He’s Just Had Coffee

Bartholomew saith unto him: Declare unto us, Lord what sin is heavier than all sins? Jesus saith unto him: Verily I say unto thee that hypocrisy and backbiting is heavier than all sins: for because of them, the prophet said in the psalm, that ‘the ungodly shall not rise in the judgement, neither sinners in the council of the righteous’, neither the ungodly in the judgement of my Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that every sin shall be forgiven unto every man, but the sin against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven. And Bartholomew saith unto him: What is the sin against the Holy Ghost? Jesus saith unto him: Whosoever shall decree against any man that hath served my holy Father hath blasphemed against the Holy Ghost: For every man that serveth God worshipfully is worthy of the Holy Ghost, and he that speaketh anything evil against him shall not be forgiven. — Gospel of St Bartholomew VI:1-4

When we started this project, Donald warned me that “the facts that we have on some of them amount to about a paragraph. Some of them have even less than that!” Saint Bart is a glowing example of the Who the hell were these guys!? problem.

Bartholomew is the Greek version of the Aramaic bar-Tôlmay (תולמי‎‎‎‎‎-בר‎‎) — an ancient Hebrew name. He’s only named in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke), in John the name Nathanael appears in the same position in the list. Convention is to assume (in the face of basically no information about either guy) that the two names refer to one apostle whose name may have been “Nathanel bar Tolomai”. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke tell us that he’s an old friend of the apostle Phillip.

Various traditions have him preaching around typical places — Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, Armenia, Lycaonia, Phrygia, and on the shores of the Black Sea. There’s a tradition that has him teaching in India. Eusebius in Ecclesiastical Histories mentions that Pantaenus, Origen’s teacher encountered converts of St Bart in India who had been given a copy of St Matthew’s Gospel.

The most popular version of his death has him flayed alive by the brother of the King of Armenia as punishment for converting the King. As a gruesome consequence, he is usually represented skinless, holding a large knife and often holding his own skin. He is the patron of tanners, butchers, cobblers and bookbinders.

shudder…

His day in the Roman calendar, August 24, was the day Romanian nationalist Vlad Ţepeş allegedly put 30,000 people to death by impalement and the day in 1572 the massacre of thousands of Huguenots in mob violence in Paris.

Nathanael in John’s Gospel is portrayed as a bit of a bigot, when told about this teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, he notoriously replied “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?“. Jesus had the good grace to praise him for being straightforward.

A bunch of his relics including a large piece of his skin (shudder…) wound up in Lipari, Italy in a cathedral dedicated to his memory. The people of Lipari have a list of miracles attributed to the saint, most of them to do with weight.

When St. Bartholomew’s body was found off the shore, the Bishop of St. Christopher’s Church of Lipari ordered many men to get the body. When this failed due to its extreme weight, the Bishop then sent out the children. The children easily brought the body ashore even though the older men couldn’t. (Wikipedia)

And there’s an Apocryphal Gospel attributed to Bartholomew. He chats with the Virgin Mary about the Annunciation, subdues Beliar at Jesus’ instruction and demands to be told various secrets and receives secret instructions from Jesus. Almost enough to associate him as at least an Hermetic Saint, if not a Gnostic one. Sure it’s probably got nothing to do with him literally, but polysemy is important in Gnostic exegesis …

When we come to glimpse the Divine, the bliss can be unbearable, but the horrible weight of ordinary consciousness, the heaviness of the gross body, the unendurable mundanity of everyday life can seem a prison by comparison — we feel like escaping our very skin and getting out. All of our flaws, our smallnesses, our contraction and weakness and bigotry becomes exposed and we start to see ourselves truly and that sight can be horrible.

As Awakening progresses and the Flame continues to illuminate the whole of life, not merely the saintly parts, we notice how the whole Self fits, how necessary the parts are to the whole. To bring compassion to others , it is also necessary to bring compassion to your self. As we learn that, a miracle can occur: what has been so heavy that it’s impossible to carry becomes light — filled with Light.

every man that serveth God worshipfully is worthy of the Holy Ghost, and he that speaketh anything evil against him shall not be forgiven.

… even if that person is the man himself.

Be kind to yourself.

(Part of the Twelve Apostles series)

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