The Acts of Philip

The Acts of Philip is a fourth-century Greek apocryphon, strongly encratite in character, whose fullest text was recovered by François Bovon from a fourteenth-century manuscript of the Xenophontos monastery on Mount Athos in 1974. Its fifteen acta and a concluding martyrdom narrate Philip’s mission — with his sister Mariamne and the apostle Bartholomew — to a city of serpent-worshippers it calls “Ophiorhyme,” complete with a converted talking leopard and kid goat. This file sets out what the Acts are and what they claim; the companion file assesses how an Orthodox reader holds so heterodox a source.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

Origin, Date, and Recovery

The Acts of Philip (Greek Praxeis Philippou) belongs to the family of apocryphal Acts of apostles — alongside the Acts of John, Peter, Paul, Andrew, and Thomas — episodic romance-like narratives of apostolic travel, miracle, preaching, and martyrdom composed outside the canon for edification and entertainment. It is generally dated to the fourth century, later than the great second- and third-century apocryphal Acts, and is located in Asia Minor, the region of its setting (Bovon and Matthews, The Acts of Philip, 2012, introduction; Acta Philippi, ed. Bovon, Bouvier, Amsler, 1999).

For most of its history the Acts of Philip was known only in fragments. The decisive advance came in 1974, when François Bovon identified, in the library of the Xenophontos monastery on Mount Athos (codex Xenophontos 32), a manuscript preserving a far fuller text than had been available before — including the long Act 8 and the Martyrdom in a more complete form (Bovon and Matthews, 2012, introduction). The surviving manuscript is fourteenth-century, but linguistic and theological analysis points to a fourth-century original. The critical edition (Bovon, Bouvier, Amsler, Acta Philippi: Textus and Commentarius, Brepols, 1999) and the English translation (Bovon and Matthews, Baylor, 2012) are the standard scholarly tools, superseding the fragmentary text known to M. R. James.

Structure: Fifteen Acta and a Martyrdom

The work is organized as fifteen separate acta (narrative units) followed by a Martyrdom. The acts are not a single continuous journey but a series of episodes, unevenly preserved, in which Philip travels and preaches, converts cities, contends with pagan cults and demons, performs healings and raisings, and gathers a community marked by radical asceticism. The final act and the Martyrdom are set at the city of the serpent-cult and narrate the apostle’s death (Bovon and Matthews, 2012).

The Companions: Mariamne and Bartholomew

Philip does not travel alone. With him are his sister Mariamne and the apostle Bartholomew. Mariamne is one of the Acts’ most striking figures: she accompanies the apostles, preaches and baptizes (in the text’s arrangement, baptizing the women while Philip baptizes the men), wears men’s clothing for the journey, and exercises a recognized role in the community (Bovon and Matthews, 2012; see The Companions). Bartholomew is Philip’s fellow apostle and shares in his labors and sufferings. The prominence of Mariamne is a notable feature of the text and a chief reason for its modern scholarly interest as a witness to women’s roles in encratite Christianity.

Ophiorhyme: The City of the Serpent

The climactic acts are set in a city the Acts call “Ophiorhyme” (“serpent-street” or “serpent-flow”), which the text identifies with Hierapolis — and whose inhabitants worship a great serpent or dragon and a viper-mother, the Echidna (Bovon and Matthews, 2012). This is the apocryphal transformation of a real feature of Hierapolis: the city’s pagan religion centered on the Plutonion, a sanctuary over a vent of deadly volcanic gas sacred to the underworld gods, an apt seedbed for a narrative of apostolic struggle against a serpent-cult (see The Mission; Huttner, Early Christianity in the Lycus Valley, 2013). In the Acts, Philip, Bartholomew, and Mariamne come to this city to overthrow the dragon-worship; the apostle’s preaching, miracles, and the casting of the serpent and its temple “into the abyss” form the substance of the final acts (Bovon and Matthews, 2012).

The Talking Animals

Among the most famous — and most fantastical — episodes are the talking animals. As Philip and his companions journey through the wilderness, they encounter a leopard that has attacked a kid goat; both animals, in the narrative, are given the power of speech, repent, profess faith in Christ, and join the apostolic company, even partaking (in the text’s encratite frame) of the Eucharist of vegetables and water (Bovon and Matthews, 2012; Acta Philippi, ed. Bovon et al., 1999). The converted, speaking leopard and kid are emblematic of the Acts’ genre and theology: a vision of the whole creation, even the beasts, brought into the ascetic peace of the gospel — a romance-image, not a historical report. They are reported here as what the apocryphon narrates, never as fact (METHODOLOGY §3.5).

The Martyrdom

The work closes with the apostle’s death at Ophiorhyme/Hierapolis. Enraged by the conversions — in particular the turning of the proconsul’s wife and household to continence — the city’s rulers seize Philip (and Bartholomew), and Philip is put to death by being hung up and pierced, in the tradition of his crucifixion (in some forms head-downward); from his place of suffering he continues to preach, and the earth opens to swallow his persecutors before his prayer for them stays the judgment (Bovon and Matthews, 2012; see The Martyrdom). The Acts thus supply the fullest narrative form of the martyrdom that the synaxaria and iconography would carry, though stripped of the encratite frame.

What the Acts Are — and Are Not

The Acts of Philip is the single richest narrative source for the apostle’s later life, and it must be received for exactly what it is: a fourth-century, heterodox, fantastical apocryphon, not Scripture, not history, and not the Church’s doctrine. Its value is real — as the fullest witness to the developed Philip-tradition, as a window onto fourth-century Asian encratite Christianity and its prominent women, and as the seedbed from which elements of the synaxarial and iconographic tradition (the Hierapolis mission, the companions, the manner of the death) were sifted. But its theology is unreceived and its wonders are romance. The discipline of holding it — reported and assessed, never endorsed — is the subject of the companion file (see Assessing the Apocrypha).

See Also

References

  • Bovon, François, and Christopher R. Matthews. The Acts of Philip: A New Translation. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2012. (Introduction, translation, and notes; the 1974 Athos discovery; the fifteen acta; Mariamne; Ophiorhyme; the talking animals; the martyrdom.)
  • Bovon, François, Bertrand Bouvier, and Frédéric Amsler, eds. Acta Philippi: Textus and Commentarius. Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 11–12. Turnhout: Brepols, 1999.
  • Elliott, J. K., ed. The Apocryphal New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993. (The family of apocryphal Acts.)
  • Huttner, Ulrich. Early Christianity in the Lycus Valley. Leiden: Brill, 2013. (Hierapolis, the Plutonion, and the serpent-cult background.)