The Ordination of the Twelve

S. Mark iii. 7–19

This is the third stage in the preparation of the disciples for the Apostolate. A certain number had been admitted at the beginning to terms of intimacy and friendship with Jesus. Then they had left their secular calling for a time to attend upon Him; now the final step must be taken, and a selection made of such as would give themselves wholly to the work, and go no more back to the world.

It was a crisis in His ministry; and, as the pattern Man, He prepared Himself for it by prayer. S. Mark only tells us of His ascent into the mountain — the Kurun Hattin, from which He preached His first sermon — but S. Luke, who is careful to note the marks of His Priestly work, adds that it was to spend the night in intercession and communing with the Father.

It is in imitation of her Lord that the Church, from the ordination of S. Matthias to the present time, has proceeded to “the laying on of hands” only after prayer and fasting and the invocation of the Holy Ghost.

The twelve Apostles are divided by the Evangelists into three groups. In the first are SS. Peter and James and John and Andrew. They formed two pairs of brothers, sons of Jonah and Zabdai; and not only were their homes in the same town, but the families were united by partnership in trade.

Three of the four are linked together by a golden chain as the favoured company, “the chosen out of the chosen,” to whom was granted the companionship of their Master in the most solemn events of His life — on the Mount of Transfiguration and in the Garden of Gethsemane. Andrew had been the first to follow Christ, the first to believe the Baptist’s cry, “Behold the Lamb of God;” and he was so loyal to the Master, that almost all that we read of him in his individual actions, is concerned with bringing others to His feet; and yet, notwithstanding all this, there was something — we know not what — that excluded him from the inner circle.

The second group is composed of SS. Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas. Of the first but little is recorded. “He was a sincere but timid seeker after truth,” and as such our Lord appealed to him when He spoke of “anything hard to be done or believed,” hoping thereby to inspire him with strength and confidence. Bartholomew, whose full title was, in all probability, Nathanael 2 Bar Tolmai, stands out as a marked man in that early history; in an age of duplicity rarely equalled, he maintained, even before the shadow of Christ fell upon him, a character of such childlike simplicity that he was hailed by One Who can read the hearts of men, as “an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.” S. Matthew, the Levi of the first Gospel, was the lowest in the social scale, in a company where probably none were men of birth or position.

S. Thomas, also called Didymus, the Twin, was the most despondent, the slowest to believe, the last of the Twelve to be convinced, but true and honest to the core. When once his doubts was cleared away, and the pathway of duty was open, nothing could exceed the intensity of his devotion.

The third group contains the rest.

S. James, by a mistaken interpretation dating even from S. Jerome, has been generally known as “the Less;” but in reality he was designated by the Evangelists, “the little,” and that, not from any inferiority of position or ability, but simply because, like Zacchssus, he was small of stature.

Next to him in the usual order is the Apostle “of the triple name.” He was called by his parents Judas, but probably after that had become a name of evil omen, he received other distinguishing titles, and is described in the narrative as the brother of James, or as Lebbaeus, the warmhearted and lion-like man, or by S. Mark as Thaddaeus, from a certain feminine tenderness, which controlled and tempered the force and strength of his natural character.

The third was S. Simon, the Kananite; not of the land of Canaan, but, as the Syriac word implies, “the Zealot.” It marks his connection with a band of Galileans, who held their lives in their hand for the defence of the Mosaic Ritual and is hard to believe that the follower most highly spoken of at the beginning by Jesus should have been excluded from the Apostleship. S. Augustine, however, disputed the identity, and conjectured a reason for the rejection of Nathanael.

“the Covenant of their fathers.” In the last days of Jerusalem they degenerated into a desperate faction, and wrought endless mischief, rapine, and bloodshed, during the final struggle with the Roman army. In the zeal and enthusiasm which led Simon to cast in his lot with such a cause, our Lord discerned a qualification which, if once diverted into a proper channel, would prove of the greatest value in the spread of Christianity.

The list closes with one of the tribe of Judah — strange to say, the only member of it in the number of the Twelve. He was born at the little village of Kerioth, and called by a fearful paradox, Judah, “the praise of the Lord.” He bears on his forehead the ineffaceable brand, and is the only one of whom it has ever been said, “Good were it for that man if he had never been born.”

Such, briefly told, were the men who were associated with the Founder of the Faith for the regeneration of the world. The first general thought suggested by this consideration is of the manifold variety, both of character and of calling, represented in the Twelve. Where in the whole world could we find dispositions more diverse than in S. Peter and S. John, — the one ardent and impulsive, the very embodiment of energy and vehemence; the other quiet and contemplative, fitted for nothing so well as the life of a recluse?

What callings again could be more incongruous than those which S. Simon and S. Matthew had respectively chosen? The fiery patriot could brook no allegiance to an earthly ruler, but would do and dare anything to resist the Roman claim to impose taxation upon the people of God. But his fellow-Apostle had degraded himself, of his own free will, to exact from his own flesh and blood the obnoxious tribute. And yet such was the comprehensive work which lay before the Ministry of the Church, that a sphere was found in it for the “tax-gatherer,” no less than the “tax-hater,” — for the Jew who had sold his birthright, as well as for the irreconcilable nationalist. Jew and Greek, bond and free, rich and poor, men of every type and people, were destined to be embraced in the Catholic Church; and Jesus Christ foreshadowed the future when He welded together the most discordant elements in that first society of the Twelve Apostles.

Another thought of scarcely less importance arises out of the social position from which He made His choice. The Jewish Rabbis estimated the weight of their influence by the rank or wealth or learning of the pupils who sat at their feet. The first Teacher of Christianity aimed, on the contrary, at attracting the poorest of men. It may be urged that He had no alternative; that men in the position of Joseph and Nicodemus were so reluctant to accept the call, that had He waited for their adherence, the Apostolic Roll would never have been filled up in His lifetime. But His choice of the poor and despised, the ignorant and unlearned, was based upon a principle which governed the whole of His life on earth; which selected for His birthplace the manger of a wayside khan, for His home a humble cottage, and for His early occupation the trade of an artisan, among a people intellectually of the lowest type in Palestine. It was in perfect consistency with all that had gone before, that He should associate with Himself for the work of the Ministry men of the humblest rank, who probably knew little more than their letters, and, judged by a human standard, were worthless for that unto which they were called.

And it was the same throughout, till at His departure out of the world He made the Sacraments, by which His Presence was to be continued, the exact counterparts of the simplicity and plainness of His life in the flesh. One period of history will suffice to demonstrate the wisdom of His choice. For the first three centuries the progress of Christianity was a gradual triumph of the lowly over the great, till, by the irresistible might of its weakness, it shook the world and compelled “the master of legions” to cast his crown at the foot of the Cross.

And so the Apostle’s boast was realised: “God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are: that no flesh should glory in His Presence.”

Note: The Latin Church has adopted the tradition that it was on a plateau of the “Horns of Hattin,” not far from the Khan Minyeh, on the western shore of the lake.

Note: The grounds upon which the identification of Nathanael with Bartholomew rest are these: S. John places Nathanael in the earliest group of Jesus’ followers, and names him with certain Apostles after the Resurrection, but he makes no mention of Bartholomew. The Synoptists, on the other hand, place Bartholomew in the List of Apostles, but take no note of Nathanael. Again, S. John states that Nathanael was brought to Jesus by Philip, and in the Synoptists Philip and Bartholomew are always associated together. It

Note: S. Matthew gives an account of the call of a “man named Matthew;” SS. Mark and Luke of Levi, under precisely similar circumstances. Matthew, like Theodore, Adeodatus, Dorotheus, implying “the gift of God,” probably was the name he assumed after his call.

Note: Cf. the discussion on “the Brethren” in xvL, pp. 70 ff.

Note: Lebbaeus, from the Hebrew kb, the heart; according to others, from labi, a lion. Thaddaeus, from thad, the female breast.

Note: This expression may be justified in regard to Baptism, by the belief that in both Sacraments we have “an extension of the Incarnation.”