The Companion of Philip

In three of the four apostle-lists Bartholomew stands directly beside Philip (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:14), and in John it is Philip who brings Nathanael to Christ (John 1:45). This double pairing — Philip-Bartholomew in the Synoptics, Philip-Nathanael in John — is the single strongest argument for the identification of the two, and it carries through into the tradition of their joint mission and suffering at Hierapolis in Phrygia. This file sets out the pairing and what it bears.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

The Pairing in the Lists

When the Evangelists number the Twelve they preserve, with small variations, a traditional grouping — the apostles tend to be listed in fixed pairs or clusters, very likely reflecting how they were sent out “two and two” (Mark 6:7). Within this grouping Bartholomew’s place is fixed: he follows Philip. Matthew has “Philip, and Bartholomew” (Matt. 10:3); Mark, “Philip, and Bartholomew” (Mark 3:18); Luke, “Philip, and Bartholomew” (Luke 6:14). Only in Acts, where the order is somewhat rearranged after the death of Judas, is the immediate adjacency loosened, and even there the two stand within the same cluster: “Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew” (Acts 1:13). Three lists out of four, then, set Philip and Bartholomew side by side — a constancy that suggests the two were remembered as associates, perhaps as a missionary pair.

The Pairing in John

The Fourth Gospel, which never names Bartholomew, nonetheless preserves a Philip pairing of its own — with Nathanael. It is Philip who, having himself been called, immediately seeks out Nathanael: “Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write” (John 1:45). Philip is the human link by which Nathanael comes to Christ; he answers Nathanael’s doubt with “Come and see” (John 1:46) and brings him to the Lord (see Under the Fig Tree). The two are again together at the Sea of Tiberias in the resurrection appearance, both numbered among the seven — Philip is one of the unnamed “two other of his disciples” or among the company, and Nathanael “of Cana in Galilee” is explicitly named (John 21:2; cf. the listing of Philip among the disciples throughout John 1, 6, 12, 14).

The Argument from the Double Pairing

Set the two patterns together and the force of the identification appears. In the Synoptics, Philip is paired with Bartholomew; in John, Philip is paired with Nathanael. The simplest explanation of this consistent association is that Bartholomew and Nathanael are the same man — that John, who gives personal names and intimate callings, names him by his given name Nathanael, while the Synoptic tradition, which preserves the formal roll of the Twelve, names him by his patronymic Bartholomew (bar-Talmai, “son of Tolmai”). On this reading the pairing is not a coincidence of two different friendships of Philip but the same friendship seen under two names (Brown 1966, on John 1:45; Oxford Companion to the Bible, “Nathanael”; Oxford Dictionary of Saints, “Bartholomew”).

This is the chief argument the tradition advances, and it is the strongest. It is not, however, a proof. [Disputed: the Philip-pairing is the principal ground for identifying Bartholomew with Nathanael, and is widely judged the most persuasive single argument (Brown 1966; the medieval Western and Eastern liturgical tradition). But it remains an inference: John never calls Nathanael an apostle or one of the Twelve, and the association of Philip with Nathanael in John could in principle be distinct from the list-association of Philip with Bartholomew. The identification is therefore probable on this argument but not demonstrable from it; see the full treatment in The Identification Debate.] (For the complete weighing, see The Identification Debate.)

Joint Mission and Suffering at Hierapolis

The pairing reaches beyond the Gospels into the missionary tradition. By a tradition preserved in the apocryphal Acts of Philip and in the local memory of Hierapolis in Phrygia, the Apostles Philip and Bartholomew labored together in the evangelization of that city, where Philip met his martyrdom. The narrative — apocryphal and of uncertain date — has the two apostles (with Philip’s sister Mariamne in the Acts of Philip) confronting the serpent-cult of Hierapolis, working wonders, and suffering for it; in the legend Philip is crucified and Bartholomew, in some versions bound or crucified with him, is released or escapes to continue his mission (James 1924, on the Acts of Philip; Elliott 1993). The archaeological rediscovery of the tomb and martyrium of the Apostle Philip at Hierapolis (modern Pamukkale, Turkey) in recent excavations has given the Philip tradition there a new concreteness, though it speaks directly only to Philip and not to Bartholomew (the Hierapolis martyrium of Philip; reported in the excavation literature). This Phrygian tradition is one of the threads of the divergent mission-record treated in The Missions; its value here is that it shows the Philip-Bartholomew pairing persisting in the post-Pentecost memory of the Church, beyond the Gospel lists.

The Spiritual Sense of the Pairing

The Fathers and the liturgical tradition draw a further, devotional lesson from the bond. Philip is the apostle who, having found the Messiah, cannot rest until he has brought another — “We have found him… Come and see” (John 1:45–46) — and Bartholomew-Nathanael is the friend who, brought, believes. The pairing thus models the apostolic dynamic itself: one disciple bringing another, the chain of witness by which the Church spreads (cf. Andrew bringing Peter, John 1:41–42). That the same two are then remembered together in the lists and in the mission gives the bond a continuity from the first calling to the final martyrdom. In Orthodox hymnography both apostles are honored among the Twelve who, sent out, “drew the whole world into the net of the Gospel”; their pairing is a small image of that common labor (Menaion, June 11 for Bartholomew; November 14 for Philip).

See Also

References

  • The Holy Bible, King James Version. (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18; Mark 6:7; Luke 6:14; Acts 1:13; John 1:41–46; 21:2.)
  • Brown, Raymond E. The Gospel According to John I–XII. Anchor Bible 29. Garden City: Doubleday, 1966. (On John 1:45 and the Bartholomew/Nathanael identification.)
  • James, M. R. The Apocryphal New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924. (The Acts of Philip.)
  • Elliott, J. K. The Apocryphal New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. (The Acts of Philip, introduction and translation.)
  • Farmer, David Hugh. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. (Entry “Bartholomew.”)