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 Jesus With Cross and Two Apostles Scott 1087d (1998) August 24 marks the feast day of Saint Bartholomew, one of the Twelve Apostles. There is no stamp from Vatican City specifically issued to honor him. The stamp above, from 1998 from the souvenir sheet for the Italia '98 stamp exposition, shows Jesus with the Cross and two unnamed Apostles taken from the central portion of a columned sarcophagus found in the Vatican Necropolis. Two biblical references point to Nathaniel. The first, from John 1:45-51, recalls the first meeting of Jesus and Nathaniel: "Jesus saw Nathaniel coming to him, and said to him, ‘Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile!’ Nathaniel said to him, ‘How do you know me?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Before Phillip called you, when you were under a fig tree, I saw you. Nathaniel said to him, ‘Rabbi you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"Jesus then promised Nathaniel he would see even greater things, with angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man. In the second, as he is now called Bartholomew, he is called by Jesus to be a disciple, as described in Mark 3:14-19: "And he appointed twelve, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach and to have authority to cast out demons: Simon who he surnamed Peter; James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (who he surnamed Boanerges, that is, 'sons of thunder'); Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus; and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him."  Detail of Michelangelo's "The Last Judgement" (Sistine Chapel) Saint Bartholomew Holds Knife and Flayed Skin From Wikimedia Commons, in the Public Domain Aside from the two scripture references, no other specifics are known about this Apostle. Bartholomew is credited with spreading the Gospel in India and Armenia. He was martyred, perhaps in India or Armenia, by being flayed alive and then beheaded. His martyrdom is remembered in Michelangelo's fresco "The Last Judgement" in the Sistine Chapel (shown above). The panel shows the saint holding his flayed skin, with the face on the skin being that of Michelangelo. His relics were eventually enshrined at the Basilica di San Bartolomeo all'Isola, located on an island in the Tiber River about 500 meters to the west of the Palatine Hill. One of the colossal statues of the Apostles lining the nave of the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran memorializes Saint Bartholomew, showing him again holding his flayed skin and the instrument of his martyrdom, a large knife:  St. Bartholomew by Pierre Le Gros the Younger Nave of the Basilica of St. John Lateran Photo by Jastrow From Wikimedia Commons, used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license REFERENCES: |
