08 — Bartholomew and the Fathers
The reception of the apostle in the Fathers, and at its center the celebrated tribute of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, who invokes “the divine Bartholomew” as having said that theology is at once ample and minute — vast and yet contracted to a point. These files gather the patristic notices and then unfold the single most famous patristic mention of the apostle.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)
Bartholomew left no writing, and the Fathers say little of him directly; the early notices are mostly the missionary and martyrdom traditions. But one patristic passage gave the apostle a permanent place in the history of Christian thought. In The Mystical Theology, the influential late-fifth- or early-sixth-century author writing under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite cites “the divine Bartholomew” for the paradox that “theology is both ample and minute, and the Gospel broad and great, and on the other hand concise” — a saying that became a touchstone of apophatic theology, the doctrine that God is known above all by negation. This section sets out the patristic reception generally and then treats the Dionysian passage and its long influence.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Patristic Reception | The Fathers and the apostle: Eusebius and Jerome on the mission; the place of Bartholomew in the apostle-lists as read by Chrysostom and others; the absence of any writing; and the hymnographic reception in the Byzantine office. |
| Dionysius on Bartholomew | The passage in The Mystical Theology 1.3 invoking “the divine Bartholomew” on theology as both vast and minute; its apophatic setting; the disputed identity and date of “Dionysius”; and its long influence on Eastern and Western mystical theology. |
See Also
- The Missions — the missionary notices in Eusebius and Jerome
- Assessing the Tradition — the critical frame for patristic and apocryphal claims
- The Church Fathers — the patristic corpus and its authority
- Orthodoxy: Christology — the theological setting of apophatic doctrine
References
- Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. The Mystical Theology 1.3. Trans. Colm Luibheid and Paul Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1987; and trans. John Parker, 1897.
- Eusebius of Caesarea. The Ecclesiastical History 5.10. Trans. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol. 1.
- Rorem, Paul. Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to Their Influence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.