Bartholomew

This name literally means ‘son of Tolmai.’ He is mentioned as one of the Twelve Apostles (Matt. 10:3; Mk. 3:18; Lk. 6:14; Acts 1:13). There is no further reference to him in the N.T. According to the Genealogies of the Twelve, he was of the house of Naphtali Bartholomew was identify with Nathanael. It was Philip who brought Nathanael to Y’Shua (Jn. 1:45). This has led many to believe that Bartholomew and Nathanael is the same person.
In the apocryphal Gospel of Bartholomew is the tradition that he preached the gospel in India, and that he brought a copy of Matthew’s Gospel in Hebrew to that place. He is said to have preached in the oasis of Al Bahnasa. He labored among the Parthians. Another tradition has him preaching in Phrgia in Asia Minor. He is further said to have preached in Armenia, and the Armenian Messianic Church claims him as its founder. Another tradition has him martyred at Albana, which now is modern Derbend, in the Soviet Union. The apocrypha describes a series of questions which Bartholomew addressed to Y’Shua and to Miriam in the time between the resurrection and the ascension.
Bartholomew returned from India to the North-West parts of Africa. At Hierapolis in Phrygia we find him in the company with Philip at whose Martyrdom he was likewise fastened to a cross, in order to have suffered at the same time; but for some special reason the Magistrates caused him to be taken down again, and dismissed and he went into Lycaonia. His last remove was to Albanople in Armenia the Great, a place miserably overrun with Idolatry, he was by the Governor of the place condemned to be crucified. Some add, that he was arrested, beaten with clubs and eventually crucified with is head downwards, and beheaded. And so Bartholomew died a martyr for his L-rd; others that he was flayed alive, which might well enough consist with his crucifixion; this punishment being in use, not only in Egypt, but amongst the Persians. The flaying which has probably suggested the knife, often associated as an emblem with picture of the saint; but on Bartholomew in art.
Emperor Anastasius removed Bartholomew’s body thither; which Gregory of Tours seems to contradict, saying the People of Lipatis, near Sicily, translated it from the place where he suffered into their Isle, and built a stately Messianic Church over it. By what means it was removed from hence to Beneventum in Italy, and afterwards to the Isle of Tiber at Rome, where another Messianic Church was built to the honor of this Apostle, is hart to account for. The mission of Bartholomew in Armenia lasted sixteen years and he was martyred in 68 A.D. at Albanus.
It is said that India in the first century was very loosely used, being understood to begin on the Bosporus. He had reached the easternmost of the tributaries of the Indus River before he turned to the Indian Ocean, and then west again. His great march and the seventy cities he had built or founded had in a measure opened the way to India. He preached the advent of Y’Shua according to the gospel of Matthew.
Jerome passes on the suggestion that Bartholomew was the only one of the twelve to be of noble birth. As we have seen, his name means son of Tolmai, or possibly son of Talmai. Now in 2 Sam. 3:3 there is mentioned of a Talmai who was king of Geshur; this Talmai had a daughter called Maacah; and this Maacah became the mother of Absalom, whom she bore to David. The suggestion is that it was from this Talmai that Bartholomew was descended, and that therefore he was of nothing less than royal lineage. Later still another story arose. The second part of Bartholomew’s name was connected with Ptolemy, and he was said to be called son of Ptolemy. The Ptolemies were the kings of Egypt, and it was said that Bartholomew was connected with the royal house of Egypt.
A very interesting personal description of him is given. “He has black, curly hair, white skin, large eyes, straight nose; his hair covers his ears, his beard long and grizzled, middle height. He wears a white robe with a purple stripe and a white cloak with four purple gems at the corners. For twenty-six years he has worn these, and they never grow old. His shoes have lasted twenty-six years. He prays a hundred times a day and a hundred times a night. His voice is like a trumpet; angels wait upon him; he is always cheerful, and knows all languages.”
The Roman Catholic tradition tells of the disposition of the remains of the Apostle: “A written account says that after the Emperor Anastasius built the city of Duras in Mesopotamia in 508, he caused the relics to be taken there, before the end of the sixth century, they were carried to the Lipari Islands near Sisily; and Anastasius, the Librarian, tells us that in 809 they were taken to Benevento and then transported to Rome in 983 by the Emperor Otto 3. They now lie in the church of Bartholomew-on-Tiber in a porphryr shrine under the high altar. An arm was sent by the Bishop of Benevento to Edward the Confessor, who gave it to Canterbury Cathedral.
The Greek Orthodox tradition tells the story of his travels to the remote Greek Orthodox Monasteries located in Mt. Athos, Greece. “As the sun began to sink over the mountain we reach our goal for the night, the cenobitic abbey of Karakallou, favored retreat of Albanians and Epirote. The sacristan appeared, suitable invested, and exposed the relics of a trestle table in front of the iconostasis: the skulls of the Apostle Bartholomew and Dionysius the Areogagite, the remains of a neomartyr, Gideon, a converted Turk.”
The bones (relics) of Bartholomew, like those of most of the other Apostles, are widely scattered today. The relics of the saint are preserved in the church of Bartholomew on the island in the Tiber River near Rome. Martin, the apostle Bartholomew, and Miriam Magdalene were represented in the arm collection – and as for such relics as fingers, toes, and small joints, this category was so extensive that only three well known saints were not represented: Joseph, John the Baptist, and James (the last being preserved entire at Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain). Philip’s successors added to the collection and there are now more than 7,000 relics at the Escorial, including 10 bodies, 144 heads, and 306 limbs.
Bartholomew’s ministry belongs more to the tradition of the eastern Messianic Churches than to the Western Messianic Church. However, evident that he went to Asia Minor (Turkey), in the company of Philip, where he labored in Hierapolis (near Laodicea and Colosse in Turkey).
The modern name of the district where he died is Azerbaijan and the place of his death, called in N.T. times Albanopolis, is now Derbend. Derbend is the sea gate through which the wild horsemen of Steppes later rode down upon civilized communities. The city of Tabriz, was the chief mart of Iranian Azerbaijan, was also located in this area. It was visited by Marco Polo in 1294. The statement that Bartholomew was skinned alive before being beheaded, is contained in the Brebertium Apostolorum, prefixed to certain ancient manuscripts.
India was a name applied indifferently by Greek and Latin writers to Arabia, Ethiopia, Libra, Parthia, Persia and the land of the Medes, and it is most probably that the India visited by Pantaenus was Ethiopia or Arabia Felix, or perhaps both.