Philip

How did a Jew get such a name as the Greek, “Philip”? The name means “Lover of horses.” In the first century there was a local King in the province of Ituraea called, “Philip the Tetrarch”, who raised the status of Bethsaida to be the capital of the province. Philip the Apostle was probably named in honor of the Tetrarch, who had, some ten years before the future Apostle’s birth, done so much for that region and Bethsaida where he was born. The Greek influence in Philip’s life and ministry is most significant. Budge says Philip was of the tribe of Zebulon.
Y’Shua found Philip and said to him, “Follow Me!” (Jn. 1:43). Philip went out immediately to find his friend Nathaniel. It was Philip who later introduced certain Greeks to Y’Shua (Jn. 12:20-33). It is impressive that all the references to Philip are in John’s gospel. John was a fellow Galilean, who lived in the neighboring village of Capernaum on the shore of the sea. He was, no doubt, a close friend to Philip.
Collected traditions about the Apostles from people who had known them, tells us in particular that the daughters of Philip spoke in Hierapolis where Philip lived. Two of his daughters had remained virgins and also died at Hierapolis; the others married and one died at Ephesus. The Turkish city of Hierapolis is where Philip’s tomb is still to be found. Philip was able to minister effectively in this Roman-Greek city, and died there. He was ideally suited for a ministry to those who spoke Greek, and died in an area that was at that time still largely Greek in culture, though ruled by Rome.
The Montanist Proclus argued that the tombs of the four daughters of Philip, all prophetesses in the N.T. times, were still to be seen at Hierapolis in Asia. Hierapolis is close to Laodicea and Colossae, both Biblical cities. Colossae, which is 16 miles from Hierapolis, was the location of a highly developed Messianic Church during the lifetime of Paul and the location of the church to which Paul wrote his letter to the Colossians. Philip preached in Scythia (southern Russia) and eventually returned to Asia Minor, where he would have been in proximity to his old friend John who was located in Ephesus. John, in the book of Revelation, refers to the Messianic Church of Laodicians, which was just six miles form Philip’s place of ministry in Hierapolis
Philip, as a missionary to the Galatians, a voluminous writer of great learning… he had also a trained and cultivated mind. Philip of the city Bethsaida, whence also came Peter, preach Y’Shua to the Gauls, and brought barbarous and neighboring nations, seated in darkness and close to the swelling ocean, to the light of knowledge and port of faith. Afterwards he was stoned, pierced through the thighs and crucified upside down, and died in Hierapolis, a city of Phrgia, and having been buried with his corpse upright along with his daughters rest there. Upper Asia with the Gospel, and at length at Hierapolis at the age of 87 to have undergone martyrdom.
To the Galatians must be corrected in the place of ‘to the Gauls.’ In 825-851 it was written by Freculphus: “Philip of the City of Bethsaida whence also came Peter, of whom in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles praiseworthy mention is often made, whose daughters also were outstanding prophetesses, and of wonderful sanctify and perpetual virginity, as ecclesiastical history narrates, preached Y’Shua to the Gauls.”
One says Crescents is in Gaul. In it must not be read, ‘in Galatia’ as some have falsely thought, but ‘in Gaul.’ Pere Longeval remarks that this sentiment was so general in the East, that Theodoret who read ‘in Galatia’ did not fail to understand ‘Gaul’ because as a matter of fact the Greeks gave this name to Gaul, and the Galatians had only thus been named because they were a colony of Gauls.
Pope John the Third (560-572) acquired the body of Philip from Hierapolis and interred it in a church in Rome. He called it, ‘The Church of the Holy Apostles Philip and James.