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Saint Bartholomew
Apostle and Martyr
24 August
Saint
Bartholomew's name appears on the three lists of the Apostles given in the Gospels of
Saint Matthew, Saint Mark and Saint Luke, and in each list he is associated with Saint
Philip. But beyond the fact that he was an Apostle, we have no further certain information
about him. Saint John does not mention the name Bartholomew at all, but he does state, as
we have seen, that Philip brought Nathanael to Jesus. This, coupled with the fact that the
other evangelists always associate Philip with Bartholomew in their lists, makes it
probable that Bartholomew is the same person as Nathanael.
We have no certain information about Bartholomew's later life. The majority tradition, with varying details, is that Bartholomew preached in Armenia. Here, after many conversions, he was flayed alive and beheaded at the command of King Astyages at Albanopolis, on the west coast of the Caspian Sea.
Eusebius writes that Pantaenus, in the Third Century, found in India some who had knowledge of Christ and that they showed him a copy of Saint Matthew's Gospel in Hebrew which, they held, had been brought there by Saint Bartholomew when he came to preach. The early writers, however, used the name "India" quite indiscriminately, and it is most probable that the "India" visited by Pantaenus was Ethiopia or Arabia.
Acknowledgements:
Text adapted from James Kiefer's Christian Biographies,
Catholic Pages
Image from National
Gallery of Art