Bartholomew the Apostle

Saint Bartholomew the Apostle
Also known as
Nathaniel the Apostle
Bartolomé
Nathaniel bar Tolomai

Feast
· 24 August (Roman real calendar)
· 11 June (Orthodox Julian fake calendar)

Profile
Nathaniel or Bartholomew is the same guy in the Apostle lists. Nathaniel Bartholomew is probably Nathaniel “bar Tolomai” meaning son of Tolomai in Aramaic. With all the diverse writers, oral historians, and translations this can lead to confusion to who was who. I think I may have mentioned in the past there were probably at least three original apostles named Judas.

So our saint was one of the Original Twelve Apostles. Probably a close friend or relative of Saint Philip; Bartholomew’s name is always mentioned in the Gospels in connection with Philip, and it was Philip who brought Bartholomew to Jesus. He may or may not have written a gospel. St Jerome says he did, in his writings, if he did we don’t have it anymore.

Bart may have preached in Asia Minor, Ethiopia, India and Armenia; some one did, leaving behind assorted writings and local tradition says it was Bartholomew. Bart was, like most of the other original inner circle, a martyr. He was flayed alive, i.e. he was skinned. Because of this he is closely associated with people who work with skins or knives/blades like dermatologists, trappers, butchers, cheese merchants and shoemakers. In the ceiling of the Sistine chapel in the Last Judgement portion of the painting the image of St. Bartholomew is shown among the other apostles and saints, he is displaying his flayed skin. It is said the image in the skin is a self portrait of Michelangelo.

As an interesting aside, during the painting of the Sistine chapel ceiling. Biagio da Cesena, the Pope’s Master of ceremonies, had often complained to the Pope about the nudity of Michelangelo's figures. He had even stated publicly "that it was a most dishonest act in such a respectable place to have painted so many naked figures immodestly revealing their shameful parts, that it was not a work for a papal chapel but for a bathhouse or a whorehouse." But Michelangelo got his revenge. On the ceiling he put Biagio in Hell, as the Master of ceremonies "in the midst of a crowd of devils," with the ears of an ass and with a huge serpent coiled around his legs. The serpent is biting Biagio in the shameful parts.

Died
flayed alive at Albanopolis, Armenia
relics at Saint Bartholomew-on-the-Tiber Church, Rome, and in the cathedral in Canterbury, England

Patronage
against nervous diseases
against neurological diseases
against skin diseases
against twitching
bookbinders
butchers
cobblers
cosmetologists
dermatologists
Florentine cheese merchants
Florentine salt merchants
leather workers
plasterers
shoemakers
tanners
trappers
whiteners

Representation
cross
elderly man holding a tanner’s knife and a human skin
tanner’s knife
bright red (skinless) man holding his own skin