Bede : Arise and go toward the south. It is well to seek, find, and wash at noon, the one who, burning with the devotion of his heart, merited to be consecrated by God as a kind of first-fruits of the nations. In him that special saying of the Psalmist is fulfilled: Ethiopia will stretch out her hands to God. — Commentary on Acts Bede : To the way that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza, this is desert. Not the road, but Gaza is called desert. For that old Gaza, which was once the boundary of the Canaanites near Egypt, was utterly destroyed, and another in its place was built elsewhere. This allegorically represents the people of the Gentiles, formerly deserted by the worship of God, nor cultivated by the preaching of any prophets. The way descending from Jerusalem to Gaza opens the spring of salvation; it is the Lord Jesus Christ, who says: "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John XIV). He descended from the heavenly Jerusalem to our infirmities, and whitened the blackness of our guilt in the water of baptism. — Commentary on Acts Cassiodorus : "Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying," etc. An angel told Philip to go to the way where queen Candace's eunuch was about to pass. The eunuch, returning from Jerusalem, where he had come to adore on account of the devotion of his mind, was sitting in his chariot, reading the passage in the prophet Isaiah where he says: "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and as a lamb before his shearer, he did not open his mouth", etc. Then Philip said to him: "Thinkest thou that thou understandest what thou readest?" And the eunuch made him mount the chariot and reveal to him the secrets of the Scriptures. Having received these with a faithful mind, he caught sight of some water on the way and, kindled with fervor of mind, asked to be baptized on the spot. When that was done, the Holy Ghost fell upon the eunuch, and Philip, being suddenly transported, vanished; and he was found in Azotus spreading the word of the Lord with his habitual preaching. — Complexiones on the Acts of the Apostles John Chrysostom : It seems to me, this Philip was one of the seven; for from Jerusalem he would not have gone southwards, but to the north; but from Samaria it was towards the south. "The same is desert:" so that there is no fear of an attack from the Jews. And he did not ask, Wherefore? but arose and went. — Homily on Acts 19 John Chrysostom : See Angels assisting the preaching, and not themselves preaching, but calling these to the work. But the wonderful nature of the occurrence is shown also by this: that what of old was rare, and hardly done, here takes place with ease, and see with what frequency! — Homily on Acts 19 Oecumenius : For what reason does an angel not appear to the eunuch but instead leads him to Philip? Because perhaps he would not have believed, but would have been more terrified. For he was not like Cornelius. — Commentary on Acts Oecumenius : "Go toward the south." He would not have been going from Jerusalem toward the south, but toward the north; but from Samaria, where Philip of the seven was residing and teaching then, the road is toward the south. — Commentary on Acts Oecumenius : He said, however, "this is a desert," so as not to fear the oversight of the Jews. — Commentary on Acts Tertullian : "Not with those waters, of course, except in so far as the genus indeed is one, but the species very many. But what is an attribute to the genus reappears likewise in the species. And accordingly it makes no difference whether a man be washed in a sea or a pool, a stream or a fount, a lake or a trough; nor is there any distinction between those whom John baptized in the Jordan and those whom Peter baptized in the Tiber, unless withal the eunuch whom Philip baptized in the midst of his journeys with chance water, derived (therefrom) more or less of salvation than others. All waters, therefore, in virtue of the pristine privilege of their origin, do, after invocation of God, attain the sacramental power of sanctification; for the Spirit immediately supervenes from the heavens, and rests over the waters, sanctifying them from Himself; and being thus sanctified, they imbibe at the same time the power of sanctifying. — On Baptism Tertullian : If Philip so "easily" baptized the chamberlain, let us reflect that a manifest and conspicuous evidence that the Lord deemed him worthy had been interposed. The Spirit had enjoined Philip to proceed to that road: the eunuch himself, too, was not found idle, nor as one who was suddenly seized with an eager desire to be baptized; but, after going up to the temple for prayer's sake, being intently engaged on the divine Scripture, was thus suitably discovered-to whom God had, unasked, sent an apostle, which one, again, the Spirit bade adjoin himself to the chamberlain's chariot. — On Baptism