Meta Chestnutt Sager's Letter to Eva Heiliger, February 11,1945 (3)

Next, Sager cites another passage from the Book of Acts, the episode in which the evangelist Philip teaches the gospel to a eunuch, an official in the government of "Ethiopia." According to the story, the eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and was now returning (Acts 8:27-28).[1] As he traveled, the eunuch was reading the Book of Isaiah, specifically Chapter 53, one of the Church's favorite messianic texts ever since: "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth: In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth" (Acts 8:32-33). At this point in her letter, Meta picks up the story:

You will note in the 35th verse that Phillip [sic] "began at the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. And as they went on their way they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Phillip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Phillip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.[2]

Two features of this part of Meta's letter suggest she was writing out the biblical passage from memory. First, while she quotes the eunuch confessing, "I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God," the King James Version, which she no doubt read and from which she memorized Scripture, reads: "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." Second, she misspells Philip's three times as "Phillip." On the other hand, the placement and specific type of punctuation are perfect in Meta's transcription of the passage, suggests use of the printed text.[3]

Notes

[1] I. Howard Marshall, The Acts of the Apostles (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1980), 162, states that the man "came from the country now known as Sudan (rather than modern Ethiopia)." Likewise, Ben Witherington, III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), 295, writes: "The geographical location Luke has in mind is the Nubian kingdom whose capital is Meroe, south of Egypt, which is part of Sudan." If not a proselyte, the eunuch was one of the gentile admirers of Judaism, like the centurion Cornelius of Acts 10:1-2, described as "one that feared God with all his house." The Book of Acts contains several more references to this category of people, virtuous Gentiles. See Acts 13:16, 26, 43; 16:14; 17:4, 17; 18:7. The existence of these people in the Greco-Roman world has been established by, among others, John G. Gager, "Jews, Gentiles, and Synagogues in the Book of Acts," Harvard Theological Review 79, no. 1-3 (1986): 91-99; and Louis H. Feldman, "The Omnipresence of the God-Fearers," Biblical Archaeology Review 12, no. 5 (1986): 58-63. See also the good discussion in Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 2:1566-67.

[2] Meta Chestnutt Sager to Eva Heiliger, February 11, 1945, Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection, Oklahoma History Center, Oklahoma City.

[3] Ibid.