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Vigils Reading – St Bartholomew
August 24, 2022
Feast of St Bartholomew -taken from Butler’s Lives of Saints
Bartholomew was one of the twelve apostles. Only the synoptic gospel, however, refer to him by the name Bartholomew. The Gospel of John seems to refer to him as Nathanael. Nothing much more is actually known of him. The gospels continually put together Philip and Bartholomew, just as John says that Philip and Nathanael came together to Christ. Of him Christ said: “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guilt/”
Popular traditions and legends say that Bartholomew preached the gospel in India, then went to greater Armenia. After converting a number of people there he was flayed alive by the barbarians, whereupon King Astyages ordered him to be beheaded.
Bartholomew is said to have preached in Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt and elsewhere. Eusebius in the early fourth cemtury gives the earliest reference to India. When later missionaries came to India, the native people showed them a copy of the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew which they said Bartholomew had given to them.
The travels attributed to the relics of St Bartholomew seem even broader than his travels when alive. His legendary loss of skin made him the patron of tanners.
[1] Nut;ler’s Lives of Saints – The Liturgical Press = Collegeville, M1998n- pg 232.