Commontide
Red-Letter Day
Apostle & Martyr
August 24
also known as Bartholomew, Nathanael, Bar-Tolmai, Bart
Bartholomew was one of the twelve apostles, long identified with the Nathanael of John's Gospel, the man Jesus called an Israelite in whom there was no deceit. The Gospels tell us almost nothing more of him; he is named in every list of the Twelve and then falls silent. Ancient tradition sends him east to preach in Mesopotamia, India, and above all Armenia, where he is honored as the apostle who first brought the faith and where, the tradition says, he was flayed alive for it.
British (Received Pronunciation): Bar-Tolmai /bɑːr ˈtɒlmaɪ/
Bartholomew is one of the twelve apostles, and the church has long believed that he is the man John's Gospel calls Nathanael. When Philip found him and told him they had discovered the Messiah, a carpenter's son out of Nazareth, Nathanael answered with the flat skepticism of a man who knew the world: Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip said only, come and see. And when Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him he said, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit. Nathanael asked how Jesus knew him, and Jesus answered that he had seen him under the fig tree before Philip ever called him, in some private moment that John does not explain but that Nathanael understood at once. The skeptic was undone in a single sentence. Rabbi, he said, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.
Jesus answered his sudden faith with a promise larger than the question, that he would see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. And then the Gospels fall almost silent about him. He stands in every list of the Twelve, always near Philip; he is in the upper room at Pentecost; and after that the New Testament says no more. Of all the apostles, he is among those of whom Scripture tells us least.
The church's memory, though, did not let him vanish. The oldest traditions send Bartholomew far to the east, beyond the edge of the empire, to preach in Mesopotamia and Persia and India, and above all in Armenia. The historian Eusebius records that a teacher from Alexandria, traveling to India in the second century, found Christians there who still kept a Hebrew copy of Matthew's Gospel that Bartholomew was said to have left with them. And the Armenians honor him to this day as the apostle who first brought them the faith and who died for it among them. The tradition of his death is one of the most terrible in the calendar: that he was flayed alive, skinned with the knife, and then beheaded, for refusing to be quiet about Christ.
It is a hard image, and the church has not looked away from it. The flaying knife became Bartholomew's emblem, and Michelangelo painted him in the Sistine Chapel holding his own empty skin. But the church remembers him for more than the manner of his death. It remembers the man whom Jesus called free of all deceit, the honest doubter who asked the blunt question and then followed the answer to the far edge of the world, and gave his body to be unmade rather than be silent. He had been promised that he would see heaven opened; the tradition is that he went to it the hard way, with great courage, an Israelite without guile who kept the faith to the knife.
What can be said of Bartholomew with confidence is little, and the church has always been candid about it. He is named in all four lists of the apostles, in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts, and there the certain record of him ends. The identification of Bartholomew with Nathanael, who appears only in John's Gospel, is traditional and ancient but not certain: it rests on the observation that Bartholomew is a patronymic, son of Tolmai, which could have stood beside a personal name like Nathanael; on the pairing of Bartholomew with Philip in the apostolic lists, which matches Philip bringing Nathanael to Jesus in John; and on Nathanael's being numbered among the disciples in the last chapter of John. Many, though not all, have found it persuasive.
Everything further belongs to tradition of varying age. The earliest and soberest notice is from Eusebius, who reports in his Church History that Pantaenus of Alexandria, about the year 180, found in India a Christian community holding a Hebrew Gospel of Matthew attributed to Bartholomew's mission. The fuller accounts of his preaching in Mesopotamia, Persia, India, and Armenia, and of his martyrdom by flaying, come from the apocryphal Acts and Martyrdom of Bartholomew, works of perhaps the fifth or sixth century that are legendary in character though they may preserve an older memory of an eastern mission. The Armenian Apostolic Church honors Bartholomew, with Thaddaeus, as its founder. His relics are venerated at Rome, on the Tiber Island, and at Benevento; the flaying tradition fixed his iconography for good.
Bartholomew is kept on 24 August in the Western calendars as one of the red-letter apostles; his liturgical color is the red of martyrdom. The Eastern churches commemorate him on 11 June and other days, often together with the apostle Philip or with Barnabas. He is patron of Armenia, which honors him as its apostle, and, from the manner of his death, of tanners, leatherworkers, bookbinders, and others who work with skins, and of those who suffer nervous and skin diseases.
His emblem is the flaying knife, and in art he carries it, and very often his own skin draped over his arm, the most unflinching attribute in the whole calendar of the saints; Michelangelo gave his own face to the empty skin Bartholomew holds in the Last Judgment. His chief shrine in the West is the basilica of San Bartolomeo all'Isola at Rome, built over relics said to be his, which in the modern age has become a memorial church to the Christian martyrs of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, so that the apostle flayed for the faith keeps company with those who have died for it in our own time.
Further reading. The traditions of each of the apostles, Bartholomew among them, are surveyed and weighed against the evidence in William Steuart McBirnie's The Search for the Twelve Apostles, a popular account that distinguishes what is known from what is merely told.
Online resources. The earliest historical notice, Eusebius's report of Bartholomew's Gospel in India, stands in his Church History, freely readable in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers at New Advent. The Catholic Encyclopedia article on St. Bartholomew gives a public-domain overview that separates the Gospel record from the later traditions.
Bartholomew is expounded the son of abovehanging the waters, or son of overhanging the sea. He is said of bar, that is as much to say as son, and tholos, which is as much to say as sovereignty, and of moys, that is to say water. And hereof is said Bartholomew, as a son hanging over the waters. That is of God, which enhances the minds of doctors on high, for to shed and bespring beneath the waters of doctrine. And it is a name of Syriac and not of Hebrew. And the first three suspendings that he had, ought to be noted: He was suspended or taken up from the love of the world, and he was suspended, that is to say ententive, in heavenly love, and he was suspended, that is to say wrapped, in the grace and in the aid of God. Not by his merits his life shone, but by the aid of God. Of the second came the deepness of his wisdom, of which deepness of wisdom Denis says, in his mystical theology: The divine Bartholomew, of whom is much divinity and right little, and that the gospel is broad and great, and also it is short. And after the entent of S. Denis, Bartholomew will show that all things may be affirmed and showed of God under one consideration, and by another consideration may be more properly denied.
O f S. Bartholomew the Apostle.
S. Bartholomew, the apostle, went into India, which is in the end of the world. And therein he entered into a temple where an idol was which was named Astaroth, and he, as a pilgrim, abode there. In that idol dwelt a fiend that said that he could heal all manner sicknesses, but he lied, for he could not make them whole, but might better them but for a while. And the temple was full of sick people, and could have no answer of that idol, wherefore they went in to another city whereas another idol was worshipped named Berith, and they demanded him wherefore Astaroth gave to them no answer. And Berith said: Your god is bound with chains of fire that he neither dare draw breath ne speak after that Bartholomew, the apostle of God, entered into the temple. And they said to him: Who is that Bartholomew? And the devil said: He is the friend of God Almighty, and he is come into this province for to avoid all the gods of India. And then they said: Tell us some tokens and signs that we may know him and find him. And the devil said to them: He has his hairs black and crisp, his skin white, eyes great, his nostrils even and straipht, his beard long and hoar a little, and of a straight and seemly stature. He is clad in a white coat, and a white mantle, which in every corner has gems of purple and precious stones therein. And it is sith twenty-six years that his clothes never waxed old ne foul. He prays and worships God on his knees a hundred times a day, and a hundred times by night. The angels go with him, which never suffer him to be weary ne to be an hungered, he is always of like semblant, glad and joyous. He sees all things tofore, he knows all things, he speaks all manner languages, and understands them, and he knows well what I say to you. And when you seek him, if he will he may show himself to you, and if him list not, not shall you find him. And I pray you, when you find him, that you pray him that he come not hither, that his angels do not to me as they have done to my fellow. Then they went and sought him diligently and busily two days, and found him not.
On a day, one that was beset with a devil cried, and said: Apostle of God, Bartholomew, your prayers burn me. And the apostle said: Hold you your peace and come thence. And anon he was delivered. And when Polemius, king of that region, heard this thing, which had a daughter lunatic, he sent to the apostle, praying that he would come to him and heal his daughter. And when the apostle was come to him and saw that she was bound with chains, and bit all them that went to her, he commanded to unbind her. And the ministers durst not go to her. And he said: I hold the devil fast bound that was in her, and therefore be not afeard; and then anon she was unbound and delivered. And then would have presented to the apostle camels charged with gold and silver and precious stones, but he could not be found in no manner. And on the morrow following, the apostle appeared to the king, alone in his chamber, and said to him: Wherefore soughtest thou me yesterday with gold and silver and precious stones? Those things be necessary to them that covet things worldly, but I desire no things terrien ne carnal. Then S. Bartholomew began to say many things, and inform the king of our redemption, and among other things how Jesu Christ vanquished the devil by marvellous and convenable puissance, justice, and wisdom. For it was convenable that he that overcame the son made of the earth, that was Adam, while he was yet a virgin, should be overcome of the son of the virgin. He overcame him then mightily, when he threw him
puissantly out of his lordship which had thrown out by force our forefather. And thus, as he that overcomes some tyrant, sends his fellows tofore for to set up his sign over all, and to cast out tyrants, in like wise Jesu Christ sent his messengers over all for to take away the honour and the worshipping of the devil righteously. For it is right that he that vanquished man by eating, and held him, that he should be overcome by a man fasting, and hold man no longer. For it is rightful that he which by the are of the devil was despised, that by the are of Jesu Christ he should be vanquished. And like as the falcon takes the bird, right so took he Jesu Christ in desert because he fasted, and would assay if he had hunger; and if he had hunger, that he might have deceived him by meat, and if he had no hunger, then knew he well without doubt that he was God. But he might not know him, for he had hunger, and consented nothing to him ne to his temptations.
And when he had preached the sacraments of the faith, he said to the king that, if he would receive baptism, he would show him his god bounden with chains. And the day following, when the bishops sacrificed within the palace of the king, the devils began to cry and say: Cease, you cursed wretches, to do sacrifice to us, lest you suffer worse than I that am bounden with chains of fire by the angels of Jesu Christ, whom the Jews crucified and supposed to have brought to death. Which death, that is our queen, he has imprisoned, and has bound our prince in chains of fire. And anon then they set cords on the image for to pull down and overthrow the idol, but they might not. The apostle then commanded the devil that he should issue and go out and break the idol all to pieces, and he issued out and destroyed and brake all the idols of the temple. And anon the apostle made his prayer, saying: O God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, which have given to us such power that we enlumine the blind, and cleanse the lepers, I desire and require that this multitude might be healed, and they all answered, Amen. And forthwith all the sick people were cured and healed. And then the apostle did do hallow and dedicate that temple, and commanded the devil to go in to the desert. Then the angel of our Lord appeared there, and flew round about the temple, and ensigned and graved with his finger the sign of the cross in four corners of the temple, saying: Our Lord says this: Like as I have you cured and made you clean of all your sickness, so let this temple be made clean of all filth and ordure. but I shall show him of all filth and ordure. But I shall show him to you that dwells therein tofore, to whom the apostle has commanded to go in to desert. And doubt you not to see him, but make in your forehead such a sign as I have graven in these stones. And then he showed to them an Ethiopian more black than thunder, the face sharp, the beard long, his hairs hanging unto his feet, his eyes flaming as hot fire, and cast out sparkles of fire, and casting out of his mouth flames of sulphur, and his hands bound with chains of fire behind his back. And then the angel said to him: Because that you have heard that the apostle has commanded, and have broken all the idols of the temple, I shall unbind you; go in to such a place whereas dwells no man, and be you there unto the day of judgment. And when he was unbound he went his way with a great braying and howling, and the angel of our Lord mounted up to heaven in the sight of them all. And then was the king baptized, with his wife and his children and all his people, and left his realm and was made disciple of the apostle.
Then all the bishops of the idols assembled them together and went to Astrages the king, and brother to Polemius, and complained of the loss of their gods and of the destruction of their temples, and of the conversion of his brother made by are magic. Astrages was wroth and sent a thousand men armed to take the apostle, and when he was brought tofore him, the king said to him: Are you not he that have perverted my brother? And the apostle answered to him: I have not perverted him, but I have converted him; and the king said to him: Like as you have made my brother forsake his god and believe in your God, so shall I make you forsake your God, and you shall sacrifice to my god. And the apostle said : I have bound the god that your brother adored, and showed him bound, and constrained him to break his false image, and if you may do so to my God, you may well draw me to your idol, and if not, I shall all to-break your gods, and then believe you in my God. And as he said these words, it was told the king that his god Baldach was overthrown and all to-broken, and when the king heard that, he brake and all to-rent his purple in which he was clad, and commanded that the apostle should be beaten with staves, and that he should be flayed quick, and so it was done. Then the christians took away the body and buried it honourably. Then the king Astrages and the bishops of the temples were ravished with fiends and died, and the king Polemius was ordained bishop, and accomplished the oflfice of a bishop twenty-two years much louably, and after that rested in peace full of virtues.
There be divers opinions of the manner of his passion. For the blessed Dorotheus says that he was crucified, and says also: Bartholomew preached to men of India, and delivered to them the gospel after Matthew in their proper tongue. He died in Alban, a city of great Armenia, crucified the head downward. S. Theoderus says that he was flayed, and it is read in many books that he was beheaded only. And this contrariety may be assoiled in this manner, that some say that he was crucified and was taken down ere he died, and for to have greater torment he was flayed and at the last beheaded.
In the year of our Lord three hundred and thirty-one, Saracens assailed Sicily, and destroyed the isle of Lipari whereas the body of S. Bartholomew lies, and brake up the sepulchre and threw the bones hither and thither. And it is said that his body came in such wise from India thither into that isle. When the paynims saw that this body and his sepulchre were greatly honoured for the miracles that befell, they had thereof great despite, and laid them in a tomb of lead, and threw them into the sea, and by the will of God they came into this isle. And when the Saracens had departed and thrown the bones here and there, and were departed thence, the apostle appeared to a monk and said to him: Arise up, and go and gather together my bones that be departed. And he said to him: By what reason shall I gather together your bones, and what honour ought we to do to them, when you suffer us to be destroyed? And the apostle said to him: Our Lord has spared this people here a long while by my merits, but for their sins that they have sinned, which cry vengeance unto heaven, I have not con get pardon ne forgiveness for them. And then the monk said: How shall I among so many bones find yours? And the apostle said to him: You shall gather them by night, and them that you shall find shining you shall take up. And the monk went, and found them all as he had said, and took them up, and brought them with him in to a ship, and sailed with them to Benevento, which is chief city of Apulia, and thus were they transported thither. And it is said now that they be at Rome, howbeit they of Benevento say they have the body.
There was a woman that brought a vessel full of oil for to put in the lamp of S. Bartholomew, and how well she inclined the vessel for to pour out the oil, there would none issue out, how well she touched with her finger the oil clear. And then one cried and said: I trow this oil be not agreeable to the apostle that it should be in his lamp, wherefore they put it in another lamp and it issued anon.
When that the emperor Frederick destroyed Benevento, and he had commanded that all the churches that there should be destroyed, and enforced them to bear away the goods from that city into another place, there was a man which found men all white shining, and him seemed that they spake together of some secret thing, and he marvelled strongly who they were and demanded them, and then one of them answered and said: This is Bartholomew, the apostle, with the other saints which had churches in this city, that speak and ordain together in what manner and by what pain this emperor should be justified, that has cast them out of their tabernacles. And they have now confirmed among them by firm sentence that he, without tarrying, shall go to the judgment of God for to answer thereupon. And anon the emperor died an evil death.
It is in a book read of the miracles of saints that, a certain master hallowed solemnly the feast of S. Bartholomew, and the devil in the form of a maid appeared to this master that preached. And when he saw her, he bade her to come and dine with him, and when they were set at the table she enforced her much for to draw him to her love. And then S. Bartholomew came to the gate and prayed that he might come in for the love of S. Bartholomew, and she would not, but sent him bread, and he would none take, but prayed the master by his message that he should say what thing that he supposed was most proper in a man. And he answered: To laugh. And the maid said: Nay, it is sin in which a man is conceived, born and lives in sin. And S. Bartholomew answered that he had well said, but she had more profoundly answered. And the pilgrim demanded after at the master, where the place was contaimng the space of a foot where had God made greatest miracle. And he said, the sign of the cross, in which God had made many miracles. And she said: Nay, it is the head of a man, in which the little world is. And the apostle allowed the sentence of that one and of that other, and then he demanded the third time: How far it was from the sovereign siege or seat in heaven unto the lowest and deepest place of hell. And the master said that he knew not; and she said: I know it well, for I fell down from that one to that other, and it behoves that I show it to you. And the devil fell down into hell with a great bruit and howling, and then they sent for the pilgrim, and he was vanished and gone and away and they could not find him. And in like wise nigh according to this is read of S. Andrew.
The blessed Ambrose says thus in the preface that he made of this apostle in abridging his legend: Jesu Christ, you have vouchsafed to show to your disciples, preaching, many things of your divine Trinity in marvellous manner, and your majesty, among whom you have sent the blessed Bartholomew honour by right great prerogative in to a far country. And how be it that he was all far from human conversation, nevertheless he deserved by the increasing of his predications to mark and think in your sign the beginning of that people. Ah! by what louings is the marvellous apostle to be honoured. And when the hearts of the people of his neighbours sufficed not to him to receive his seed, he through-pierced like in fleeing in to the last countries of the lands of India, and entered in to the temple where there was great company of sick people without number, and made the devil so mute that he gat no remembrance to them that adored him, and the maid that was lunatic by torment of the devil he did unbind and delivered her all whole to her father. Oh, how great was this miracle of holiness, when he made the fiend, enemy to the lineage human, to break and destroy his own idol, and to bring it to nought. Oh, how worthy is he to be numbered to the heavenly company to whom the angel appeared, to praise the faith of him by his miracles, and came from the sovereign hall and showed to all the people the devil chained, and right foul, and the sign of the cross impressed in the stone bearing health. And the king and the queen were baptized, with the people of their cities. And at the last the tyrant brother of Polemius, new in faith by the relation of the bishops of the temple, made the blessed apostle, constant in the faith, to be beaten, flayed, and receive right foul death. And as he denounced the mischief of death, he had and bare with him, in to the glory of heaven, victory of his glorious strife.
And the blessed Theodore, abbot and noble doctor, says of this apostle in this manner among other things. The blessed apostle Bartholomew preached first in Licaonia, and after in India, and at the last in Alban, a city of great Armenia, and there he was first flayed and afterward his head smitten off, and there he was buried. And when he was sent of our Lord to preach, as I suppose, he heard how our Lord said to him: Go, my disciple, to preach, void out of this country, and go fight and be capax of perils. I have first accomplished and finished the works of my father, and am first witness, fill you the vessel that is necessary and follow your master, love your lord, give your blood for his blood, and your flesh for his flesh, and suffer that which he had suffered, let your armour be debonairty in your sweatings, and suffer sweetly among wicked people and be patient among them that perish you. And the apostle recoiled not, but as a true servant and obeissant to his master went forth joying, and as a light of God illumining in darkness the work of holy church, like as the blessed S. Austin witnesses in his book, that, like a tiller of Jesu Christ, he profits in spiritual tilling. S. Peter the apostle taught the nations, but S. Bartholomew did great miracles. Peter was crucified the head downward, and Bartholomew was flayed quick, and had his head smitten off. And they twain increased greatly the church by the gifts of the Holy Ghost. And right as a harp gives a right sweet sound of many strings, in like wise all the apostles gave sweet melody of the unity divine, and were established by the king of kings. And they departed among them all the world, and the place of Armenia was the place of Bartholomew, that is from Ejulath unto Gabaoth. There you may see him, with the plough of his tongue, ear the fields unreasonable, sowing in the deepness of the heart the word of the faith, and in planting the vines of our Lord and trees of paradise. And to every each setting medicinally the remedies of the passions, rooting out pernicious thorns, cutting down trees of felony, and setting about hedges of doctrine. But what reward yielded the tyrants to their curate? They gave to him dishonour for honour, cursing for benediction, pains for gifts, tribulation for rest, and right bitter death for restful life. And sith that he had suffered many torments, he was of them discoriate and flayed quick, and died not, and yet for all that he had them not in despite that slew him, but admonished them by miracles, and taught them by demonstrances, that did him harm. But there was nothing that might refrain their bestial thoughts, ne withdraw them from harm. What did they afterwards? They enforced them against the holy body, and the malades and sick men refused their mediciner and healer, the city refused him that enlumined their blindness, governed them that were in peril, and gave life to them that were dead. And how cast they him out? Certainly, they threw the body into the sea in a chest of lead, and that chest came from the region of Armenia with the chests of four other martyrs, for they did also miracles and were thrown with him into the sea. And the four went before a great space of the sea, and did service to the apostles like as servants in a manner, so far that they came into the parts of Sicily in an isle that is named Lipari, like as it was showed to a bishop of Ostia which then was present. And these right rich treasures came to a right poor woman. And these right precious margarets came to one not noble, the bright shining light came to one right heavy. And then the other four came in to other lands, and left the holy apostle in that isle, and he left the other behind him. And that one which was named Papian went into a city of Sicily, and he sent another, named Lucian, into the city of Messina. And the other twain were sent into the land of Calabria, S. Gregory into the city of Columna, and Achate into a city named Chale, where yet at this day they shine by their merits. And then was the body of the apostle received with hymns, louings, and candles honourably, and there was made and builded a fair church in the honour of him. And the mountain of Vulcan is nigh to that isle, and was to it much grievous because it received fire, the which mountain was withdrawn by the merits of this holy saint from that isle seven miles, without to be seen of any body, and was suspended toward the sea. And yet appears it at this day to them that see it, as it were a figure of fire fleeing away. Now then, therefore, I salute you, Bartholomew, blessed of blessed saints, which are the shining light of holy church, fisher of fishes reasonable, hurter of the devil which hurted the world by his theft. Enjoy you, sun of the world, enlumining all earthly things, mouth of God, fiery tongue pronouncing wisdom, fountain springing goodly, full of health, which hallow the sea by your goings and ways not removable, which make the earth red with your blood, which repair in heaviness, shining in the middle of the divine company clear in the resplendishour of glory. And enjoy you in the gladness of joy insatiable. Amen. And this is that Theodore says of him.
Deuteronomy 18:15–18Psalm 911 Corinthians 4:9–16Luke 22:24–30
Almighty and everlasting God, you gave your apostle Bartholomew grace truly to believe and to preach your Word: Grant that your Church may love what he believed and preach what he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.