The Missions

After Pentecost the apostles were dispersed to the nations, and tradition assigns Bartholomew several fields — “India,” Armenia, and Phrygia — not easily harmonized. The earliest concrete notice is Eusebius’s report that the missionary Pantaenus, reaching the “Indians,” found among them a Hebrew Gospel of Matthew left by the Apostle Bartholomew (HE 5.10). This file sets out the mission traditions in order of attestation, with the divergence of the sources named.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

The Dispersal of the Apostles

The framing tradition is the dispersal of the Twelve to the lands of the earth. Eusebius of Caesarea, the first systematic Church historian, records the ancient understanding that “the holy apostles and disciples of our Saviour were scattered over the whole world. Thomas, as tradition relates, obtained by lot Parthia, Andrew Scythia, John Asia… Peter appears to have preached in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia” (Ecclesiastical History 3.1; trans. NPNF II/1, citing Origen). In this and like catalogues — and in the later, fuller lists of the apostles’ fields drawn up in Byzantine times — Bartholomew is variously assigned. The variety is itself the first fact to be reckoned with: there is no single, early, agreed tradition of where Bartholomew went, as there is, more nearly, for Thomas (India/Parthia) or Andrew (Scythia/Achaia).

The “India” Tradition and Pantaenus

The earliest and most concrete notice attaches Bartholomew to “India.” Eusebius reports that, in the late second century, the learned Pantaenus of Alexandria — head of the catechetical school and teacher of Clement — went as a missionary to the East, and that “it is reported that among persons there who knew of Christ, he found the Gospel according to Matthew, which had anticipated his own arrival. For Bartholomew, one of the apostles, had preached to them, and left with them the writing of Matthew in the Hebrew language, which they had preserved till that time” (Ecclesiastical History 5.10; trans. NPNF II/1). Jerome repeats the report, naming Pantaenus’s Indian mission and the Hebrew Matthew left by Bartholomew (Jerome, On Illustrious Men 36; trans. NPNF II/3).

Two cautions govern this notice. First, it is a report of a tradition (“it is reported”) about a Gospel found, not a direct record of Bartholomew’s preaching; its evidentiary weight is for the belief, already current by Eusebius’s day, that Bartholomew had evangelized “India.” Second, “India” (Greek Indía) in ancient usage was elastic: it could denote the Indian subcontinent, but also Arabia Felix, Ethiopia, or the lands of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and ancient writers used it loosely for the distant south and east (so the standard caution in the scholarship; cf. Anchor Bible Dictionary, “Bartholomew”; Oxford Dictionary of Saints, “Bartholomew”). The “India” of the Bartholomew tradition therefore cannot be pinned to a single modern map, and some have read it as Arabia or as the region toward Armenia.

The Armenian and Phrygian Traditions

A second body of tradition assigns Bartholomew to Armenia, where, with the Apostle Thaddaeus, he is honored as a first enlightener and where, by the same tradition, he was martyred (treated fully in The Enlightener of Armenia). The Armenian historians and the Armenian Apostolic Church carry this tradition as their foundation-narrative. The place of his martyrdom, Albanopolis (or Urbanopolis), is located by this tradition on the Armenian–Caspian frontier (see The Martyrdom).

A third tradition places Bartholomew in Phrygia, and specifically at Hierapolis, laboring and suffering alongside the Apostle Philip — the constant companion of the lists. The apocryphal Acts of Philip and the local Hierapolitan tradition associate the two apostles in the evangelization of that city (treated in The Companion of Philip). Later synaxaria also speak of Bartholomew preaching in Lycaonia and other regions of Asia Minor before reaching Armenia.

The Divergence of the Sources

The honest summary is that the mission traditions do not converge on one itinerary. [Disputed: the missionary field of Bartholomew is given variously and is not harmonized by the early sources. (a) "India": Eusebius, *HE* 5.10, reporting Pantaenus's discovery of a Hebrew Matthew left by Bartholomew, repeated by Jerome, *On Illustrious Men* 36 — the earliest concrete notice, but "India" is a loose ancient term (subcontinent, Arabia, Ethiopia, or the south/east generally). (b) Armenia: the Armenian Apostolic tradition and the medieval Armenian historians, with the martyrdom at Albanopolis on the Armenian frontier — deeply rooted ecclesially but later in attestation. (c) Phrygia/Hierapolis with Philip: the apocryphal *Acts of Philip* and local tradition. These are not necessarily contradictory — a single apostle could labor in several regions, and a journey from Asia Minor toward Armenia and the Caspian is geographically coherent — but they cannot all be confirmed, and no single early source gives a unified account. The traditions are reported here, each pinned to its source and date, not certified as a reconstructed itinerary.]

What the traditions share is the picture of an apostle who carried the Gospel eastward and southward, into lands at or beyond the edges of the Greco-Roman world, and who in every version ends in martyrdom. For the Orthodox reader the divergence is not an embarrassment but a feature of the early missionary memory, in which the deeds of the apostles who left no writings survive only in the recollection of the churches they founded — recollections that grew, diverged, and were elaborated in the apocryphal acts. The constant thread, and the most historically suggestive, is the companionship with Philip, to which the next file turns.

See Also

References

  • Eusebius of Caesarea. The Ecclesiastical History (esp. 3.1; 5.10). Trans. Arthur C. McGiffert, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol. 1. 1890.
  • Jerome. On Illustrious Men 36. Trans. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol. 3.
  • Freedman, David Noel, ed. The Anchor Bible Dictionary. New York: Doubleday, 1992. (Entry “Bartholomew.”)
  • Farmer, David Hugh. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. (Entry “Bartholomew.”)