The author of the Acts of the Apostles tells how one day Philip the deacon was travelling south on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. He caught up with an Ethiopian eunuch driving along the same way in his chariot, and, as he did so, he overheard him reading aloud to himself the prophecies of Isaias. Philip asked him whether he understood what he was reading, and the Ethiopian replied: ‘How could I understand unless someone tells me what it is all about?’ He had got as far as: ‘He was led away like a sheep to be slaughtered, like a lamb that is dumb before its shearer, he would not open his mouth. He was brought low and all his rights taken away; who shall tell the story of his age? His life is being cut off from the earth.’ Said the eunuch: ‘Who is the prophet speaking of here? himself, or someone else?’ Philip answered by telling him all about Jesus.