Philip was born at Bethsaida and started as a disciple of John the Baptist. After the Baptist’s death he followed Christ.

Tertullian was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. Like St Augustine of Hippo some two centuries later, he was of Berber origin. His is the first substantial body of Christian writing in Latin, the language of the western Roman Empire. He played an important part in the shaping of Christian doctrine, which is to say, taking what happened in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and working on understanding it, making sense of it, even inventing the words with which to make sense of it – such as “Trinity”. He was a noted apologist, or explainer of the faith to non-Christians, and in a predominantly pagan world he was insistent against diluting Christianity by compromise with paganism. He eventually found the Catholic Church too lax in its ways and too ready (for example) to forgive those who had apostasized in time of persecution, and he joined the puritan Montanist sect. Nevertheless, his work was an important step in the hammering out of doctrine and St Cyprian referred to him simply as “the Master”.

Red is the colour of fire and of blood. Liturgically, it is used to celebrate the fire of the Holy Spirit (for instance, at Pentecost) and the blood of the martyrs.