The Martyrdom

Tradition holds that the Apostle Bartholomew was flayed alive — his skin stripped from his body — and then beheaded, at a place the sources call Albanopolis (Urbanopolis), on the Armenian or Caspian frontier. This file sets out the martyrdom-tradition: its descent from the apocryphal Martyrdom of Bartholomew and the later passiones and synaxaria, the divergent details of place and manner, and the sober handling of a death known only through later hagiography.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

The Tradition of the Flaying

Of all the apostles’ deaths, Bartholomew’s is the most harrowing in the telling. The received tradition holds that he was flayed alive — the skin cut and stripped from his living body — and then beheaded (or, in some versions, crucified head-downward, or first flayed and then crucified or beheaded). The manner of death gave the apostle his enduring identity in Christian art and his place among the martyrs whose sufferings were most vividly remembered.

This tradition is not found in the New Testament, which records nothing of any apostle’s death save that of James the son of Zebedee (Acts 12:2) and the foretold death of Peter (John 21:18–19). Nor is it given by the earliest Church historians: Eusebius, who preserves the “India” mission (Ecclesiastical History 5.10), says nothing of a flaying. The flaying-tradition descends rather from the apocryphal Martyrdom of Bartholomew and the related passiones, and from the synaxaria and menologia that drew upon them (James 1924; Elliott 1993; see The Bartholomew Apocrypha).

The Narrative of the Martyrdom of Bartholomew

In the apocryphal Martyrdom of Bartholomew, the apostle comes to “India,” to the city of King Polymius. There he overthrows the idol Astaruth (Astaroth), whose indwelling demon he exposes and silences; he heals the king’s daughter, who is tormented by an evil spirit; and he converts King Polymius and a great multitude. But the pagan priests, robbed of their cult, appeal to the king’s brother Astreges (Astyages), who seizes the apostle and orders his death. It is here that the manner of death is given — the apostle is put to death by flaying (and, in the versions, beheading or crucifixion) — and the king and his household are confirmed in the faith by the martyrdom (James 1924, The Apocryphal New Testament, “The Martyrdom of Bartholomew”; Elliott 1993).

The narrative is of the apocryphal-acta type: a single dramatic confrontation between the apostle and the powers of idolatry, a royal conversion, and a martyr’s death engineered by the enemies of the new faith. It is edifying and legendary, composed long after the apostolic age, and it is the literary fountainhead of the flaying-tradition.

Albanopolis and the Question of Place

The place of the martyrdom is given by the tradition as Albanopolis (or Urbanopolis, Albanus) — a name the tradition associates with the region of Caucasian Albania or with Armenia, on the frontier toward the Caspian Sea. The Armenian tradition locates the death in the region of Vaspurakan, near Lake Van, where the great Monastery of St. Bartholomew later stood over the site (see The Enlightener of Armenia). The exact identification of “Albanopolis” is uncertain and has been variously located by scholars; the name and its placement belong to the tradition rather than to firm geography.

[Disputed: the place and manner of Bartholomew's martyrdom are matters of later tradition, not of early documentary record. (a) Manner: the dominant tradition is flaying alive, then beheading (the apocryphal *Martyrdom of Bartholomew*, the synaxaria, and the Western tradition); some versions add or substitute crucifixion (head-downward) or give beheading alone. (b) Place: "Albanopolis"/"Urbanopolis," located by tradition in Armenia or Caucasian Albania toward the Caspian; the Armenian tradition fixes it at Vaspurakan near Lake Van. The earliest Church historians (Eusebius) record the mission but not the manner of death; the flaying derives from the apocryphal and hagiographical literature. The traditions are reported here pinned to their sources, not certified as history (METHODOLOGY §3.5).]

The Sober Handling of a Hagiographic Death

The discipline this collection observes (METHODOLOGY §3.5) is to report the martyrdom as the tradition relates it, with its source named, and not to certify it as established fact. What can be said securely is that Bartholomew was venerated from antiquity as a martyr — the Church has never doubted that the apostle gave his life for Christ — and that the manner of his death, the flaying, is a tradition carried by the apocryphal Martyrdom and the synaxaria, vivid and universally received but legendary in its literary origin. The veneration of the apostle as a holy martyr does not depend on the historical certainty of the flaying; it rests on his apostleship and on the constant memory of the Church that he died for the Gospel.

That said, the flaying-tradition’s very vividness made it theologically and artistically generative. To be flayed — to be stripped of one’s own skin — became, in Christian meditation, an image of the total self-giving of the martyr, who surrenders not only his life but his very covering, and of the “putting off” of the old man (cf. Col. 3:9). It is this image, more than any historical datum, that shaped the apostle’s place in the Church’s imagination and in her art, to which the companion file turns (see The Iconography of the Flayed Apostle).

See Also

References

  • James, M. R. The Apocryphal New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924. (The Martyrdom of Bartholomew; King Polymius, Astreges, the idol Astaruth, the flaying.)
  • Elliott, J. K. The Apocryphal New Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.
  • Eusebius of Caesarea. The Ecclesiastical History 5.10. Trans. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol. 1. (The “India” mission, without the flaying.)
  • Farmer, David Hugh. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. (Entry “Bartholomew”; the manner and place of martyrdom as tradition.)