First, Queen Candace of Ethiopia. She's the one the Eunuch works for when Philip shows up. According to a Columbia University link (which I invest with more trust than wikipedia), Candace is not simply a name, but also a title. In this case, “The name was the hereditary title of the queen-mother of Meroë, capital of ancient Nubia, sometimes called Ethiopia. Classical writers used Candace as a personal name for the queen of Ethiopia (Strabo, Geography 17.1. 54)”. Strabo wrote a book called “Geography” in the time of Rome’s move from Republic to Empire, so the first draft may have been put down during Jesus' lifetime.
I don't know why exactly, but it is really cool to me to know what else what being written at the time that the gospel story was unfolding!
Secondly, to get to Ethiopia, one goes 'down' and then 'up'. Ethiopia (also known as Nubia) is south of Egypt. To get there from Jerusalem, one would start as described in Acts 8, by taking the road from Jerusalem down to Gaza. Jerusalem is ‘up’ in the middle of Israel, Gaza is ‘down’ by the coast. From Gaza, it is possible then to either take the coastal road to Egypt or hop a ship to Egypt, most likely Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile. The natural route then would be to sail ‘up’ the Nile ('up' means going south-its complicated). South of Egypt is Nubia, Ethiopia.
So what the heaven do ‘up’ and ‘down’ have to do with anything? A lot actually. Being of Canadian heritage, I grew up with one of these complications. If you look at the Map, “up” is north and “down” is south, pretty much all the time. There are a few exceptions that put Antarctica on top, but those are to make the point that this is how Maps are NOT made.
I grew up with “Upper Canada” and “Lower Canada”. In fact, there is, or was, a historic preservation site called “Upper Canada Village” that had one heaven of a bakery. But Upper Canada was west of Lower Canada. Why? Because of the River. Specifically, the St. Lawrence River. It flows west to east, draining the Great Lakes out to the Atlantic. Lower Canada was lower on the River, closer to the ocean, essentially Quebec. Upper Canada was at the higher reaches of the River (because rivers flow downhill, not according to compass points EXCEPT for a couple places in the Bible, but that is another posting).
In Egypt, this division of Upper and Lower is even more counter intuitive to our usual considerations of Maps because the Nile flows south to north. It flows from Nubia “down” to the Mediterranean Sea. By ‘down’, I mean downhill. On the typical Map, 'up' “should” be north, because north is “up”. But Lower Egypt is where the Nile is lower, headed north. Upper Egypt is where the Nile flows from higher elevations, from the south. So the Eunuch would head “up” the Nile, going south to get home.
But sometimes it is not about direction.
In the Promised Land, Jerusalem is always ‘up’. The Bible is clear that we all travel ‘up’ to Jerusalem, to the House of the Lord, to the Temple, to Zion, the City of our God. This is not because it is north or south or east or west and, depending on how we hang our map. Rather, it is because Jerusalem is located at the highest end of a ridge that stretches through the territory of the tribe of Judah. It is not a map directional thing or a river flowing thing, it is an actual “climbing up the blessed hill” to get there thing, from all directions.
Where are the blessings of Jesus in all of this? That’s easy. They are with with Eunuch who was baptized by Philip, who carried this faith and knowledge back to his land and his people. The rest is just the Geographic Nerd coming out to add a little bit of clarity to how the world is looked at.
Be Blessed
Pastor Peter
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