Apostles in the New Testament

"Twelve Apostles" redirects here. For other uses, see Twelve Apostles (disambiguation).

The Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles. Russian, 14th.c., Moscow Museum

The term apostle is derived from Classical Greek ἀπόστολος (apóstolos), meaning "one who is sent away", from στέλλω ("stello", "send") + από (apo, "away from"). The literal meaning in English is therefore an "emissary", from the Latin mitto ("send") and ex ("from"). The purpose of such "sending away" (not strictly "forth" which implies "forward", πρό (pró in Greek), and pro in Latin) is to convey messages. Thus "a messenger" is a common alternative translation, but distinguished from Greek: ἄγγελος ("angel" or "messenger"). In the case of the Christian apostles, the message they were sent away to convey was very broadly the message of the "good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ", and they were sent away by Jesus to the Jews in Matthew 10 (see also Matthew 10), as the following quote from verses 1 to 7 reveals:

(1):"And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.(2): Now the names of the twelve apostles are these:...(5)These twelve Jesus sent forth and commanded them, saying, go not into the way of the Gentiles and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not (6): but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (7)And as ye go preach saying 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand'"

Before their sending away the Twelve had been mere "Disciples", from Latin discipulus, one who learns, from disco, to learn. This event was for them thus a form of graduation, when they stepped-up from being students to teachers. Shaliah is a comparable Hebrew term of the Greek word apostle. Jesus is stated in the Bible to have had twelve apostles who by the Great Commission spread the message of the Gospel to all nations after his resurrection. There is also an orthodox tradition derived from the Gospel of Luke of Seventy Apostles.

Saul of Tarsus (aka Paul), not one of the Twelve or the Seventy and a recent convert, claimed the title of Apostle to the Gentiles, even though other apostles actively recruited Gentiles (non-Jews) and St. Peter's role was never restricted to just Apostle to the Jews (see also Circumcision controversy in early Christianity, Incident at Antioch, Primacy of Simon Peter, and Paul of Tarsus and Judaism), indeed traditionally the first Gentile convert is considered to be Cornelius the Centurion, who was recruited by Peter. Paul claimed a special commission from the resurrected Jesus, separate from the Great Commission given to the Twelve. Paul did not restrict the term apostle to the Twelve, referring to his mentor Barnabas and others as apostles, either because he didn't know it or resisted it. This restricted usage appears in Revelation. In modern usage, major missionaries are sometimes termed apostles, as in Saint Patrick, Apostle of Ireland.

The sub-period of Early Christianity during the lifetimes of the apostles is called the Apostolic Age. In the 2nd century, association with the apostles was esteemed as evidence of authority and such churches are known as Apostolic Sees. Paul's epistles were accepted as scripture (see Development of the New Testament canon), and two of the four gospels were associated with apostles, as were other New Testament works. Various Christian texts, such as the Didache and the Apostolic Constitutions, were attributed to the twelve apostles. Bishops traced their lines of succession back to individual apostles, who were said to have established churches across great territories. Christian bishops have traditionally claimed authority deriving, by apostolic succession, from the Twelve. Early Church Fathers came to be associated with apostles, such as Pope Clement I with Peter the Apostle (see Apostolic Fathers). The Apostles' Creed, popular in the West, was said to have been composed by the Apostles themselves.

Terminology

Gallery of the Apostles, Temmenhausen Nikolauskirche

The word "apostle" has two meanings, the broader meaning of a messenger and the narrow meaning of an early apostle directly linked to Jesus Christ. The more general meaning of the word is translated into Latin as 'missio', and from this word we get 'missionary.'

The word apostle comes from the Greek word ἀπόστολος (apostolos). According to the Bauer lexicon, Walter Bauer's Greek-English Lexicon of the NT: "…Judaism had an office known as apostle (שליח)". See also Proselytes. The Friberg Greek Lexicon gives a broad definition as one who is sent on a mission, a commissioned representative of a congregation, a messenger for God, a person who has the special task of founding and establishing churches. The UBS Greek Dictionary also describes an apostle broadly as a messenger. The Louw-Nida Lexicon gives a very narrow definition of a special messenger, generally restricted to the immediate followers of Jesus, or extended to some others like Paul or other early Christians active in proclaiming the gospel.

Portrayal

The apostles are portrayed in the New Testament as having been Galilean Jews. The names of the majority of them are Hebrew names, although some had Greek names. Jesus’ statements that his mission is directed only to those of the house of Israel,Mt 10:1–6 15:22–24 Lk 22:30 imply that the twelve apostles were all Judean Hebrews. For Christians who view the Hebrew prophets as speaking of Jesus and Christianity, support for the Jewishness of the apostles is found, on the one hand, in the prophetic assertions that it was the Jews whom God had chosen to bring all the nations (the "Gentiles") to faith in him, and that, on the other hand, Jesus appointed the twelve apostles kingship and told them that they will sit on thrones, administering, the affairs of the twelve tribes of Israel.Lk 22:29–30 Even the "supernumerary apostle", the "Apostle to the Gentiles", Saul of Tarsus, who said that Jesus revealed himself to him only after his ascension and appointed him to his mission,Acts 9:1–19 Gal 1:11–12 was a Jew by birth and always proud of it,1:14 although since his conversion to Jesus he adopted the Roman surname Paulus as his first name, rendered in English as Paul.Acts 13:9