terence, Eun. 365–370; 575; 650–655.
(26) E.g., Apuleius, Metam. 8.26–30; Dio Chrysostom, 4 Regn. 35–36; Epictetus,
Dis. 2.20.19–20; Juvenal, Sat. 6.366–378; Lucian, [Asin.] 35–38; Martial, Ep. 3.81;
6.2; Petronius, Satyr. 23–24; Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 1.33, 36; Vit. Soph. 8.489;
Sir 20:4; Terence, Eun. 665.
(27) Juvenal, Sat. 6.366–378; Martial, Ep. 3.81. Of the known procedures for
castration, only one involved amputating the penis, with or without the testicles
(castrati). Other procedures involved tying up the scrotum or crushing the
testicles. Latin law distinguished between castrati and other types of eunuchs,
including those who were eunuchs by birth or “nature” (natura spadones).
Kuefler, Manly Eunuch, 33. See also Jane F. Gardner, “Sexing a Roman:
Imperfect Men in Roman Law,” in When Men Were Men: Masculinity, Power and
Identity in Classical Antiquity (ed. L. Foxhall and J. Salmon; New York:
Routledge, 1998), 136–52.
(28) See, e.g., Ammianus Marcellinus, 18.4; Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 6.42;
Suetonius, Dom. 7; Martial, Ep. 6.2. Castration was repeatedly prohibited in the
Roman Empire from the time of Sulla (c. 138–178 B.C.E.) onward, and jurists’
arguments for penalties against both forced and voluntary castration became
increasingly authoritative until they had acquired the force of law by the fifth
century. The degree to which such bans and legal opinions were enforced,
however, is unclear. See Kuefler, Manly Eunuch, 32–33.
(29) See Peter Guyot, Eunuchen als Sklaven und Freigelassene in der griechisch-
römischen Antike (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1980). See also Keith Hopkins,
Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 172–96;
Dirk Schlinkert, “Der Hofeunuch in der Spätantike: Ein gefährlicher
Außenseiter?,” Hermes 122 (1994): 342–59; cf. Shaun Tougher, “In or Out?
Origins of Court Eunuchs,” in Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond (ed. S. Tougher;
Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2002), 143–59. On the perceived status of
eunuchs as slaves, see also Burke, Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch, 113–15.
(30) Apuleius, Metam. 8.24–30; 9.8–10; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom.

2.19.1–5; Justinian, Dig. 48.8.4–6; Juvenal, Sat. 6.511–516; Lucian, [Asin.] 35–38.
See also Catullus, Poem 63; Lucian, [Syr. d.] 27; Lucretius, 2.581–660; Ovid, Fast.
4.179–372; Metam. 10.99–105; Mary Beard, “The Roman and the Foreign: The
Cult of the ‘Great Mother’ in Imperial Rome,” in Shamanism, History and the
State (ed. N. Thomas and C. Humphrey; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1994), 164–90; Shelley Hales, “Looking for Eunuchs: The galli and Attis in
Roman Art,” in Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond (ed. S. Tougher; Swansea:
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Classical Press of Wales, 2002), 87–102; Lynn E. Roller, “The Ideology of the
Eunuch Priest,” in Gender and the Body in the Ancient Mediterranean (ed. M.
Wyke; Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 118–35.
(31) Philostratus says the following about Favorinus: “there were these three
paradoxes in his life: though he was a Gaul he led the life of a Hellene; a eunuch,
he had been tried for adultery; he had quarreled with an emperor [Hadrian] and
was still alive” (Vit. soph. 8.489). See esp. Lucian, Demon. 12–13; Polemo,
Physiogn. (Leiden) A20; Anon. Lat., Physiogn. 40; Maud W. Gleason, Making
Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1995), esp. 21–54. (Citations to physiognomical texts are from
Simon Swain, ed., “Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul”: Polemon’s Physiognomy
from Classical Antiquity to Medieval Islam [New York: Oxford University Press,
2007].)
(32) To trace the rise of eunuchs to political power in the Roman Empire, see
Walter Stevenson, “The Rise of Eunuchs in Greco-Roman Antiquity,” JHSex 5
(1995): 495–511. See also Guyot, Eunuchen als Sklaven und Freigelassene, 130–
80; Kuefler, Manly Eunuch, 61–69.
(33) See esp. Ammianus Marcellinus, 18.4; Claudian, Against Eutropius; Claudius
Mamertinus, Julian 19; Dio Cassius, 78.17; H. A., Alex. Sev. 23.3–8.
(34) Around the year 214 C.E., Sempronius Rufus became the first eunuch
appointed to a high-ranking political position within the Roman Empire. See Dio
Cassius, 78.17; Stevenson, “Rise of Eunuchs,” esp. 506.
(35) See, e.g., Pliny, Nat. 7.39.129; Guyot, Eunuchen als Sklaven und
Freigelassene, 121–29.
(36) See Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, “Eunuchs and the Royal Harem in Achaemenid
Persia (559-331 BC),” in Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond (ed. S. Tougher;
Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2002), 19–49; Tougher, “In or Out?”; Piotr O.
Scholz, Eunuchs and Castrati: A Cultural History (trans. J. A. Broadwin and S. L.
Frisch; Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener, 2001), esp. 31–123.
(37) The Greek novelist Chariton, for example, describes the eunuch Artaxates—
the most trusted servant of the Persian king Artaxerxes—as “thinking like a
eunuch, a slave, a barbarian. He did not know the spirit of a wellborn
Greek” (Chaer. 6.4) (trans. by B. P. Reardon from B. P. Reardon, ed., Collected
Ancient Greek Novels [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989]). See also,
e.g., Dio Chrysostom, Regn. tyr. 5–6; Herodotus, Hist. 8.105; Caesar, Bell. civ.
3.108, 112; Tacitus, Ann. 6.31.
(38) See also Philo, Deus, 111; Ebr. 210–213; Ios. 37; 58–60; Leg. 3.236; Migr.
69.4; Spec. 3.40–42; Ra’anan Abusch, “Eunuchs and Gender Transformation:
Page 27 of 38
Philo’s Exegesis of the Joseph Narrative,” in Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond

(ed. S. Tougher; Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2002), 103–21.
(39) See also m. Yebam. 8:1–2, 4–6.
(40) Spencer, “Ethiopian Eunuch,” 159. See also Daniel Boyarin, who argues that
Jewish authors were more concerned about gender hybridity (or the mixing of
“God-given” male and female categories) than their Greco-Roman counterparts
(“Are There Any Jews in ‘The History of Sexuality’?,” JHSex 5 [1995]: 333–55,
esp. 340–45).
(41) Note that the term εὐνοῦχος only appears in some recensions of the LXX’s
account of Ebedmelech (Jer 45:7–13 [LXX]; 46:15–18 [LXX]). However, a number
of eunuchs serve foreign rulers or act as mediators between Israel and foreign
peoples in scriptural texts. See Gen 37:36; 39:1; 40:2, 7; 4 Kgdms 8:6; 9:32;
20:18; Neh 1:11 (B S2); Esth 1:1 (LXX), 10, 12, 15, 21 (S1); 2:3, 14, 15, 21; 4:4,
5; 6:2, 14; 7:9; Isa 39:7 (Aq.; Sm.; Th.); Dan 1:3–21; Jdt 12:10–13:10; 14:11–19.
(42) In addition to his story of the eunuch in Acts 8, Luke also blesses barren
women, when Jesus says in Luke 23:29, “For behold, the days are coming when
they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the
breasts that never gave suck!’ ”
(43) Later witnesses, presumably uncomfortable with Philip’s silence and the
eunuch’s lack of a profession of faith, provide both Philip and the eunuch with
additional lines at this juncture.
(44) Early Christian authors themselves were familiar with such depictions since
they often reflect the gendered rhetoric of their contemporaries concerning
eunuchs. Even though the only two references to eunuchs in the New Testament
are positive (Matt 19:12; Acts 8:26–40), early Christians provided an ambivalent
portrait of eunuchs, at times praising their so-called celibacy and at times
impugning their unmanliness. For more on this phenomenon, see Kuefler, Manly
Eunuch.
(45) On Jesus’ saying about eunuchs in Matt 19:12 and its gendered
ramifications, see Halvor Moxnes, Putting Jesus in His Place: A Radical Vision of
Household and Kingdom (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 72–90; J.
David Hester, “Eunuchs and the Postgender Jesus: Matthew 19.12 and
Transgressive Sexualities,” JSNT 28 (2005): 13–40.
(46) For recent approaches that attend to both the eunuch’s gender and
ethnicity, see esp. Byron, Symbolic Blackness, 109–15; Kartzow and Moxnes,
“Complex Identities”; Burke, Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch; Wilson, “ ‘Neither
Male nor Female.’ ”
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(47) On the belief that Ethiopia was the gateway to an entirely other inhabited
world populated by people known as Antipodes, see James S. Romm, The Edges
of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration, and Fiction (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), esp. 128–40, 149–56. On Rome’s border
skirmishes and expeditions into Ethiopia, see Res gest. divi Aug. 26; Dio Cassius,
54.5.4–6; Pliny, Nat. 6.35.181–182; 12.8.19; Seneca, Nat. 6.8.3–4; Strabo, Geogr.
17.1.54. On Ethiopia signifying a place that lay tantalizingly beyond Rome’s
grasp yet also within reach, see Romm, Edges of the Earth, esp. 149–56.
(48) On the usage of the terms οἰκουμένη and orbis terrarum, see Claude Nicolet,
Space, Geography, and Politics in the Early Roman Empire (trans. H. Leclerc;
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), 29–56; Romm, Edges of the
Earth, 37–38; O. Michel, “οἰκουμένη,” TDNT 5:157–59.
(49) On this tendency, see Byron, Symbolic Blackness, esp. 29–51; Romm, Edges
of the Earth, esp. 45–60.
(50) See Diodorus Siculus, 3.8.1–3; Pliny, Nat. 2.80.189–190; Strabo, Geogr.
15.1.24; Byron, Symbolic Blackness, esp. 39–41; Lloyd A. Thompson, Romans and
Blacks (London: Routledge, 1989), 104–9.
(51) See Byron, Symbolic Blackness, esp. 1–13, 29–51; Thompson, Romans and
Blacks, esp. 86–156.
(52) Homer depicts the gods visiting the Ethiopians (Il. 1.423–424; 23.205–207;
Od. 5.282–287). See also Diodorus Siculus, 1.97.8–9; 3.2.1–3.10.6; Heliodorus,
Aeth. 4.8, 12, 13; 8.1, 11; 9.1, 22–27; 10.1–41; Herodotus, Hist. 3.17–25;
Pausanias, Descr. 1.33.3–4; Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 6.1–4; Pliny, Nat. 2.80.189;
Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alexander Romance, 3.18–23; Byron, Symbolic Blackness,
32; Romm, Edges of the Earth, esp. 45–60; Thompson, Romans and Blacks, esp.
88–93.
(53) See e.g., Diodorus Siculus, 3.8.1–3; Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 6.25; Pliny, Nat.
2.80.189–190; 5.8.43–46; 6.35.1–197; Strabo, Geogr. 17.2.1–3. See also Juvenal,
Sat. 2.23; Petronius, Satyr. 102; Plutarch, Mor. 12E; Byron, Symbolic Blackness,
32, 35–38; Thompson, Romans and Blacks, esp. 94–113.
(54) Heliodorus, Aeth. 8.1–10.41; Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alexander Romance, 3.18–

23.
(55) On the negative color symbolism of dark skin among Greco-Roman authors,
see Byron, Symbolic Blackness, 29–51; Thompson, Romans and Blacks, esp. 110–
13. In Pseudo-Callisthenes’s Alexander Romance, the candace writes the
following to Alexander: “Do not think the worse of us for the color of our skin.
We are purer in soul than the whitest of your people” (3.18). In Heliodorus’s
Ethiopian Story, the beautiful Greek protagonist is described as having “skin of
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gleaming white” in contrast to her royal Ethiopian parents (esp. 4.8; 10.14–15)
(trans. by J. R. Morgan from Reardon, Collected Ancient Greek Novels). Both
novels are also set in the distant past around the sixth and fourth centuries
B.C.E.
(56) See, e.g., Diodorus Siculus, 1.27.1–2; 2.21–23, 44–46; 3.52–55; 5.32.1–7;
Hippocrates, Aer. 17–22; Herodotus, Hist. 1.105; 2.35; 8.104–106; Strabo, Geogr.
3.4.18; 4.4.3, 6; 11.5.1–4, 11.8, 14.16; Iain Ferris, Enemies of Rome: Barbarians
through Roman Eyes (London: Sutton, 2000), esp. 1–25; Davina C. Lopez, Apostle
to the Conquered: Reimagining Paul’s Mission (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008),
esp. 26–118. See also Edith Hall, Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition
through Tragedy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Benjamin Isaac, The
Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 2004).
(57) See Ferris, Enemies of Rome, esp. 55–60; Lopez, Apostle to the Conquered,
esp. 1–2, 42–48.
(58) For physiognomical accounts of the relationship between Ethiopians’ outer

somatic traits and their inner morality, see Adamantius, Physiogn. B31; Anon.
Lat., Physiogn. 79; Aristotle, [Physiogn.] 6 (812a); Polemo, Physiogn. (Leiden)
B33. For representations of Ethiopians as prostitutes and other sexualized
figures, see Byron, Symbolic Blackness, esp. 38; John R. Clarke, “Hypersexual
Black Men in Roman Baths: Ideal Somatotypes and Apotropaic Magic,” in
Sexuality in Ancient Art: Near East, Egypt, Greece, and Italy (ed. N. B. Kampen;
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 184–98; Clarke, Looking at
Laughter: Humor, Power, and Transgression in Roman Visual Culture, 100 b.c.–
a.d. 250 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 74–81, 87–107;
Thompson, Romans and Blacks, esp. 161.
(59) See Michele M. George, “Race, Racism, and Status: Images of Black Slaves
in the Roman Empire,” Frogs around the Pond: Syllecta Classica 14 (2003): 161–
85.
(60) Maria Wyke, The Roman Mistress: Ancient and Modern Representations
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 195–243, esp. 213–14. See also Hall,
Inventing the Barbarian, 201–10.
(61) See esp. Dio Cassius, 51.10–15; Horace, Carm. 1.37; Epod. 9.10–16;
Plutarch, Ant.; Comp. Demetr. Ant. 3; Propertius, 3.11.29–56; 4.6.57–58; Virgil,
Aen. 8.671–728; Wyke, Roman Mistress, 195–243.
(62) On “candace” (κανδάκη in Greek) as a dynastic title, see Bion of Soli,

Aethiopica 1; Pliny, Nat. 6.35.186; László Török, The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook
of the Napatan-Meroitic Civilization (Leiden: Brill, 1997), esp. 213–14, 452, 455–
56. (Cf. Dio Cassius, 54.5.4–5; Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alexander Romance, 3.18–
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23; Strabo, Geogr. 17.1.54.) On the candaces’ political and military leadership,
see the aforementioned citations in this note and Török, Kingdom of Kush, 448–
87.
(63) On the role sight and blindness play in Greco-Roman constructions of

masculinity, see Brittany E. Wilson, “The Blinding of Paul and the Power of God:
Masculinity, Sight, and Self-Control in Acts 9,” JBL 133 (2014): 367–86, and the
discussion in chapter 5 below.
(64) Cf. Jer 13.23; David M. Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in
Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 2003), 46–51.
(65) See also Josephus’s gendered critique of the Jewish Hasmonean queen
Salome Alexandra (e.g., Ant. 13.417, 430–432).
(66) See also Elliott A. Green, “The Queen of Sheba: A Queen of Egypt and
Ethiopia?,” JBQ 29 (2001): 151–55; Edward Ullendorff, “Candace (Acts VIII.27)
and the Queen of Sheba,” NTS 2 (1955–56): 53–56.
(67) See also Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 26–29.
(68) See Ps 71:8–9 (LXX); Ezek 5:5; 38:12; Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 17–25;
James M. Scott, “Luke’s Geographical Horizon,” in The Book of Acts in Its
Graeco-Roman Setting (ed. D. W. J. Gill and C. Gempf; vol. 2 of The Book of Acts
in Its First Century Setting; ed. B. W. Winter; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans,
1994), 483–544, esp. 492–522. The Greek terms Αἰθίοψ and Αἰθιοπία typically
translate the Hebrew ‫( כוׁש‬and cognates) except in the Table of Nations where
the transliteration Χους occurs (Gen 10:6, 7, 8; 1 Chr 1:8, 9, 10).
(69) See 2 Kgs 19:9 (4 Kgdms 19:9 LXX); 2 Chr 12:3; 14:9–15 (14:8–14 LXX);
16:8; Job 28:19; Ps 68:30–31 (67:31–32 LXX); 71:9 (LXX); Isa 18:1–2, 7; 20:3–6;
37:9; 43:3; 45:14; Jer 46:9 (26:9 LXX); Ezek 30:1–9; 38:4–5; Dan 11:43; Nah 3:9;
Hab 3:7; Zeph 2:12. See also Josephus, Ant. 2.243–253; 8.239–253; 292–294;
10.15–17. On the correlation of “foreign” nations with women, see, e.g., Isa
19:16; Jer 50:37; 51:30; Nah 3:13.
(70) See also Isa 56:3–8; 66:18. Cf. Ps 73:14 (LXX); 87:4 (86:4 LXX); Amos 9:7.
(71) See Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 60–67.
(72) Note that Luke briefly mentions other individuals who are from Africa or
who have dark skin, including Simon of Cyrene (Luke 23:26), Simeon who was
called Niger (Acts 13:1), and Lucius of Cyrene (Acts 13:1). See also Acts 2:10;
18:24–28; 19:1; 21:37–39. However, note that many early Christian interpreters
continue their coevals’ gendered rhetoric about Ethiopians. See David Brakke,
“Ethiopian Demons: Male Sexuality, the Black-Skinned Other, and the Monastic
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Self,” JHSex 10 (2001): 501–35; Byron, Symbolic Blackness, esp. 41–129;

Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 41–200.
(73) The representation of the eunuch as a figure who lacks libido is consonant
with the Lukan emphasis on sexual asceticism elsewhere in his two volumes.
See, e.g., Turid Karlsen Seim, “Children of the Resurrection: Perspectives on
Angelic Asceticism in Luke-Acts,” in Asceticism and the New Testament (ed. L. E.
Vaage and V. L. Wimbush; New York: Routledge, 1999), 115–25. On the
association of eunuchs with celibacy among later Christian authors, see Kuefler,
Manly Eunuch, esp. 245–82. On the description of the Ethiopian eunuch’s
baptism as the “defeat of libido,” see Arator, De actibus Apostolorum 1.672–707.
(74) Many commentators situate the eunuch within the idealizing tradition. See,
e.g., Pervo, Acts, 221–22; Beverly Roberts Gaventa, The Acts of the Apostles
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003), 141–43; Smith, “ ‘Do You Understand What
You Are Reading?,’ ” esp. 63–70.
(75) Luke, for example, does not depict the eunuch as being innocent, tall, or
militarily powerful (although see the note on the eunuch’s chariot below). Luke
also does not set Philip’s encounter with the eunuch in the distant past or
suggest that the eunuch is faithful despite his dark skin. For a discussion of how
the eunuch’s wealth might have been heard, see the discussion below.
(76) Even within the idealizing tradition, eunuchs themselves are described in
ambivalent terms. In Heliodorus’s Ethiopian Story, for example, the eunuch
Bagoas acts as an intermediary between the two Greek protagonists and the
Persian satrap Oroondates (8.2–3, 12–17). Bagoas, however, speaks Greek
poorly, appears to lack military prowess (since he is easily identified as a eunuch
and not a soldier), and is counted among Oroondates’s possessions (8.15, 17;
9.25; cf. 8.6; 10.22–23).
(77) Herodotus, Hist. 3.25; Homer, Od. 1.22–23; Strabo, Geogr. 1.1.6; 17.2.1. In
Luke 11:31, Luke describes the “queen of the South” as coming from “the ends
of the earth” (ἐκ τῶν περάτων τῆς γῆς). In Acts 2:39, Luke also says that God’s
promise extends to all that are “far away” (μακράν). See also the discussion
above.
(78) On Jerusalem as the center of the earth according to Luke, see Scott,
“Luke’s Geographical Horizon.”
(79) Luke also indicates that Ethiopia is “down south” since Philip meets the
Ethiopian eunuch on a road “toward the south” (κατὰ μεσημβρίαν) that “goes
down” (καταβαίνουσαν) from Jerusalem to Gaza. Burke, however, is correct in
noting the ambiguity of the phrase κατὰ μεσημβρίαν since this phrase can also
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be translated as “at noon” (e.g., “Queering Early Christian Discourse,” 183).

See, e.g., Deut 28:28–29; Isa 59:10; Acts 22:6; cf. Dan 8:4, 9.
(80) For this usage of ἔρημος elsewhere in Acts, see 7:36, 38, 42, 44; 13:18;
21:38. Note also that Herodotus uses the word ἔρημος to denote the “empty
space” that characterizes distant worlds (Hist. 3.98; 4.17; 4.185; 5.9; Romm,
Edges of the Earth, 35–36).
(81) The travel language that pervades the passage also intersects with the
liminal setting. The travel language includes: πορεύομαι (vv. 26, 27, 36, 39),
ἀναβαίνω and καταβαίνω (vv. 26 [twice], 27, 31, 38, 39), ἔρχομαι and cognates
(vv. 27, 29, 36, 40 [twice]), ὑποστρέφω (v. 28), and προστρέχω (v. 30). “Way”
language includes: ὁδόν (v. 26), ὁδηγήσει (v. 31), κατὰ τὴν ὁδόν (v. 36), and τὴν
ὁδὸν αὐτοῦ (v. 39).
(82) See also Pervo, Acts, 224.
(83) Although the term κανδάκη most likely functioned as a dynastic title, Luke
appears to apply the term as a proper name in v. 27. Regardless, κανδάκη often
appears as either a title or a proper name in conjunction with a variety of
Ethiopian queens. See Bion of Soli, Aethiopica 1; Pliny, Nat. 6.35.186; Dio
Cassius, 54.5.4–5; Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alexander Romance, 3.18–23; Strabo,
Geogr. 17.1.54. For a comprehensive history of the ancient kingdom of Cush and
the tradition of female succession, see Török, Kingdom of Kush, esp. 234–41,
255–62, 448–87.
(84) Plutarch also associates eunuchs with vast wealth when he claims that it
was the general practice to have eunuchs for “treasurers” (γαζοφύλακας)
around the time of Alexander the Great (Demetr. 25.5). On the association of
chariots with wealth, see, e.g., Gen 41:42–43; 46:29; Dio Chrysostom, 1 Serv. lib.
20; Josephus, Ant. 2.90. In addition to signifying wealth, however, the eunuch’s
chariot may also allude to Ethiopia’s association with military might since the
term ἅρμα (“chariot”) can reference a war chariot (e.g., Exod 14:23, 26, 28;
15:19; 2 Chr 12:3; 14:8 [LXX]; Jer 26:9 [LXX]; Josephus, Ant. 2.324; Rev 9:9; 1
Clem. 51.5). Thus while the eunuch himself is not depicted as being militarily
powerful, his association with a chariot, as well as the candace, allude to
Ethiopia’s military might. Cf. Smith, “ ‘Do You Understand What You Are
Reading?’,” esp. 65–70.
(85) See E. J. Kenney, “Books and Readers in the Roman World,” in Latin
Literature (vol. 2 of Cambridge History of Classical Literature; ed. E. J. Kenney;
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 3–32, esp. 15–22. The eunuch’s
ability to read and speak well may also point to a privileged, luxurious lifestyle.
(86) On Luke’s critique of wealth and luxury, see esp. Luke 6:24; 7:24–35; 12:13–
21; 16:19–31; 18:18–30; 21:1–4; Acts 4:32–5:11; 8:18–24.
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(87) On the association of μαλακός and its cognates with softness, luxury, and
effeminacy, see esp. Aristotle, [Physiogn.] 3 (808a); Athenaeus, Deipn. 12.536C,
543B; Chariton, Chaer. 1.4; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. 7.2.4;
Epictetus, Dis. 3.6.9; 4.1.25; Josephus, Ant. 5.246; 10.194; J.W. 7.338; Philo, Abr.
133–136; Plutarch, Mor. 136B; 748E–771E; Catharine Edwards, The Politics of
Immorality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002),
esp. 63–97; Dale B. Martin, “Arsenokoitês and Malakos: Meanings and
Consequences,” in Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical
Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 37–50, esp. 43–47.
(88) On the translation of these terms, see Martin, “Arsenokoitês and Malakos.”
(89) E.g., Johnson, Acts of the Apostles, 158. See discussion above.
(90) See A. Oepke, “ἀνήρ, ἀνδρίζομαι,” TDNT 1:360–63.
(91) For the use of ἀνήρ to denote ethnicity, see, e.g., Luke 11:32; Acts 1:11;
2:14, 22; 10:1; 13:16; 17:22. For the use of ἀνήρ to introduce a character, see,
e.g., Luke 13:11; 15:8; 19:2; Acts 3:2; 5:1; 10:1; 13:7; 16:14; 18:24.
(92) Jerome, for example, tries to resolve this ambiguity by emphasizing the
eunuch’s designation as a “man [vir]” (Epist. 53.5; see also Jov. 1.12). Cited in
Kuefler, Manly Eunuch, 271, 388. See also Burke, who comments on the
juxtaposition of the eunuch’s descriptors (e.g., “Queering Early Christian
Discourse,” 183–84).
(93) In the Alexandrian text, the eunuch appears as the subject of the main verb
a total of thirteen times (vv. 27 [twice], 28 [twice], 31 [twice], 32, 34 [twice], 36,
38, 39 [twice]). Compare this to Philip’s seven times (vv. 27, 30 [twice], 35, 38,
40 [twice]) and the divine character’s three (vv. 26, 29, 39). (Note also that
Philip and the eunuch act together in vv. 36, 38, 39.) In the Alexandrian text, the
eunuch also speaks approximately twenty-nine words, the divine character
twenty, and Philip five. (Compare this, however, to the Western text. Here Philip
both acts and speaks more frequently.)
(94) See, however, Beverly Roberts Gaventa, who argues that the eunuch
functions more as a representative convert than a model convert (From
Darkness To Light: Aspects of Conversion in the New Testament [OBT 20;
Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986], 98–107). At the same time, Gaventa’s argument
does not preclude the point that the eunuch is a model convert in the sense that
he is a positive character, especially in contrast to Saul.
(95) It is unclear whether the eunuch was successful in his endeavor to worship
in Jerusalem since the future participle προσκυνήσων expresses purpose. It is
likely, however, that he at least made it as far as the Court of the Gentiles, even
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if his status as a eunuch would have technically forbidden him access to the
temple proper.
(96) The term παρακαλέω often has the sense of “summon,” “exhort,” or “urge”
in Acts (e.g., 2:40; 14:22; 15:32; 16:9; 19:31; 21:12; 27:33-34). Given the
authority bestowed on the eunuch throughout the passage, “summon” is a better
translation than the NRSV’s “invite.”
(97) The Western text specifies that Philip is the one performing the baptism,
thus obviating any ambiguity.
(98) The only other source I have found that cites the possibility of reading γάρ in
this manner is Martin M. Culy and Mikeal C. Parsons, Acts: A Handbook on the
Greek Text (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2003), 168.
(99) On “rejoicing” (χαίρων) as a response to God’s (or Jesus’) action in Luke-

Acts, see Luke 10:20; 13:17; 19:6, 37; Acts 11:23; 13:48.
(100) On God’s agency in this passage and other conversion accounts in Acts, see
Gaventa, From Darkness to Light, 123–25.
(101) On how the eunuch also emerges as a model convert in contrast to his
scriptural predecessor Namaan (2 Kgs 5:1–19) and the disciples on the way to
Emmaus (Luke 24:13–35), see Spencer, Portrait of Philip in Acts, 135–45.
(102) See, for example, Abraham Smith, who draws numerous parallels between
the Ethiopian eunuch and Cornelius (“ ‘Do You Understand What You Are
Reading?’ ”). Smith, however, places too much emphasis on the eunuch’s
political prominence and glosses over the negative representations of eunuchs in
the ancient world.
(103) For a discussion of Cornelius in relation to status, ethnicity, gender, and the
imperial military, see Bonnie J. Flessen, An Exemplary Man: Cornelius and
Characterization in Acts 10 (Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick, 2011), esp. 68–156.
(104) See, e.g., Spencer, Portrait of Philip in Acts, 131–35.
(105) On explicit references to Isaiah in Luke-Acts, see esp. Luke 3:4–6; 4:18–19;
19:46; 22:37; Acts 7:49–50; 13:34, 47; 28:26–27. On allusions to the Lukan Jesus
as the Isaianic Suffering Servant, see esp. Luke 22:37; 23:9 (cf. Acts 8:32). On
the Lukan Jesus’ identification as God’s “servant” (παῖς), see Acts 3:13, 26; 4:27,
30.
(106) See, e.g., Homer, Il. 22.260; Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 8.22; Isa 11:6; 40:11;
Ezek 34:11–31; Sir 13:17; Pss. Sol. 8.23; 4 Ezra 5.18; Philo, Praem. 86–87; Rev
5:6, 12; Mikeal C. Parsons, Body and Character in Luke and Acts: The
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Subversion of Physiognomy in Early Christianity (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker

Academic, 2006; repr., Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2011), 137–38.
(107) In addition to shearing sheep, κείρω can also convey the sense of cutting
one’s hair (e.g., Acts 18:18; 1 Cor 11:6 [twice]). Luke appears to adapt the
Isaianic text explicitly to Jesus’ (as well as the eunuch’s) situation since he
renders the present participle κείροντος from Isa 53:7 (LXX) as the aorist
participle κείραντος and specifies that it is “his” (αὐτοῦ) humiliation (at least in
the majority of witnesses). Both Spencer (Portrait of Philip in Acts, 182;
“Ethiopian Eunuch,” 158) and Parsons (Body and Character in Luke and Acts,
138) allude to this connection between the eunuch and his “cutter,” but do not
develop the point further.
(108) Spencer expands at length on this point concerning the pollution of the
Suffering Servant and the eunuch (“Ethiopian Eunuch,” 158–59).
(109) Contrast this with Philip, who opens his mouth to proclaim the good news
of Jesus: οὐκ ἀνοίγει τὸ στόμα αὐτου (v. 32)//ἀνοίξας δὲ ὁ Φίλιππος τὸ στόμα
αὐτοῦ (v. 35).
(110) Within the larger Isaianic context, note that the verse directly beforehand
translates the Hebrew ‫“( חלי‬sickness” or “disease”) with μαλακία and ‫דכא‬
(“crush”) with μαλακίζομαι (Isa 53:5 LXX). As discussed above, μαλακία and
μαλακίζομαι (cognates of μαλακός) connote weakness, softness, and effeminacy
(Martin, “Arsenokoitês and Malakos,” 43–47). On the different translations of Isa
52:13–53:12 (including the LXX), see Jeremy Schipper, Disability and Isaiah’s
Suffering Servant (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
(111) The rhetorician Favorinus is of course an exception to the statement that

eunuchs did not have a voice. See Gleason, Making Men.
(112) E.g., Adamantius, Physiogn. B42–45; B52; Anon. Lat., Physiogn. 5–6; 11; 78;
90–91; 98; 115; Aristotle, [Physiogn.] 2 (806b; 807a); 6 (813a–b); Polemo,
Physiogn. (Leiden) B42; B44; B45 (citations to physiognomical texts are from
Swain, “Seeing the Face”). For more on the cultivation of a “manly” voice, see
chapter 3.
(113) On the various ways that Acts 8:33 can be translated, see Spencer,
“Ethiopian Eunuch.”
(114) Ταπείνωσις and its cognates convey the sense of lowliness and humiliation
in Luke-Acts and in biblical usage more generally. The words ταπεινόφρων and
ταπεινοφροσύνη, on the other hand, tend to convey more the sense of humility
or meekness (e.g., Acts 20:19). See P. B. Decock, “The Understanding of Isaiah
53:7-8 in Acts 8:32-33,” in The Relationship between the Old and New
Testament: Proceedings of the Sixteenth Meeting of the New Testament Society
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of South Africa (Nuwe-Testamentiese Werkgemeenskap van Suid-Afrika; Neot 14;

Bloemfontein, South Africa: NTSSA, 1981), 111–33, esp. 115–22; Ragnar
Leivestad, “Ταπεινός—ταπεινόφρων,” NovT 8 (1966): 36–47; Klaus Wengst,
Humility: Solidarity of the Humiliated: The Transformation of an Attitude and Its
Social Relevance in Graeco-Roman, Old Testament-Jewish, and Early Christian
Tradition (trans. J. Bowden; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988).
(115) On the theme of (miscarried) justice in Luke-Acts, see esp. Luke 11:42–44;
22:66–23:25, 39–43; Acts 6:8–15; 7:54–60; 12:1–5; 16:19–40; 23:12–30; 24:27–
25:12; 26:30–32.
(116) See also Luke 1:48, 50 [twice]; 7:31; 11:29 [twice]; 30, 31, 32, 50, 51; 16:8;
17:25; 21:32; Acts 2:40; 13:36; 14:16; 15:21.
(117) Spencer, Portrait of Philip in Acts, 178; Spencer, “Ethiopian Eunuch,” 160.
Indeed, γενεά is a term related to the act of generating with a special reference
to kinship, familial connections, and ancestry (BDAG, 191–92). It is a cognate of
terms such as γενεαλογία, or “genealogy.”
(118) Although Luke is most likely working from the Greek translation of Isaiah
and not the Hebrew, the MT of Isa 53:8 has interesting affinities with the
eunuch’s own situation since it reads that the figure is “cut off [‫ ]נגזר‬from the
land of the living.”
(119) Indeed, κρίσις connotes both of these senses in the Gospel of Luke itself.
For κρίσις as “judgment,” see Luke 10:14; 11:31, 32. For κρίσις as “justice,” see
Luke 11:42.
(120) Spencer, Portrait of Philip in Acts, 178–80; Spencer, “Ethiopian Eunuch,”

160–61. Spencer opts for the latter translation.
(121) Examples of the former (those who emphasize exaltation or reversal)

include: Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles (trans. B. Blackwell;
Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971), 312; Spencer, Portrait of Philip in Acts,
176–77; Spencer, “Ethiopian Eunuch,” 161–63; Parsons, Body and Character in
Luke and Acts, 139–40; Pervo, Acts, 225–26. Examples of the latter (those who
emphasize humiliation) include: Fitzmyer, Acts, 411; Johnson, Acts, 29.
(122) On the numerous parallels between Luke 24:13–35 and Acts 8:26–40, see
Spencer, Portrait of Philip in Acts, 141–45.
(123) Even if Luke’s audience is not reading Acts in conversation with Luke as a
two-volume work, many of these conceptual and textual affinities between Jesus
and the Suffering Servant, as well as Jesus and the eunuch, appear in the other
Gospels as well. For example, Jesus is silent before the Roman authorities in all
four Gospel accounts (Mark 15:4–5; Matt 27:14; Luke 23:9; John 19:9–10).
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(124) On how Jesus’ death and exaltation are inextricably tied up into one event,
see, e.g., Parsons, Body and Character in Luke and Acts, 139–40.
(125) Spencer, “Ethiopian Eunuch,” 158.
(126) On Luke’s account of circumcision, see Barreto, Ethnic Negotiations, 61–

118; Matthew Thiessen, Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and
Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press,
2011), 111–41.
(127) Even though men have a more prominent role in Acts, Luke still
demonstrates the inclusion of both men and women among followers of “the
Way” (e.g., Acts 1:14; 2:17–18; 5:1–11, 14; 8:3, 12; 9:2, 32–43; 17:4, 12, 34;
21:5). Luke also depicts the gospel being proclaimed to Jews and Gentiles (e.g.,
Acts 9:15; 18:6; 26:17–18) and people of varying social strata (e.g., Acts 4:13;
9:15; 13:7; 14:8–10; 16:14–15; 17:12; 25:23–26:32).
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Propagating The Gospel: The Ethiopian Eunuch As An Impotent Power

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Propagating The Gospel: The Ethiopian Eunuch As An Impotent Power

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Propagating the Gospel

Unmanly Men: Refigurations of Masculinity in

Print publication date: 2015

Propagating the Gospel

Abstract and Keywords

IN ACTS 8, Luke offers us a glimpse of another minor male character who

Scholarly assumptions concerning the eunuch’s high status, however, overlook

of the humiliation and exaltation of the Suffering Servant, a figure who

(p.116) The Ethiopian Eunuch and “the End of the Earth”

Neither Male nor Female: The Ethiopian Eunuch as an Unmanly Man

Eunuchs in the Greco-Roman World

Throughout Greek and Roman texts, eunuchs emerge as gender-liminal figures

(p.123) Elite Jewish authors roughly contemporaneous with Luke likewise

While Luke’s Jewish contemporaries largely rely on Pentateuchal prohibitions

When we return to the eunuch of Acts 8 with these ancient representations in

Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman World

Luke’s identification of the eunuch as an Ethiopian brings the eunuch’s gender

in the Greco-Roman world, Ethiopians represent the consummate outsider: that

When it comes to Ethiopians and other “distant” peoples, Greco-Roman authors

“slave-like” figure, an ignorant “barbarian,” or a libidinous profligate. He is

The Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8

This connection between luxury and effeminacy is evident earlier in Luke’s

The eunuch’s overall gender ambiguity emerges most clearly in Luke’s

Overall, the eunuch is a “betwixt and between,” paradoxical figure. He is a

Because of his primary identification as “the eunuch,” the eunuch emerges

A Lowly “Power”: The Ethiopian Eunuch as a Model Man

The Eunuch as a Model Convert

in order to be understood correctly. The question induces Philip to provide that

Acts 8:32 (cf. Isa 53:7)

According to Pentateuchal purity traditions, the body of the Suffering Servant

In addition to the Suffering Servant’s passivity and corporeal imperfections, his

(p.143) Acts 8:33 (cf. Isa 53:8)

Acts 8:33 (cf. Isa 53:8) Once Again

The Eunuch and Jesus

As F. Scott Spencer remarks, “it comes as no surprise that the Jewish-

Challenge of Interpretation for Liberation,” Semeia 47 (1989): 105–35; Abraham

C. Gerber, and A. Standhartinger; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 405–30;

(4) On the eunuch’s assumed “respectability” among commentators, see, e.g.,

(10) See Shauf, “Locating the Eunuch.”

(12) Barreto, Ethnic Negotiations, 25.

σπάδων in Gen 37:36, and later Jewish interpreters understood Potiphar to be a

(22) On eunuchs as monsters, nonhumans, or a third type of human being, see,

(30) Apuleius, Metam. 8.24–30; 9.8–10; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom.

Philo’s Exegesis of the Joseph Narrative,” in Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond

(39) See also m. Yebam. 8:1–2, 4–6.

(54) Heliodorus, Aeth. 8.1–10.41; Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alexander Romance, 3.18–

(58) For physiognomical accounts of the relationship between Ethiopians’ outer

(62) On “candace” (κανδάκη in Greek) as a dynastic title, see Bion of Soli,

(63) On the role sight and blindness play in Greco-Roman constructions of

(67) See also Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 26–29.

(71) See Goldenberg, Curse of Ham, 60–67.

Self,” JHSex 10 (2001): 501–35; Byron, Symbolic Blackness, esp. 41–129;

be translated as “at noon” (e.g., “Queering Early Christian Discourse,” 183).

(82) See also Pervo, Acts, 224.

(90) See A. Oepke, “ἀνήρ, ἀνδρίζομαι,” TDNT 1:360–63.

(99) On “rejoicing” (χαίρων) as a response to God’s (or Jesus’) action in Luke-

(104) See, e.g., Spencer, Portrait of Philip in Acts, 131–35.

Subversion of Physiognomy in Early Christianity (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker

(111) The rhetorician Favorinus is of course an exception to the statement that

of South Africa (Nuwe-Testamentiese Werkgemeenskap van Suid-Afrika; Neot 14;

(120) Spencer, Portrait of Philip in Acts, 178–80; Spencer, “Ethiopian Eunuch,”

(121) Examples of the former (those who emphasize exaltation or reversal)

(125) Spencer, “Ethiopian Eunuch,” 158.