Philip the "Evangelist" and the beginnings of Christian missionary activity to the pagans in Samaria and the Palestinian coastal areas

The programmatic transition to foreign missionary activity took place in Sy rian Antioch under the auspices of some of the Hellenists who had been exil ed there after Stephens martyrdom. Independently of this, Philip the Evange list, too, due to his missionary activity in Samaria and in the Palestinian coastal areas, had deliberately crossed the confines of Gods people, Israe l. He systematically entered those regions of Palestine which had been sign ificantly hellenized and where the non-Jewish element of the population was predominant. In so far as the sources allow one to make a judgment, our co nclusion is that in Philip we have the first significant foreign missionary .