Djan Darada the Ethiopian Eunuch
The Holy Djan Darada, the Ethiopian Eunuch of Queen Candace, baptised by the Apostle Philip
Righteous · d. 1st century
Commemorated 27 August — Commemoration of his baptism by the Apostle Philip on the Gaza road
The Ethiopian eunuch of Acts 8 — the treasurer of Queen Candace, reading the prophet Isaiah in his chariot on the road down from Jerusalem to Gaza, who asked Philip the Deacon of whom the prophet spoke, and was baptised in the first water they came to — is commemorated by name in the Slavic calendars as Djan Darada. Scripture leaves him going on his way rejoicing; the tradition of the Church makes him the first-fruits of Africa and, in some accounts, the preacher of the Gospel in his own country. His commemoration falls on August 27.
The account in Acts
The narrative in Acts 8:26–39 is exact and short. An angel sends Philip — one of the seven deacons, the evangelist — south on the desert road from Jerusalem towards Gaza. There he meets a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, a eunuch and the keeper of all her treasure, who had come to Jerusalem to worship and was reading aloud from the scroll of Isaiah 53 as he travelled. The Spirit tells Philip to join the chariot. Philip asks whether he understands what he reads; the eunuch answers, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" — and invites him up. Beginning from that Scripture, Philip preaches Jesus to him. They come to water; the eunuch says, "See, here is water; what prevents me from being baptised?"; they go down into it together and Philip baptises him. The Spirit takes Philip away, and the eunuch goes on his way rejoicing.
"Ethiopia" here means the Nubian kingdom of Meroë on the upper Nile, whose queens bore the dynastic title Candace (Kandake), and not the later Christian kingdom of Aksum. The eunuch was evidently a God-fearer or a proselyte — he had gone up to worship and possessed a copy of Isaiah, which was not a cheap thing — and his baptism stands in Luke's arrangement as the first step of the Gospel beyond the borders of Israel, immediately before the conversion of the persecutor Saul.
The names, and what tradition adds
Scripture does not name him. Three names attach to him in the later tradition:
- Djan Darada (Джан Дарада), the form used in the Slavic menologies and thence in the OCA calendar, evidently drawn from an eastern Christian tradition of the eunuch's court title;
- Simeon Bachos (or Bakos), used by Irenaeus of Lyons, who in Against Heresies reports that the eunuch was sent back as a missionary to the Ethiopians and preached there what he had received;
- Indich, the name given him in the Ethiopian tradition.
Beyond the return to Nubia and the preaching, the traditions say little. The Ethiopian and Eritrean Churches honour him as the first African Christian and the seed of the Church in their lands; some late notices call him a martyr, without transmitting circumstances.
Feast and commemoration
August 27 (church date; New Calendar civil August 27, Old Calendar civil September 9), carried in the Slavic menologies and the OCA calendar among the "other commemorations" of the day, alongside Poemen the Great. He has no proper office. The Greek and Antiochian calendars do not carry the commemoration; there, the eunuch is remembered in connection with Philip the Deacon, whose own feast is October 11.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4
Reading the prophet upon the road, thou didst confess that thou hadst no guide, and God sent thee an evangelist; and finding water in a waterless place, thou wast buried with Christ in baptism, O righteous Djan Darada, and didst go on thy way rejoicing, the first-fruits of the Ethiopians. Entreat Him that our hearts also may be opened to the Scriptures.
Original translation from the Slavonic
Iconography
The subject is almost always the scene, not the man: Philip standing in or beside the chariot with the eunuch, the open scroll of Isaiah between them, and then the baptism in the stream — the eunuch standing in the water, dark-skinned, richly dressed or with his court robes laid aside, and Philip pouring or immersing, with the chariot and horses waiting at the bank. It is an ancient subject, found from early Christian art onwards and common in Byzantine and Western manuscript illumination of Acts, and it belongs iconographically to the cycle of Philip the Deacon rather than to a standing portrait of the eunuch. Where he is shown alone, in modern Ethiopian and Coptic work, he is a young courtier with a scroll.
No pre-1900 image identifiable as an icon of the eunuch himself has been located for this repository; the pre-1900 material found is Western engraving and book illustration of the baptism scene rather than an icon of the saint.
Disputed questions
- Person or event? The Slavic calendar entry for August 27 is strictly the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch by the Apostle Philip, that is, a commemoration of the event; the English calendars that render it "Martyr Djan Darada, the Ethiopian eunuch of Queen Candace" have turned it into a commemoration of the person. Both forms are in current use. He is entered here as a person because that is how the day is now generally kept, but the underlying entry is the event, and the types given (righteous) reflect the fact that no martyrdom is attested in any early source.
- Not the same as "Simeon called Niger" of Acts 13:1, one of the prophets and teachers at Antioch. The two are frequently conflated in modern devotional literature on the strength of the name Simeon and of both men being African; the conflation has no ancient warrant, and the Antiochian Simeon is a separate figure of the church of Antioch.
- The other feast days. Besides August 27, the eunuch is commemorated in some usages on January 4 with the Seventy Apostles — though he is not normally counted among them — and on June 17. The August 27 commemoration is the one carried in the Russian menologies and in the OCA calendar.
- Nubia, not Abyssinia. The identification of Acts' "Ethiopia" with the modern country is a long-standing and understandable transfer; historically the court of Candace was at Meroë. The Ethiopian Church's claim on him is a claim of spiritual descent, and is honoured as such.