LIVES OF THE SAINTS

Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!

John 1:47

St. Bartholomew

Bartholomew is one of the Twelve about whom the Gospels say almost nothing under that name, which is part of why the Church has long identified him with Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, whom Philip brought to Christ under the fig tree. The identification is ancient and reasonable: Bartholomew is not properly a first name but a patronymic, son of Tolmai, which a man could carry alongside a given name like Nathanael. If they are the same, then we know how he met Christ, who saw him approaching and said, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit, and how he answered, confessing Jesus as the Son of God and the King of Israel before he had seen any miracle.

What tradition tells of his later life carries him a great distance. Bartholomew is said to have preached in Arabia and Mesopotamia and especially in India, where, by an account preserved in the early Church, he left a copy of the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew that was found there generations afterward. From India the tradition turns to Armenia, and it is in Armenia that he and the Apostle Jude Thaddaeus are honored as founders of the Armenian Apostolic Church, one of the most ancient Christian nations on earth.

His death was a cruel one. Tradition holds that in Armenia he was flayed alive and then beheaded for refusing to worship idols. His relics were in time carried to Rome. The Church commemorates him on June 11 together with the Apostle Barnabas, while his own feast, marking the translation of his relics, falls on August 25.

In the Orthodox icon he is shown as a dark-bearded man holding a scroll. He is the apostle who believed before he saw, in whom there was no deceit, and who carried the Gospel farther east than almost any of his brothers, to nations that name him in their churches still.