St. Bartholomew, Apostle

St. Bartholomew was one of the Twelve Apostles, as the Gospels tell us (Mark 3:18; Matt. 10:3; Luke 6:14). It is most likely that the Nathanael mentioned in today’s Gospel reading (John 1:45–51) is Bartholomew. Why this difference of name? Bartholomew is not a given first name but a patronymic and means “son of Talamai” and, therefore, Nathanael could be his given name. It was Philip who brought Nathanael Bartholomew to Christ (John 1:45), and at his first meeting with our Lord, Nathanael confessed: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.” Tradition holds that after Pentecost, Bartholomew preached in Greater Armenia, and that it was there, in the city of Albanopolis (today’s Derbent, Dagestan), that he was flayed alive and beheaded by order of King Astyages. When today’s opening prayer states that St. Bartholomew was ever loyal to Christ, this is but another way of phrasing what Jesus remarked about him: “This man is a true Israelite. There is no guile in him” (John 1:47).

St. James, Apostle

St. James was born in Galilee, the son of Zebedee and the brother of John (Matt. 4:21). His mother may have been the Salome mentioned in Mark (Mk. 15:40) and Matthew (Mt. 27:56). James was a fisherman, as were his father and brother, and it was while he was preparing his nets that our Lord called him to follow him (Matt. 4:21–22). Our Lord nicknamed the brothers Boanerges, or Sons of Thunder, probably because both had manifested their tempers; when a certain Samaritan village refused to accept Jesus and his teaching, the brothers suggested that they should call down fire from Heaven and destroy it (Luke 9:51–56). Together with Peter and John, he witnessed two important moments in our Lord’s life: the transfiguration on Mount Tabor (Mark 9:2–8) and the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:32–42). Tradition maintains that after Pentecost James evangelized Samaria and Judea, and even traveled as far as Spain. He was arrested and beheaded by order of Herod Agrippa I in 44 (Acts 12:1–2), and supposedly he was buried in Jerusalem. James was the first of the apostles to die for Christ, thereby making good his “We can,” when our Lord, in today’s Gospel (Matt. 20:20–28), asks him and John: “Can you drink of the cup as I am to drink of?” To distinguish him from the other James, also an apostle, he is often called “the Greater,” to indicate either that he was called by our Lord before the other or that he was the elder.