St. Pachomius Library

Holy Apostle Nathaniel Bartholomew

I Century
Nathaniel Bar Tolmai was a native of Cana chosen to be among the 12 Apostles and praised for his sincerity. The synoptic gospels and the Acts of the Apostles list Bartholomew among the Twelve, and the gospel according to St. John lists Nathaniel, who is elsewhere associated with Philip. Other gospels note an association of Philip with Bartholomew, and people have inferred that the writers of the synoptic books call Nathaniel by his patronymic, while St. John calls him by his first name.
Details of his subsequent career are unknown. He is said to have preached in India (or Ethiopia), Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, and Armenia. Eusebius reports that St. Pantænus of Alexandria found in India (by which Eusebius may have meant Ethiopia) a copy of the Hebrew text of the gospel of Matthew that Bartholomew had left there. A gospel attributed to Bartholomew is apocryphal.
Nathaniel is thought to have been martyred by King Astyages of Babylon, who ordered him flayed and beheaded. The place of Nathaniel's death is uncertain. Some say it was Derbend on the Caspian Sea, but Armenian sources assert he died at Arbanoupolis in Armenia. St. Bartholomew in Rome claims his relics.
Karen Rae Keck

ABOUT:

Vita ---St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Orthodox Wiki
Wikipedia (Western bias)
1912 Catholic Encyclopedia (Read with caution)
Vita from The Golden Legend translated by William Caxton. ---Catholic Community Forum

PRIMARY SOURCES:

Pharisees Refuted from The Recognitions of Clement, Book I, Chapter 59 (This is an apocryphon.) ---CCEL
The Arabic Gospel of the Infancy of the Saviour, paragraph 30 on the resurrection of the infant Bartholomew. (This is an apocryphon.) ---CCEL
The Acts of Philip, which says that Bartholomew accompanied Philip. (This is an apocryphon.) ---CCEL
Martyrdom of the Holy and Glorious Apostle Bartholomew (This is an apocryphon.) ---CCEL

IMAGES:

Icon and Troparion ---Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America

FROM THE APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS:

Concerning the Deaconess.The Constitution of Bartholomew:
XIX. Concerning a deaconess, I Bartholomew make this constitution: O bishop, thou shalt lay thy hands upon her in the presence of the presbytery, and of the deacons and deaconesses, and shall say:.

The Form of Prayer for the Ordination of a Deaconess.

XX. O Eternal God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Creator of man and of woman, who didst replenish with the Spirit Miriam, and Deborah, and Anna, and Huldah; who didst not disdain that Thy only begotten Son should be born of a woman; who also in the tabernacle of the testimony, and in the temple, didst ordain women to be keepers of Thy holy gates,---do Thou now also look down upon this Thy servant, who is to be ordained to the office of a deaconess, and grant her Thy Holy Spirit, and "cleanse her from all filthiness of flesh and spirit," that she may worthily discharge the work which is committed to her to Thy glory, and the praise of Thy Christ, with whom glory and adoration be to Thee and the Holy Spirit for ever. Amen.

FROM DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE, MYSTICAL THEOLOGY, CHAPTER I, PARAGRAPH 3:
Thus, then, the divine Bartholomew says that Theology is much and least, and the Gospel broad and great, and on the other hand concise. He seems to me to have comprehended this supernaturally, that the good Cause of all is both of much utterance, and at the same time of briefest utterance and without utterance; as having neither utterance nor conception, because It is superessentially exalted above all, and manifested without veil and in truth, to those alone who pass through both all things consecrated and pure, and ascend above every ascent of all holy summits, and leave behind all divine lights and sounds, and heavenly words, and enter into the gloom, where really is, as the Oracles say, He Who is beyond all.

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