St. Bartholomew the Apostle
He changed his mind in public. He had said out loud that nothing good could come out of Nazareth; a few minutes later, having gone to look for himself, he was the one calling Jesus the Son of God and the King of Israel. He never defended the first position.
Canonized
No year of birth and no year of death appears in any document held here, and no grave that anyone will vouch for. The Catholic Encyclopedia will not give a date: it says his death is “said to have occurred” at Albanopolis in Armenia, and then calls the manner of it “equally uncertain”. Benedict XVI, in 2006, dated the best-known account of that death to the Middle Ages rather than to the first century. The feast on 24 August is the day the Church keeps him, not the day he died.
Bartholomew was one of the twelve apostles, and the New Testament names him only in the lists of the Twelve. Matthew, Mark and Luke name him sixth; Acts, seventh. His name is not really a first name: it is a patronymic meaning “son of Talmai”, which tells us who his father was rather than what anyone called him.
That gap feeds an old, much-argued idea: that he is the man John’s Gospel calls Nathanael, a name meaning “God has given”. John never mentions a Bartholomew. Matthew, Mark and Luke never mention a Nathanael. And in all three of their lists Bartholomew stands beside Philip, which is exactly where John puts Nathanael, because in John it is Philip who brings him to Jesus. Benedict XVI, in 2006, called the identification traditional and rested it mainly on that. The Catholic Encyclopedia calls the case “ingenious and pretty strong”, then says what is wrong with it: Nathanael may have been somebody else.
If he is Nathanael, one scene belongs to him, and it is a strange one. He had just asked, of Jesus of Nazareth, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” He went to look anyway. Jesus saw him coming and said, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile!” Nathanael asked how he could know that. Jesus answered that he had seen him under the fig tree, before Philip ever called him. Nobody knows what happened under that fig tree. Whatever it was, it was enough: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
Where he went afterward cannot be established. He was martyred, and the sources give two accounts of how, choosing neither. Benedict XVI drew the only conclusion the evidence allows — that attachment to Jesus “can also be lived and witnessed to without performing sensational deeds”. The Church keeps his feast on 24 August.
What they carried
He began by dismissing Jesus for where he came from. Nazareth was an obscure village, and the Messiah was not supposed to come out of one. Benedict XVI reads the objection as a rather heavy prejudice, and as the reason the scene is worth keeping: God turns up exactly where nobody is looking for him.
State of life
apostle · martyr
Themes
hidden work · friendship · preaching · martyrdom
Benedict XVI on Bartholomew (General Audience, 4 October 2006)
- THREE ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLES AND ONE PAPAL AUDIENCE CARRY THIS LIFE, AND THE AUDIENCE IS READ IN ITALIAN FIRST. The Catholic Encyclopedia’s article “St. Bartholomew” (J. F. Fenlon, 1907) is a page long and spends most of it on what is uncertain. Its article “Nathanael” (J. F. Driscoll, 1911) is shorter still and approaches the same man from the other end, which is why both are held. Benedict XVI’s General Audience of 4 October 2006 is his portrait of Bartholomew, from the catechesis on the Apostles that also supplies andrew, matthew, philip, thomas, jude and simon in this corpus. Both editions of it, English and Italian, were read against each other. Seven further Holy See documents were fetched and read, and what each is worth is set out in the notes below. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02313c.htm
- THE IDENTIFICATION WITH NATHANAEL IS THE WHOLE PROBLEM OF THIS RECORD, AND IT IS AN ARGUMENT RATHER THAN A THING ANYONE WROTE DOWN. The shape of it is simple: John names Nathanael and never Bartholomew, the other three Gospels name Bartholomew and never Nathanael, and both stand next to Philip. THE THREE SOURCES HELD HERE RATE THAT ARGUMENT DIFFERENTLY, AND THE RECORD FOLLOWS NONE OF THEM IN SILENCE. The encyclopedia’s article on Bartholomew is the most cautious: “Nothing further is known of him for certain. Many scholars, however, identify him with Nathaniel”, and after setting out the reasons it turns on them — “This chain of circumstantial evidence is ingenious and pretty strong; the weak link is that, after all, Nathaniel may have been another personage” — comparing him to Nicodemus, another man John cares about whom the other Gospels never mention. The encyclopedia’s article on Nathanael, written four years later by a different author, is more confident and offers no counter-argument at all: “It is generally held that Nathanael is to be identified with the Apostle Bartholomew of the Synoptic writers”, resting on what “it is assumed that it is he whom the author of the Fourth Gospel designates by his personal name Nathanael”. Benedict XVI takes a third position, which is to adopt it without arguing: he says only that Bartholomew is traditionally identified with Natanaele, and then for the rest of the audience calls him Bartolomeo-Natanaele, one man with two names. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10711b.htm
- AND THE ENCYCLOPEDIA’S ARTICLE ON HIM CONTRADICTS ITSELF ABOUT THE IDENTIFICATION, IN TWO PARAGRAPHS A FEW LINES APART. In the second paragraph it is a serious scholarly case, argued at length from six separate reasons and rated “ingenious and pretty strong”. Two paragraphs later, in the middle of a list of late traditions about where he preached — Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, Armenia, Lycaonia, Phrygia, the Black Sea — the same article files it among them: “one legend, it is interesting to note, identifies him with Nathaniel”. A LEGEND IS NOT WHAT THE EARLIER PARAGRAPH SAID IT WAS. The article never notices the difference and never resolves it. This record reports both sentences rather than choosing the one that suits it, because a reader who goes to the article will find both.
- PHILIP IS THE LINK, IN EVERY SOURCE THAT ARGUES THE IDENTIFICATION, AND IN ONE OF THEM HE IS THE ONLY REASON GIVEN. The encyclopedia’s Bartholomew article puts it among its six reasons: “that Bartholomew’s name is coupled with Philip’s in the lists of Matthew and Luke, and found next to it in Mark, which agrees well with the fact shown by St. John that Philip was an old friend of Nathaniel’s and brought him to Jesus”. Its Nathanael article makes the same point its third reason. Benedict XVI gives no other: the identification, he says, is probably motivated by Nathanael being placed beside Philip in the scene of his calling, which is the place Bartholomew occupies in the lists of the other Gospels. THIS CORPUS ALREADY TELLS THAT SCENE FROM THE OTHER SIDE. The record for Philip the Apostle narrates him finding Nathanael and saying “Come and see”, and the encyclopedia’s article on Philip, held under that record at data/sources/philip-the-apostle/, says Philip “brought Nathaniel as a new disciple” — without ever naming Bartholomew or making the identification.
- THE ENGLISH EDITION OF THE 2006 AUDIENCE DROPS A VERB, AND THE VERB IS ABOUT HOW THE FLAYING STORY TOOK OVER. The Italian reads “Nella tradizione posteriore, a partire dal Medioevo, si impose il racconto della sua morte per scuoiamento, che divenne poi molto popolare” — the account imposed itself, and then became very popular. The English keeps only the second half: “In later tradition, as from the Middle Ages, the account of his death by flaying became very popular.” That is not decoration. The Italian makes a two-stage claim about a late story displacing the others, which is exactly what the encyclopedia describes from the other side when it calls the manner of his death “equally uncertain” and offers beheading first. A SECOND, SMALLER DIVERGENCE SITS ON THE IDENTIFICATION ITSELF. The Italian has “Tradizionalmente, però, egli viene identificato con Natanaele” — he, the man, is identified. The English has “However, it has traditionally been identified with Nathanael”, where the thing identified is his name. On a record about whether two names belong to one man, that is a distinction worth keeping. This record follows the Italian. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/it/audiences/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20061004.html
- HOW HE DIED, WITH EVERYTHING THE SOURCES SAY AND EVERY HEDGE THEY PUT ON IT. The summary above says only that he was martyred and that the accounts differ, and the fuller version is here rather than there. The Catholic Encyclopedia gives it in one sentence and qualifies every part of it: “The manner of his death, said to have occurred at Albanopolis in Armenia, is equally uncertain; according to some, he was beheaded, according to others, flayed alive and crucified, head downward, by order of Astyages, for having converted his brother, Polymius, King of Armenia.” Note the order — beheading first, flaying second, and the whole thing introduced as uncertain. The article then explains not the death but the pictures: “On account of this latter legend, he is often represented in art (e.g. in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment) as flayed and holding in his hand his own skin.” Benedict XVI does not narrate the death at all. He dates the story instead, to the Middle Ages, and goes straight to the same painting, noting that Michelangelo left his own self-portrait on the skin. So the most famous thing about this apostle is a late tradition that both held sources treat as one.
- AND A POPE ASSERTS THE MARTYRDOM FLATLY IN A DOCUMENT THAT IS NOT ABOUT HIM. Two years after hedging the death in his own portrait of Bartholomew, Benedict XVI reached him again in a General Audience of 20 August 2008 whose subject is Rose of Lima, and said in passing that she died “on the feast of the Apostle St Bartholomew, to whom she was deeply devoted because he had suffered a particularly painful martyrdom”. The Italian has it identically — “nella festa di san Bartolomeo apostolo, del quale era molto devota, perché aveva patito un martirio particolarmente doloroso”. THAT IS THE STRONGEST STATEMENT ANY HELD DOCUMENT MAKES ABOUT HIS DEATH, and it is an aside inside somebody else’s biography. It is why this record lists him as a martyr while refusing to say how he died: the fact is asserted by a reigning pope in both editions, and the manner is asserted by nobody.
- THE MISSION FIELD IS NOT SETTLED AND THIS RECORD SETTLES NOTHING. India is the oldest claim and it arrives at two removes. The encyclopedia: “No mention of St. Bartholomew occurs in ecclesiastical literature before Eusebius, who mentions that Pantaenus, the master of Origen, while evangelizing India, was told that the Apostle had preached there before him” — a fourth-century historian reporting what a second-century traveller was told. The same article then takes most of it back in one line: “‘India’ was a name covering a very wide area, including even Arabia Felix.” Benedict XVI reports the same story with the same distance and adds nothing to it. AND THEN THE LIST. “Other traditions represent St. Bartholomew as preaching in Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, Armenia, Lycaonia, Phrygia, and on the shores of the Black Sea”. Seven places, no choice made. ARMENIA IS NOT ONE OF HIS MISSION FIELDS IN THE POPE’S ACCOUNT AT ALL — the word does not occur in either edition of the 2006 audience. It reaches this record only as the country the encyclopedia puts his uncertain death in, and as one item in that list. A THIRD POPE IS ON THE INDIA QUESTION AND HEDGES HIM. Paul VI, preaching at Bombay on 4 December 1964, called India “evangelized by the Apostle Saint Thomas, who sanctified its soil by his preaching and is acclaimed Apostle of India, and evangelized also, according to tradition, by Saint Bartholomew.” He hedges Bartholomew and does not hedge Thomas, in one sentence. That homily is held in this corpus under data/sources/thomas-the-apostle/.
- THE RELICS ARE IN ROME, PROBABLY, AND THE SOURCES HEDGE THAT TOO — EXCEPT ONCE. The encyclopedia is the most careful: “His relics are thought by some to be preserved in the church of St. Bartholomew-in-the-Island, at Rome.” Benedict XVI, in 2006, is careful in the same way and adds a date: his relics are venerated in the church dedicated to him on the Tiber Island, “where they are said to have been brought by the German Emperor Otto III in the year 983”. BUT IN 2008, PREACHING INSIDE THAT CHURCH, HE DROPPED THE HEDGE. The homily of 7 April 2008 at the Basilica of St Bartholomew on Tiber Island calls it, in both editions, the place “where the relics of the Apostle Bartholomew are preserved and the mortal remains of St Adalbert venerated” — no ‘said to be’ at all. That basilica is also the memorial John Paul II designated for the martyrs of the twentieth century, which is what the homily is actually about. A SECOND ITALIAN CITY CLAIMS HIM. John Paul II, writing to the Archbishop of Benevento in 2002, names him first among the saints who watch over that Church — “from St Bartholomew Apostle to St Januarius and St Barbatus” — without saying anything about a body or a grave.
- NO PATRONAGE IS RECORDED FOR HIM, AND THE SILENCE IS COMPLETE ON BOTH SIDES. The Catholic Encyclopedia’s article on him never uses the word patron at all — not once, in a page that finds room for his relics, his feast, his iconography and an apocryphal gospel. Nor does any other document held for this record attach a patronage to him. The Holy See’s own search was then run over vatican.va, in ASCII throughout, on 7 September 2026. The phrasings run in ASCII were “patron of tanners”, “patron of leatherworkers”, “patron of bookbinders”, “patron of plasterers”, “patron of shoemakers”, “patron of butchers”, “patron of Benevento”, “patron of nervous diseases”, “patron saint of Armenia” and “Bartholomew is the patron”, and every one of them returned nothing. The Italian phrasings “patrono dei conciatori”, “patrono dei conciapelli”, “patrono dei rilegatori”, “patrono dei calzolai”, “patrono dei macellai”, “patrono di Benevento” and “patrono dell’Armenia” returned nothing either. Two shorter phrasings, “Bartholomew, patron” and “san Bartolomeo, patrono”, returned nothing. ONE PHRASING RETURNED A DOCUMENT AND IT IS ABOUT SOMEBODY ELSE. “patron of Armenia” in English returns a single Angelus of John Paul II, 5 November 2000, and the sentence is about a relic of “St Gregory the Illuminator, patron of Armenia” — a different saint, and not the Gregory of Narek this corpus already holds. The other use of the word in that same address belongs to Thomas More. There is no declaring act, no papal use of a title, and no reference work describing a devotion.
- THE FEAST IS 24 AUGUST AND IT IS A FEAST, THE HIGHEST OF THE THREE GRADES BELOW A SOLEMNITY. The universal calendar held here, published by the Liturgy Office of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, prints “St Bartholomew, Apostle” against 24 in August and grades it “feast”. The calendars of the United States bishops agree for both 2026 and 2027, printing “Saint Bartholomew, Apostle” in red and grading it Feast; the day is not displaced in either year, falling on a Monday in 2026 and a Tuesday in 2027. The Catholic Encyclopedia also says 24 August, and that is a coincidence rather than the reason: this corpus does not take a feast day from a book written in 1907, because the calendar has moved since.
- WHAT HE IS CALLED, AND WHICH OF THOSE NAMES A DOCUMENT HERE ACTUALLY USES. Bartholomew, Bartolomeo, Barthélemy, Bartolomé, Bartolomeu and the Greek Bartholomaios are all in documents held for this record, and the last four are worth explaining. Bartholomaios is the encyclopedia’s, given when it says the name “means ‘son of Talmai’ (or Tholmai)”. The other three come from the closing greetings of papal audiences, where the pope greets each language group in its own tongue: Barthélemy from the French greeting of the 2006 audience, Bartolomé from the Spanish greeting of the same audience, and Bartolomeu from the Portuguese greeting of Francis’s audience of 24 August 2022, which invokes “o exemplo de São Bartolomeu Apóstolo”. NONE OF THE THREE IS IN THE ENGLISH EDITION OF ITS OWN DOCUMENT, because an English edition carries the English greeting and drops the others. A reader working from English alone would find no trace of them.
- TWO THINGS THIS CARD DOES NOT SAY, AND BOTH ARE THE SOURCES SPEAKING. NO PLACE IS RECORDED FOR HIM. Not a birthplace, not a home town, not a grave anyone will vouch for. If he is Nathanael then he came from Cana, and Benedict XVI says so — but that is the identification carrying a fact rather than a fact of its own, and it cannot be stated more firmly than the argument it hangs on. Everything else is in a list of mission traditions that contradict one another, or is the town in Armenia where the encyclopedia says his death is only said to have happened. NO HARDSHIP IS RECORDED EITHER, apart from the martyrdom. Every document held for this record was searched when this was checked on 7 September 2026, and there is no persecution before the end, no poverty, no imprisonment, no doubt. What is recorded is the one thing he got wrong and then dropped, which is on this page above.