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Did Philip Have the Power of Flight?

Act 8:39 And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philipaway, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.

No less a luminary than John Gill himself comments on this verse as follows:

........and this sudden rapture and disappearance might be a confirmation to the eunuch thatthis whole affair was of God. The Spirit of the Lord took up Philip, just as he is said to lift upEzekiel, between earth and heaven, Eze_8:3 and carried him above the earth as far as Azo-tus.

Azotus is near Ashdod in the map below:

Its doubtful that this flight was any part of Philips own power but was brought about bythe Spirit of the Lord which we now know to be Jesus. This is known because of Jesus wordsto Philip and the other disciples See John 14:7-9. A specific example of this is confirmed toPaul in Acts 9:5.

This probably wasnt a flight in the aerodynamic sense, but from the scriptures there is lit-tle doubt that it was the resurrected Jesus who caused Philip to be levitated from the ground

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and carried perhaps some 40 miles north to Azotus. Thats a whole lot further than theWright brothers accomplished in what we believe to be the first aerodynamic flight. I am notpromoting this flight of Philips as the first flight by supernatural power, just that it is perhapsthe most acclaimed supernatural flight other than Jesus ascension back to heaven. Ofcourse, before either of these there was the recorded flight of Elijah in a whirlwind.

2Ki 2:11 And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire sep-arated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

Jesus walking on water and Peters brief excursion would also fall in the category of levita-tion, and is nothing short of miraculous. In Who Were the Mysterious Aramean Magicians?you may even read the seldom noted account of an aerial battle between Baalam the magi-cian and Phinehas the priest. Though Elijahs ascension is frequently cited, the interventionof fiery horses and chariots is the miraculous aspect of that story. The Bible makes it quiteclear that he ascended by aerodynamic means, in a whirlwind.

It should be noted that before Philip went down to the road between Jerusalem and Gazato baptize the Ethiopian eunuch, he had been preaching in Samaria. In that position he hadbeen able to baptize Simon Magus, the occultic magician. Simon, it would seem was quitetaken with the supernatural nature of the miracles that Philip was doing in casting out de-mons and healing people. In works of the Ante Nicene fathers, it is implied that he believedit to be done through occultic magic.

Volume 6 of the Works of the Ante Nicene Fathers contains an account of Simon meetinghis end by attempting occultic flight in Arnobius 6.11.04:

12. You bring forward arguments against us, and speculative quibblings,83 which

- may I say this without displeasing Him - if Christ Himself were to use in thegatherings of the nations, who would assent? who would listen? who would say

that He decided84 anything clearly? or who, though he were rash and utterly85

credulous, would follow Him when pouring forth vain and baseless statements?His virtues have been made manifest to you, and that unheard-of power overthings, whether that which was openly exercised by Him or that which was

used86 over the whole world by those who proclaimed Him: it has subdued thefires of passion, and caused races, and peoples, and nations most diverse incharacter to hasten with one accord to accept the same faith. For the deeds can

be reckoned up and numbered which have been done in India,87 among theSeres, Persians, and Medes; in Arabia, Egypt, in Asia, Syria; among theGalatians, Parthians, Phrygians; in Achaia, Macedonia, Epirus; in all islands andprovinces on which the rising and setting sun shines; in Rome herself, finally, the

mistress of the world, in which, although men are88 busied with the practices

introduced by king89 Numa, and the superstitious observances of antiquity, they

have nevertheless hastened to give up their fathers mode of life,90 and attach

themselves to Christian truth. For they had seen the chariot91 of Simon Magus,and his fiery car, blown into pieces by the mouth of Peter, and vanish whenChrist was named. They had seen him, I say, trusting in false gods, and

http://www.scribd.com/doc/123776712/Who-Were-the-Mysterious-Aramean-Magicianshttp://www.scribd.com/doc/123776712/Who-Were-the-Mysterious-Aramean-Magicians

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abandoned by them in their terror, borne down headlong by his own weight, lie

prostrate with his legs broken; and then, when he had been carried to Brunda,92

worn out with anguish and shame, again cast himself down from the roof of avery lofty house. But all these deeds you neither know nor have wished to know,nor did you ever consider that they were of the utmost importance to you; andwhile you trust your own judgments, and term that wisdom which is

overweening conceit, you have given to deceivers - to those guilty ones, I say,whose interest it is that the Christian name be degraded - an opportunity ofraising clouds of darkness, and concealing truths of so much importance; ofrobbing you of faith, and putting scorn in its place, in order that, as they alreadyfeel that an end such as they deserve threatens them, they might excite in youalso a feeling through which you should run into danger, and be deprived of thedivine mercy.

Volume VIII of the Works of the Ante Nicene Father, Pseudo Clement deals entirely withthe conflict between the Apostle Peter and Simon Magus. Its clear that Simon was a threatto early Christianity.

From Wikipedia:

In apocryphal works including the Acts of Peter, Pseudo-Clementines, and the Epistle oftheApostles, Simon also appears as a formidable sorcererwith the ability to levitate and fly atwill.

Acts of Peter[

The apocryphal Actsof Peter gives a more elaborate tale of Simon Magus' death. Simon isperforming magic in the Forum, and in order to prove himself to be a god, he levitates up intothe air above the Forum. The apostle Peter prays to God to stop his flying, and he stops mid-air and falls into a place called the Sacra Via (meaning, Holy Way), breaking his legs "in threeparts". The previously non-hostile crowd then stones him. Now gravely injured, he had somepeople carry him on a bed at night from Rome to Ariccia, and was brought from there to Ter-racina to a person named Castor, who on accusations of sorcery was banished from Rome.

The Acts then continue to say that he died "while being sorely cut by two physicians".[15]

Acts of Peter and Paul

Another apocryphal document, the Acts of Peter and Paul gives a slightly different version ofthe above incident, which was shown in the context of a debate in front of the Emperor Nero.In this version, Paul the Apostle is present along with Peter, Simon levitates from a highwooden tower made upon his request, and dies "divided into four parts" due to the fall. Peterand Paul were then put in prison by Nero while ordering Simon's body be kept carefully for

three days (thinking he would rise again).[16]

Like most things historical or Biblical, the story of Simon Magus is somewhat disputed. Allaccounts have the following items in common:

He was a real person who existed during the life times of the Apostles.He had a keen interest in acquiring the art of occultic magic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocryphahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Peterhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-Clementineshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-Clementineshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-Clementineshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_of_the_Apostleshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magician_(paranormal)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magician_(paranormal)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocryphahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocryphahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Peterhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_(paranormal)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_(paranormal)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_forumhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Peterhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoninghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aricciahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracinahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Peter_and_Paulhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Peter_and_Paulhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostlehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostlehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrectionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrectionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrectionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocryphahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Peterhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-Clementineshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_of_the_Apostleshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_of_the_Apostleshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magician_(paranormal)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levitation_(paranormal)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocryphahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Peterhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_(paranormal)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_forumhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Peterhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoninghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aricciahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracinahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracinahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Magushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Peter_and_Paulhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostlehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrectionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Magus

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He either had or pretended levitational flight capabilities.He was a deceiver.His death was precipitated by a fall from some heighth during a display of his magicalprowess.

What we gain from the stories of Philip and Simon Magus is the knowledge that ancientflight and levitation were both possible and most likely a fact rather than a myth. The highranking eunuch of Ethiopia appears to have built a safe haven in his country for the deposi-tion of documents that otherwise would have been destroyed by evil men in Christendom andlost forever.

Before we dismiss the Ethiopians impact on the world simply because he is a eunuch, letme remind you that Daniel was also most likely a eunuch. Also, before we dismiss this notionof ancient flight and levitation as mythical, let me point out that there are certain artifactsthat cannot be explained by science, archaeology or history. Yes, Im talking about megalithicstonework at Giza, Baalbek, South America and other places around the world. A little bit oflevitation could certainly have been handy in their construction. Get into megaliths and youwill find that I am not the only person talking about this.

A YouTube video on megalithic structures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHONFBXV-0&list=PL31DCD1BD766EEB6B&index=5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHONFBXV-0&list=PL31DCD1BD766EEB6B&index=5http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHONFBXV-0&list=PL31DCD1BD766EEB6B&index=5http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHONFBXV-0&list=PL31DCD1BD766EEB6B&index=5http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHONFBXV-0&list=PL31DCD1BD766EEB6B&index=5