The 12 apostles

The 12 apostles were the men Jesus chose to stay close to him, to learn from him and to carry his Gospel to the world. The Church still stands on their witness. Every time we say in the Creed that we believe in "one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church," we are naming them.

The call of the Twelve

St. Luke tells us that before Jesus chose them, "he went out into a mountain to pray, and he passed the whole night in the prayer of God" (Luke 6:12). In the morning he called his disciples together and chose twelve of them, "whom also he named apostles." The Greek word apostolos means one who is sent.

St. Mark gives the scene in a few spare lines, here in the Douay-Rheims translation:

And going up into a mountain, he called unto him whom he would himself: and they came to him. And he made that twelve should be with him, and that he might send them to preach. And he gave them power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils. (Mark 3:13–15)

Two things come first in that call: to be with him, and to be sent. The Twelve were friends before they were missionaries. They walked the roads of Galilee with Jesus for about three years, heard his parables explained in private, saw the miracles, and were with him in the upper room on the night before he died.

Some of them we know well. Peter, Andrew, James and John were fishermen, two pairs of brothers, and Jesus called them from their nets. Matthew sat at the tax collector's table when Jesus said to him, "Follow me." Philip brought his friend Nathanael, whom tradition identifies with Bartholomew. Of others, such as Simon the Zealot, the Gospels record little more than the name.

Jesus sent them out on mission even before his Passion, two by two, with power over unclean spirits and orders to take nothing for the journey but a staff (Mark 6:7–8). After the Resurrection he sent them to all nations.

The twelve apostles' names, feast days and symbols

Matthew, Mark and Luke each list the Twelve, and Acts 1:13 lists them again without Judas. The order shifts a little, but Peter always comes first and Judas Iscariot always last. Several apostles carry two names, which is why lists can look different at first glance. Here they are in the order of Matthew 10:2–4, with the names you may meet, the day the Church keeps their feast in the General Roman Calendar, and their usual signs in art.

1. St. Peter: Simon, Cephas, Simon Bar-Jona, Prince of the Apostles. Feast June 29 (with St. Paul); the Chair of St. Peter on February 22. Symbols: two keys, a rooster, an upside-down cross, a boat or net.
2. St. Andrew: Peter's brother, called the First-Called in the East. Feast November 30. Symbols: an X-shaped cross (saltire), a fishing net.
3. St. James the Greater: James son of Zebedee, Santiago. Feast July 25. Symbols: a scallop shell, a pilgrim's staff and hat, a sword.
4. St. John the Apostle: John son of Zebedee, the Beloved Disciple, the Evangelist, the Theologian. Feast December 27. Symbols: an eagle, a chalice with a serpent, a book.
5. St. Philip: Philip of Bethsaida. Feast May 3 (with St. James the Less). Symbols: a tall cross, loaves of bread.
6. St. Bartholomew: traditionally identified with Nathanael. Feast August 24. Symbols: a knife, a book.
7. St. Thomas: Didymus, "the Twin," Doubting Thomas. Feast July 3. Symbols: a spear, a builder's square.
8. St. Matthew: Levi, the tax collector and Evangelist. Feast September 21. Symbols: a winged man or angel, a money bag, a pen and book.
9. St. James the Less: James son of Alphaeus; in Western tradition also James "the brother of the Lord." Feast May 3. Symbols: a fuller's club, a book.
10. St. Jude: Thaddeus, Lebbaeus, "Jude the brother of James." Feast October 28 (with St. Simon). Symbols: a medallion with the face of Christ, a flame over his head, a club.
11. St. Simon: the Zealot, the Cananean. Feast October 28. Symbols: a large saw, a book.
12. Judas Iscariot: the one who betrayed Jesus. He has no feast and no halo; painters often show him clutching a money bag or set apart at the Last Supper.

And the apostle chosen to fill the empty place:

• St. Matthias: chosen by lot in Acts 1. Feast May 14. Symbols: an axe or halberd, stones.

The Orthodox Church keeps many of these feasts on other days, and on June 30 it honors all twelve together in the Synaxis of the Holy Apostles. Each saint's page gives the Eastern dates. For every saint's day through the year, see our feast days calendar.

How to read the symbols

Most of the signs come from the way each apostle died, as tradition tells it: Andrew's cross, Bartholomew's knife, Simon's saw, Matthias's axe. Others come from the Gospels. Peter holds the keys of the kingdom of heaven that Jesus promised him (Matthew 16:19), and Thomas carries a builder's square because the Acts of Thomas says he was hired as a carpenter and builder in India. John's eagle is the sign of his Gospel, which soars from its first line, "In the beginning was the Word." James the Greater wears the scallop shell of the pilgrims who walk to his shrine at Compostela.

When you see a row of bearded men with books on a church wall or a carved altarpiece, look at the object each one holds. That is usually how to tell them apart. Our guide to saints' symbols in art goes further.

Judas, and how St. Matthias took his place

Judas Iscariot was truly chosen and truly sent. He received the same call as the others, and the Gospels make clear that he kept the common purse. His betrayal for thirty pieces of silver is one of the saddest pages of the Gospel. St. Matthew records that he threw the silver down in the temple, "and went and hanged himself with an halter" (Matthew 27:5). The Church has never named anyone as damned, Judas included, and leaves his judgment to God. We are not given his story so that we can despise him; we are given it as a warning to our own hearts.

After the Ascension the Eleven waited in the upper room, "persevering with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus" (Acts 1:14). Peter stood up among about a hundred and twenty disciples and said that Judas's place had to be filled. The new apostle had to be a man who had been with them "beginning from the baptism of John, until the day wherein he was taken up from us," so that he could "be made a witness with us of his resurrection" (Acts 1:22).

And they appointed two, Joseph, called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. And praying, they said: Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen, to take the place of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas hath by transgression fallen... And they gave them lots, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles. (Acts 1:23–26)

Casting lots after prayer was an old way of leaving the choice to God. It is the only time the New Testament shows the apostles choosing this way, and it happened before Pentecost; once the Holy Spirit had come, the apostles chose and laid hands on others. Matthias is never mentioned again in the New Testament.

St. Paul and St. Barnabas: apostles in a wider sense

Scripture also uses the word "apostle" more broadly. The greatest example is St. Paul. He never walked with Jesus in Galilee, but the risen Lord appeared to him on the road to Damascus and sent him to the Gentiles, and he opens his letters as "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ." The Church calls him the Apostle to the Gentiles and keeps his feast with St. Peter on June 29, and his conversion on January 25.

St. Barnabas, Paul's companion on his first missionary journey, is also called an apostle in Acts 14:13: "the apostles Barnabas and Paul." The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that the New Testament may extend the title to a few other missionaries as well, such as Andronicus and Junias (Romans 16:7). The Roman Canon honors this wider circle too. In its prayer before the consecration it names the Twelve with Paul in place of Matthias, and after the consecration it names Matthias and Barnabas with John the Baptist, Stephen and the martyrs.

The foundation of the Church

St. Paul tells the Christians of Ephesus that they are "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone" (Ephesians 2:20). The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this in paragraph 857: the Church is apostolic because she was and remains built on the apostles, because she keeps and hands on their teaching, and because she continues to be taught, sanctified and guided by them through their successors, the bishops, "in union with the successor of Peter."

Paragraph 858 reminds us that Christ continues his own mission through them: "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you." And paragraph 860 draws a careful line. One part of the apostles' office cannot be handed on: they were "the chosen witnesses of the Lord's Resurrection and so the foundation stones of the Church." Another part is permanent, and so "the apostles took care to appoint successors." No one after them saw what they saw. But every bishop in communion with the Pope stands in the line they began.

Where the apostles went

The Acts of the Apostles follows mostly Peter and Paul. For the others we rely on early writers and later tradition. Eusebius of Caesarea, writing in the early 300s, passes on what Origen had written a century before: "Parthia, according to tradition, was allotted to Thomas as his field of labor, Scythia to Andrew, and Asia to John, who, after he had lived some time there, died at Ephesus." Peter preached to the Jews of the dispersion in Asia Minor and finally came to Rome. Later traditions send Bartholomew to Armenia and India, Matthew to Ethiopia or Persia, and Simon and Jude to Persia.

Except for St. John, every one of the Eleven is honored as a martyr, though how firmly we know the details varies a great deal from apostle to apostle. We tell each story, with its source, in how the apostles died.

The Church did not keep feast days for most of the apostles at first. The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that apart from Sts. Peter and Paul, whose martyrdom in Rome was well remembered, the dates of the apostles' deaths were unknown, and their feasts appear only from the fourth century. Now each has his own day, and we can walk through the year in their company. Holy apostles of Christ, pray for us.