Saint Bartholomew, Apostle and Martyr

Saint Bartholomew, in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, is placed sixth in the catalogue of the Apostles. Like them, he was a witness to the glorious resurrection and the principal actions of Jesus Christ on earth. He is named among the one hundred and twenty Disciples assembled to pray after the Ascension. The Holy Spirit, for whose descent he had prepared with such fervor, filled him with zeal, charity, and all virtues. Clothed, like the other Apostles, with a supernatural strength, he thought only of making Jesus Christ known and carrying his name to the ends of the world.

After having prepared himself worthily for the exercise of the functions of the apostolate, Saint Bartholomew began by first going to carry the Gospel into Arabia Felix, in the land of Uz; then, moving up toward northern and Cis-Gangetic India, he advanced toward the most remote East, traversing Central Asia, which is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. He spent several years there, and after having converted a great number of people, he left them a copy of the Gospel composed by Saint Matthew. When he had founded Churches in different places, he resumed his direction toward the west of Asia, visiting Persia, Babylonia, Lesser Armenia, and Asia Minor.

"Saint Bartholomew," says Nicetas the Paphlagonian, "brought to the Indians and the eastern Ethiopians the light of true science, the doctrine of eternal life, and announced Jesus Christ to them clearly and in their own languages. His preaching was accompanied by miracles. He put to flight the demons that attacked men, healed all kinds of diseases and infirmities by the mere invocation of the name of Jesus. By the power of the same name, he restored life to several dead. Every day, new believers came, at his word, to swell the innumerable multitude of the faithful; he instructed them, purified them through the bath of regeneration, and finally inflamed their hearts by communicating to them the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Those among them who were the most worthy and the most filled with heavenly grace, he consecrated as bishops or priests. An admirable pontiff, he taught them the sacred rites that those who have received this consecration must know. He taught them the holy Scriptures, the science of the evangelical mysteries, and the perfect doctrine of salvation. New and spotless churches rose through his care in the different provinces and in the cities that he traversed." Such are the deeds of Saint Bartholomew in the Indies.

He had grown old in the fulfillment of this apostolic ministry. His limbs and his whole body were finally weary. He wished to receive from Jesus Christ, as the reward for his laborious travels, the possession of the glorious rest of His kingdom. Wishing to walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, his master and his model, whom he knew had entered into His glory by the way of suffering, he desired, after having been like Him during his life, to crown it with a similar end, through martyrdom. The Son of God, who sees the thoughts of hearts, did not delay in providing him the opportunity to bear witness to the truth by the shedding of his blood. Saint Bartholomew returned to Western Asia after having accomplished a great number of wonders and conversions in the vast regions of the East. Would to God that the memory of so many beautiful deeds had been preserved for us! But there was no one to write them down. We know a little better those he performed in Asia Minor and in Armenia, because they were reported and written in part by the first faithful of that country, who were much more literate than those of the other peoples of the East.

He evangelized for some time in Asia Minor, and notably in Mysia, Lydia, and Phrygia; it was then that Jesus Christ warned him to go to the aid of the apostle Saint Philip, who was fighting strongly against idolat ry in the city saint Philippe Apostle who brought Nathanael to Jesus and evangelized Hierapolis. of Hierapolis, in Phrygia. He contributed by his pre sence and Hiérapolis Episcopal see of Claudius Apollinaris in Phrygia. his preaching to the ruin of the impious cult, rooted in the heart of this people. After the death of Saint Philip, he restored order in the church of Hierapolis; and when he had strengthened the faithful of Lycaonia, he left for Greater Armenia, where he was to consummate his martyrdom.

As soon as he entered the temple of the capital, where King Polymiu s resided wi roi Polymius King of Armenia converted by Saint Bartholomew. th his entire court, the demon who gave oracles there through the mouth of an idol named Ast aroth, a Astaroth Armenian idol rendered mute by the presence of the apostle. nd who also healed many sick people presented to him, became entirely mute and unable to perform any healing. The Armenians, astonished by his silence, consulted another idol, called Berith or Beireth, to learn the cause. He replied that it was the presence of Bartholomew, Apostle of the true God, that forced his companion to be silent; that he would never be able to speak as long as such a holy man was in their city, because he bent his knees a hundred times by day and a hundred times by night to pray; that he was always accompanied by a troop of angels, and that he announced the truth by preaching that divine honors were due only to the Creator of heaven and earth. Upon this response, the priests of Astaroth searched for the holy Apostle on all sides, not to honor his virtue nor to receive his instructions, but to vent upon him the rage they felt at seeing themselves frustrated, by his presence, of the sacrilegious gain that the impious worship of their idol produced for them. All their diligence would have been useless if Bartholomew had not revealed himself; but he did so only through the deliverance of the possessed, the healing of the sick, and other wonders that filled the infidels with admiration and took from these priests the power to mistreat him as they intended. The king himself, whose daughter was tormented by a furious demon that had taken possession of her body, being informed of these wonders, had him brought to his palace and begged him to help the afflicted girl by delivering her from such an evil host. Bartholomew did so immediately, with sovereign authority; which filled the prince with such joy that, to acknowledge such a great benefit, he sent him, shortly after, camels loaded with gold, silver, precious stones, and rich garments.

The Saint, having known by revelation what the king was going to do, kept himself so well hidden until the gifts had been taken back to the palace that it was impossible to find him; then he presented himself before Polymius in his chamber, without the doors having been opened, and told him that it was neither gold nor silver that had brought him to his country, but zeal for the salvation of souls; that he asked of him, not to give him riches, but to make himself worthy of eternal treasures by abandoning the abominable superstition of idolatry and acknowledging the true God, who is the sole author of our life and the sovereign Lord of all things. He added that, to convince him of the truth of his doctrine, he offered to make the demon, who had deceived him until then, confess his wickedness and impostures. Indeed, Polymius having led him to the temple, Astaroth, who ordinarily spoke in the idol, confessed that he was not God, but a miserable spirit condemned to eternal flames; that the oracles he had pronounced had been only deceptions, because he predicted only the evil he wanted to do, or the good he did not want to prevent in order to engage them more strongly to believe in him, and that the healings he had performed had been only illusions, because it was he himself who caused the illnesses through his malice, so that by ceasing to cause them, one would believe he was performing miracles and continue to render him the divine honors that were not due to him. Upon this confession, the Apostle commanded him to break all the idols of the temple and to withdraw forever to a place where he could harm no one. He was forced to obey, and the ruin of all these idols had such a great effect on the mind of Polymius and all his people that they converted to Jesus Christ and urgently requested holy Baptism. Twelve cities of the same kingdom followed the example of their prince: they received the Gospel of salvation from the mouth of Saint Bartholomew, believed in Jesus Christ, submitted to the laws of Christianity, and most of the inhabitants having been baptized, the holy Apostle chose a small number of them to make them priests, deacons, and ministers of the Church.

However, the princes of darkness, unable to suffer the ruin of their empire and the establishment of that of the Savior, incited the priests of the idols against Bartholomew; the latter, not hoping to be able to corrupt the spirit of King Polymius, whom they saw too well established in the faith and love of Jesus Christ, addressed his elder brother, named Astyag es, who Astyages Brother of Polymius and responsible for the apostle's martyrdom. also reigned in a part of Armenia, and pointed out to him that it was necessary for him to put this new preacher to death, if he did not want to soon see the general desolation of the religion of his ancestors. Astyages, touched by these remonstrances, sent to seize Bartholomew, whether he had come of his own accord to preach in his states, or whether he had lured him under some hope of conversion. When he was before him, he asked him if it was not he who had perverted Polymius and destroyed the gods of his nation. "There is no other God of all nations," replied the Apostle, "than the sovereign Creator who reigns in the heavens with his only Son Jesus Christ. All those whom you adore are only demons who do not deserve divine honors. Thus, I have not destroyed the worship of any God, but only the vain superstition of idolatry and the adoration of demons. As for King Polymius, I have not perverted him; but I have shown him the way of eternal life, outside of which no one can be saved." Astyages, embittered by these words, and by the fact that at the same time an idol he adored fell to the ground, had the holy Preacher whipped severely; then, with a barbarity that surpasses everything that men have ever invented of cruelty, he had him flayed alive, from head to toe; so that, having no more skin, one saw in him only flesh all bloody and horribly pierced by his bones.

Finally, as, after this torture, the very account of which makes one shudder, he was still breathing, he had his head cut off. Peter de Natalibus says that he was flayed on August 24 and beheaded on the 25th, and that it is for this reason that in certain Churches his feast is celebrated on the 24th, and in others on the 25th. This execution of the just man was punished by those very ones who had been its instigators; for the demons seized Astyages and the priests complicit in his crime, and, after having tormented them for thirty days, they strangled them, to continue eternally to torment them in hell. As for Polymius, it is said that he was the first bishop of Armenia, and that he worked for twenty years with untiring zeal to maintain what the Apostle had done there, and to increase Christianity through the continuous conversion of the infidels. The flayed body of the Martyr, and his bloody skin, were buried with much honor in Albana Albana Initial burial site in Upper Armenia. , a city of Upper Armenia, which is now destroyed.

## CULT AND RELICS.

Some time after his death, a new persecution having arisen against the Church of Jesus Christ, the pagans took these holy relics, enclosed them in a leaden chest, and threw them into the sea, saying to the Saint: "You shall no longer deceive the people"; but this chest, floating on the water, fortunately came to land on the island of Lipari, near Sici ly; the Chris île de Lipari Island where the relics of the apostle are said to have arrived miraculously. tians, by divine revelation, received them there with great devotion, and, in the course of time, a great church was built there over his sepulcher. In 838, the Saracens having seized this island, this rich treasure was transported to Benevento by a religious (839), to whom Saint Bartholomew appeared, to reveal to him what these infidels had done with them. Otto of Freising assures that, in 983, Emperor Otto II, having become master of Benevento, deprived it of this blessing by having the body of this holy Apostle transported to Rome. His desi Rome Birthplace of Maximian. gn was to enrich Germany; but, having died the same year, he could not execute this project: so that the porphyry shrine he had had made for him, with the treasure it contained, remained in Rome, on the island of the Tiber, where a temple was built in honor of the holy Apostle. Robert of Torigni, in the continuation of Sigebert, adds that in the year 1157, this coffin was discovered by a flood of the Tiber, and that the entire body, except for the skin which had remained in Benevento, was found there with a copper plate which attested, in Greek and Latin characters, to his translation by Emperor Otto. Since that time, devotion to Saint Bartholomew has greatly increased in Rome. His church has been enlarged, and one sees there every year, during the octave of his feast, a great concourse of people who go to honor such an illustrious defender of the Gospel. Cardinal Baronius believes that this translation to Rome took place on August 25, and that this is why the feast is held there on that day, whereas in other countries, such as France, it is celebrated on the 24th. Pope Innocent III ordered that each diocese should observe its ancient custom in this regard. The Greeks place his feast on June 14.

Saint Dionysius the Areopagite speaks very honorably of Saint Bartholomew in his book of *Mystical Theology*, and attributes to him this beautiful sentence: "that theology is of great and small extent, and that the Gospel is very ample and very succinct." There circulated, in the first centuries, a Gospel under the name of Saint Bartholomew, just as others circulated under the names of most of the other Apostles; but Pope Gelasius rejected them all as apo pape Gélase Pope of African origin who reigned from 493 to 496. cryphal, except for the four famous Gospels according to Saint Matthew, Saint Mark, Saint Luke, and Saint John. The historian Nicephorus, after Theodore the Lector, makes mention of some relics of the same Apostle, found by Emperor Anastasius in the castle of Bora, on the borders of Armenia and Persia, following an apparition of the saint himself to that emperor, where he declared to him that this castle was under his particular protection and that he guarded its walls. Procopius says that Justinian had a church built at the same place to place them with more decency. France was not deprived of the participation of such a great good: the head of Saint Bartholomew was brought to Toulouse, in the church of Saint-Sernin, which was enclosed in a gilded wooden bust, in the upper crypt of the church; in the abbey of Gersi, in the diocese of Paris, one of his arms still covered with its flesh, but stripped of its skin. The cathedral of Versailles possesses one of the arms of Saint Bartholomew, coming from one of the neighboring abbeys, destroyed in 1790. The city of Paris has always been very devoted to Saint Bartholomew, and no sooner had it known Jesus Christ than it honored this faithful worker of his Gospel by building a church under his name. This is the parish of Saint-Barthélemy, which is believed to be the oldest church in the Cité. There are still relics of the holy Apostle at the monastery of Charmes, a city located on the Moselle; in Naples, in Italy; in a monastery of Saint-Benoît, in Bordeaux; and in other churches, in Belgium, in Germany, and in Spain.

At some distance from Nakhchivan, a city in Russian Armenia, three leagues from Mount Ararat, and seven from the Aras River, on the borders of Persia and Turkey, is a fairly important town named Kisouz, which is very famous among the Armenians; for the tradition of these lands holds that Saint Bartholomew was martyred in this place, and the Armenian Christians say that they still possess some relics of the holy Apostle. In this place, so many and such striking healings have occurred through the intercession of the glorious Bartholomew that even the Mahometans come there in devotion, and especially those who have fevers and other illnesses.

There are in this town three establishments or convents, served by religious, to receive charitably the Christians who come from Europe. Most of the Armenians of these regions are Roman Catholics; when the Archbishop of Nakhchivan is elected, he goes to Rome, where the Pope confirms his election.

We have used, to complete this biography, the *Histoire des Apôtres* by Abbé Maistre; the *Hagiologie Niocrnaise* by Mgr Crounier, and *Notes locales*.