the chief officer or prime minister of state of Candace (q.v.), queen of Ethiopia. He was converted to Christianity through the instrumentality of Philip (Ac 8:27). The northern portion of Ethiopia formed the kingdom of Meroe, which for a long period was ruled over by queens, and it was probably from this kingdom that the eunuch came.

According to Ac 8:27, an Ethiopian eunuch, minister of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was over all her treasure, was met shortly after the martyrdom of Stephen by the deacon Philip when returning from a religious journey to Jerusalem, and converted to Christianity. The confession of faith put into his mouth in Ac 8:37 (AV) is now universally admitted to be an early interpolation. Assuming the Lukan authorship of the Acts, the source of the above narrative may have been personal information received from Philip (cf. Ac 21:8). Like the baptism of Cornelius by St. Peter, the case of the Ethiopian eunuch marked an important stage in the question of the admission of the Gentiles to the Christian Church.