Published: Thursday, 24 August 2023 – Newsroom
The column of Saints celebrated by the Church
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The Synoptic Gospels call him Bartholomew, and in that of John he is referred to as Nathanael. Two names commonly understood, the first as a patronymic (BarTalmai, son of Talmai, of the brave) and the second as a personal name, with the meaning of “gift of God”.
From John we know the story of his adherence to Jesus, which is not immediate like others. Philip spoke to him enthusiastically about Jesus: “We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the Law and the Prophets, Jesus, son of Joseph of Nazareth. Come and see”.
And here they are seen: Jesus and Nathanael-Bartholomew, who is heard saying: “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no falsehood”. Displaced by this trust, he only knows how to ask Jesus how he makes him know him. And the answer (“Before Philip called you, I saw you when you were under the fig tree”) produces an unexpected and overflowing manifestation of his faith: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the king of Israel! “. This distrustful man is actually ready for more enthusiastic acceptance, so much so that Jesus begins to orient him a little: “Because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you think? You will see greater things than this”.
We then find Bartholomew chosen by Jesus with eleven other disciples to make them his envoys, the Apostles. Then the Acts lists him in Jerusalem with the others, “assiduous and with one accord in prayer”. And also for Bartholomew (as for Andrew, Thomas, Matthew, Simon the Zealot, Judas Thaddeus, Philip and Matthias) after this quotation the silence of the canonical texts falls.
Legends speak of it, historically unreliable. Some say he was a missionary in India and in Armenia, where he also allegedly converted the king, but suffered a tremendous martyrdom: skinned alive and beheaded. These legends were also a way of explaining the spread of Christianity to remote places, by unknown people. To many Churches, then, proclaiming themselves founded by apostles gave undoubted authority. The legend of Saint Bartholomew is also mentioned in the Last Judgment of the Sistine Chapel: the saint shows the skin of which the torturers “undressed” him, and in the features of his face, deformed by suffering, Michelangelo wanted to give us his own self-portrait.
2023-08-24 05:28:31
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