Saint Bartholomew
Apostle
- Feast Day
- August 24
- Life
- d. 71
- Born
- Cana of Galilee (traditional, identifying him with Nathanael)
Saint Bartholomew is named in all four Synoptic apostolic lists (Matthew 10:3, Mark 3:18, Luke 6:14, Acts 1:13) but never appears with this name in the Gospel of John. The Synoptic lists pair him consistently with Saint Philip; in John, Philip is paired with Nathanael of Cana of Galilee (John 1:45-51, 21:2). Already from the ninth century the Western Church has identified Bartholomew with Nathanael; this identification (still standard in modern Catholic biblical scholarship for liturgical purposes) gives Bartholomew the marvelous Johannine encounter with Jesus: Nathanael, sitting under a fig tree, hears Christ's word, Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile (John 1:47), and confesses, Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel. The name Bartholomew (bar-Talmai, son of Talmai) is a patronymic; Nathanael (God has given) would be his personal name.
The earliest traditions on his apostolic mission and martyrdom, attested by Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History 5.10) and others, give him as the apostle of Mesopotamia, Parthia (with Saint Thomas), Lycaonia, and India. The principal Armenian Church tradition, accepted in the Roman Martyrology, holds that Bartholomew preached in Armenia and was there martyred at Albanopolis in the time of King Astyages of Armenia (about A.D. 71). He was, according to a tradition probably of fourth-century origin and depicted notably by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel Last Judgment (where Saint Bartholomew holds his own flayed skin), flayed alive and then beheaded.
His relics were translated from the East to Rome and have rested since the tenth century in the Basilica of Saint Bartholomew on the Tiber Island, on the site of the ancient pagan healing shrine of Aesculapius. Pope Saint John Paul II in 2002 entrusted the basilica to the lay Community of Sant'Egidio for the celebration of the Memory of the New Martyrs of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
The Feast of Saint Bartholomew, observed in red as for an apostle-martyr, honors the apostle whom the Lord praised for his guilelessness. Pope Benedict XVI, in his General Audience of October 4, 2006, presented the Synoptic-Johannine identification with Nathanael as the standard reading and praised Bartholomew as the figure of openness to the Word of God in the simplicity of an upright heart.
Patronages
Armenia · tanners · leatherworkers · plasterers · bookbinders · Florentine cheese-and-salt merchants · the diocese of Frascati
Catholic Churches Named After Saint Bartholomew
20 parishes on Catholic Church Times share Saint Bartholomew's name. Find their Mass times, confession schedules, and adoration hours:
- Saint Bartholomew Catholic Church — Manchester, MD
- St. Bartholomew Parish — San Manuel, PANGASINAN
- St. Bartholomew Parish — Catbalogan City, SAMAR
- St. Bartholomew Parish — Calayan, CAGAYAN
- St. Bartholomew / St-Bartélemy — Levack, ON
- St Bartholomew, Maitland — Maitland, SA
- St Bartholomew's Catholic Church — Coatbridge, SCT
- St. Bartholomew Catholic Church — Stevens Point, WI
- St. Bartholomew's (Castlemilk) — Glasgow, SCT
- St. Bartholomew — Trempealeau, WI
- St. Bartholomew — White Sulphur Springs, MT
- Saint Bartholomew Catholic Mission — Bayfield, CO
- Saint Bartholomew's Roman Catholic Church — City of Norwich, NY
- St Bartholomew Church — Cape Elizabeth, ME
- Saint Bartholomew Catholic Church — Columbus, IN
- Saint Bartholomew Church — Estes Park, CO
- Saint Bartholomew Roman Catholic Church — Manchester, CT
- St. Bartholomew Historic Church — Manchester, MD
- St. Bartholomew — Providence, RI
- Saint Bartholomew Parish Church
Sources