Bartholomew (Apostle)

Konrad Witz , salvation mirror altar , exterior panel: St. Bartholomäus

Bartholomäus (left) - Detail from the mural The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci

Bartholomew ( Hebrew בר־תלמי Bar-Tôlmay , Aramaic "son of Tholmai") ​​is said to have lived in Cana in Galilee at the beginning of the 1st century .

Biblical tradition

According to the Christian view, Bartholomew was a disciple of Jesus (cf. Mk 3: 14–19  EU ) and one of the twelve apostles , who is named in the apostellists of the first three Gospels . His full name could have been Natanaël Bar-Tolmai , provided that it is to be equated with Natanaël , whose vocation is told in Jn 1,45–50  EU (cf. also Mt 10,3 and a.  EU ). It can be assumed that Natanaël Bar-Tolmai was a scribe or scribe student .

Legend (hagiography)

According to legend, he is said to have preached the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew as a "witness of Christ" in India , Mesopotamia and especially in Armenia , where he is also said to have suffered martyrdom . Astyages , a brother of the Armenian ruler Polymios , is said to have given the order to peel off his skin while he was alive and then to crucify him upside down. Other sources report that the saint was beheaded .

According to later legends, the coffin with his body was washed up on the island of Lipari near Sicily , where he was also buried. According to Gregory of Tours , he was brought from Mesopotamia to Lipari in 580. A church was built over his presumed grave, which the Saracens destroyed in 831 .

Church history

San Bartolomeo all'Isola

Emperor Otto II had the alleged bones brought to Rome in 983 , where they have been kept in San Bartolomeo all'Isola ever since . Bartholomäus then became the patron of many German churches. The alleged brain shell came to the Frankfurt Imperial Cathedral under Emperor Friedrich II. In 1238 , who then received Bartholomew as the church patron.

Iconography and Attributes

Bartholomew with knife and skin peeled off - detail from the Last Judgment by Michelangelo

Since the beginning of the 13th century, Bartholomew has been shown in numerous pictures with a knife and peeled skin. In Michelangelo's Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel in Rome, the face on the skin worn by Bartholomew is considered to be Michelangelo's self-portrait.

More recently, there have been new depictions of the apostle, such as the bronze cast by Damien Hirst (2006) or the large-format oil painting by the Leipzig painter Aris Kalaizis , which was created in confrontation with depictions of the saint at the Imperial Cathedral of St. Bartholomew in 2014/2015. In 2015, the Art and Culture Forum Stubenberg erected a Bartholomew sculpture in front of the Stubenberg church . The head is made of marble, the body of magnesite with glittering mica inclusions.

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  Skinned Saint Bartholomew (statue by Marco d'Agrate in the Milan Cathedral , 1562)

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  Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew (painting by Gioacchino Assereto , ca.1630)

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  The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew or double martyrdom (Aris Kalaizis, 2014/2015)

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  Apostle Bartholomäus (sculpture by Peter Knoll, Stubenberg parish church, 2015)

Memorial days

→ Main article : Bartholomew's Day

• Catholic: August 24th
• Protestant: August 24th
• Anglican: August 24th
• Orthodox: June 11th

Patronage

St. Bartholomew on a flag of the brotherhood of butchers, Ravensburg

Patronage

• Places: see Sankt Bartholomä , San Bartolomeo , Saint-Barthélemy , Saint Bartholomew
• For churches and chapels, see Bartholomäuskirche

Bartholomew is the patron saint

• the cities of Baku , Altenburg , Büchenau , Frankfurt am Main , Geraardsbergen , Görwihl , Kettig , Maastricht , Markgröningen , Markranstädt , Pilsen , Wiehe and the Barcola district in Trieste;
• the Aeolian Islands (near Sicily );
• the professions miners , plasterers, farmers , winemakers , shepherds or shepherds , leather workers, tanners , saddlers , shoemakers , tailors , bakers , butchers , bookbinders and oil and cheese traders (in Florence ).

He is said to act as a saint against skin and nervous diseases as well as against convulsions, demons and ghosts.

literature

• Wolfgang Braunfels (ed.): Lexicon of Christian Iconography , Volume 5. Herder, Freiburg 1968 (new edition of the WBG, Darmstadt 2015), columns 320–334. ISBN 978-3-534-26725-5
• Christoph Schmitt:  Bartholomäus. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 26, Bautz, Nordhausen 2006, ISBN 3-88309-354-8 , Sp. 121-122.
• Otto Wimmer: Handbook of names and saints, with a history of the Christian calendar. 3rd edition Innsbruck / Vienna / Munich 1966, p. 143 f.
• Lexicon for Theology and the Church , Volume II, p. 9 f.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Albrecht Dihle : Art. India . In: Reallexikon für Antike und Christianentum , Vol. 18, Anton Hiersemann Verlag, Stuttgart, Sp. 1–56, here Sp. 46.
2. ↑ Wolfgang Braunfels (ed.): Lexicon of Christian Iconography , Volume 5. Herder, Freiburg 1968, column 322.
3. ↑ Wolfgang Braunfels (ed.): Lexicon of Christian Iconography, Volume 5. Herder, Freiburg 1968, column 322.
4. ↑ Saint Bartholomew, Exquisit Pain .
5. ↑ Bartholomäus - Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints . Website of the Ecumenical Lexicon of Saints. Retrieved August 24, 2013.

Web links

Commons : Bartholomäus (Apostle)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• St. Bartholomew

See also

• Gospel of Bartholomew
• Bartholomew Night (the night of the murder in Paris on August 24, 1572)