St Philip

And thus he invites us to come and see

by Lorenzo Bianchi

St Philip

Philip, the fifth in the list of apostles, a native of Bethsaida, probably spoke Greek. He is the apostle addressed by Jesus in the first miracle of the loaves and fishes (John 6, 5-13), and that episode was to be the iconographical feature (alternatively with the cross, indicating the fashion of his martyrdom) in artistic representations of him. The most reliable literary tradition attributes the evangelization of Phrygia to him, while the Roman Breviary and some martyrologies also add that of Scythia and Lydia. He spent the last years of his life in Hierapolis, in Phrygia, where he was buried. A precise report comes in a passage of Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus in the second half of the second century, who writes in his letter to Pope Victor: “Philip, one of the twelve apostles, rests in Hierapolis with two of his daughters who remained virgin all their lives, while the third, who lived in the Holy Spirit, is buried at Ephesus” (the passage is given by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, III, 31, 3). And backing for the report comes from archaeological data that shows traces of his cult in that city from early Christian times. In fact, an inscription from the ancient necropolis of Hierapolis mentions a church dedicated to the apostle Philip. His death by martyrdom took place at the time of the Emperor Domitian (81-96), in the fashion that Peter had been condemned to several years earlier, crucifixion inverso capite (upside down), undoubtedly at a very advanced age, which later sources set at eighty-seven. By the sixth century the date of his martyrdom, together with that of the apostle James the Less, appears as 1 May, but that is actually the date of the dedication of the church of Santi Apostoli in Rome, which Pope Pelagius I (556-561) began to construct at the time of the removal of the bodies of the two apostles (or a significant part of them at least) from Constantinople, probably in 560, and which was completed by Pope John III (561-574) with possible economic aid from the Byzantine viceroy Narses. One must therefore deduce a previous removal of the relics of Philip from Hierapolis to Constantinople, which is, however, undocumented. The tradition of the presence of significant relics of Philip in Rome was confirmed by a survey which took place in 1873. Up to that date a reliquary containing his right foot, almost intact (and another reliquary containing the femur of James the Less) was preserved in the Basilica of Santi Apostoli while the bodies of the two apostles were venerated under the central altar. Excavation in January 1873 brought to light a conglomerate of plaster and bricks under which lay two slabs of Phrygian marble, exactly alongside, bearing a Greek cross (with equal arms) carved in relief, and below them, perpendicularly beneath the altar, a loculus in which there was a small chest containing some bones, most of them fragments or flakes, some teeth and a quantity of compacted material consisting of decayed bone, and also residues of fabric that subsequently analyzed proved to be wool with a valuable purple dye. The tests on the finds were done by a scholarly committee including pathologists, physicists, chemists and archaeologists (among others, Angelo Secchi, Giovanni Battista De Rossi and Pietro Ercole Visconti), and a detailed report was written and published. It was possible to make out that the remains belonged to two distinct adult males. To one, Philip, more slender in build, were attributed the bones surviving intact (in particular fragments of a scapula, a femur and skull) and also the foot kept in the reliquary; to the other of more robust build, in particular a molar (see following article on James the Less). It was not however possible to attribute to either of the two individuals the remaining fragments because of their state of decay. The archaeological context undoubtedly dated to the sixth century, and therefore the building constructed by Pelagius I and John III. The survey thus confirmed the accuracy of the report on the removal of 560. The quantity of the relics suggests that part of them were dispersed in the removals (at least two for each apostle) from the East to Rome. In 1879, after a certain period on display for the veneration of the faithful, the relics found under the altar were placed in a bronze coffer within a marble sarcophagus set up in the crypt of the church, below the place where they were found. The relic of the foot was left out, in a reliquary, which is not currently on display to the faithful.