As discussed
earlier, Jesus Christ is the first apostle, the ultimate apostle, and source of
all apostleship (Heb. 3:1). The twelve apostles
were foundational to the church, unique in their office, and represented the new covenant of Jesus Christ to the
world. Paul, Barnabas, James, Apollos,
and others beyond the original twelve were apostles as well, demonstrated not only
by their apostolic teaching but by their apostolic witness “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the
earth” (Acts 1:8).
Paul’s words to
Timothy communicated the pattern of continuity and connection with the apostles
to future generations when he said: “And the things you have heard me say in
the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be
qualified to teach others.” (2 Tim. 2:2) These words were put into practice in
the first centuries as seen in Tertullian’s description in De Praescriptione Haereticorum when he offers examples of church
fathers that stood in historic connection and doctrinal continuity with the original
twelve apostles. Interestingly, Tertullian not only mentioned the first-century
apostles, but spoke in addition of “apostolic men” (apostolicis uiris), namely, those “who continued steadfast with the apostles.”[1]
While the church or household of God is “built on the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the
cornerstone” (Eph. 2:20), the apostolic nature and mission of the church continued
throughout history. As the Nicene Creed
states, we believe in the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.” This confession applied to the fourth century
church as well as the first. To borrow Tertullian’s phrase, there have been
“apostolic men” (apostolicis uiris) who have “continued
steadfast with the apostles.” As stated
earlier, this is not merely in origin and doctrine, but in mission,
character, and life in the Spirit. Such “apostolic men” functioned on the order of the twelve apostles of Jesus, even
though they did not necessarily fill an office unique to or like that of the
original twelve.
Such apostles or apostolic men, gifted
by God, were often sent or commissioned with authority to extend the church to some
region or segment of society which previously was without a viable witness to the
gospel. They were described as apostles because of their pioneering and
ground-breaking work to establish churches where no or few Christian
communities existed.
While the list of the “Apostles of
the Seventy” is rooted in church tradition, it illustrates the idea that there
were apostles beyond the original twelve. For example, Hippolytus of Rome
(170-236), a disciple of Irenaeus who was a disciple of Polycarp who was a
disciple of the Evangelist and Apostle John, produced an early list of seventy
apostles.[2]
In The
Ochtoechos, John of Damascus confirmed that there were “seventy-two lesser
apostles.”[3]
Such lists were based on the fact that
Jesus “appointed and sent seventy disciples ahead of
him,” as described in Luke 10:1.[4]
Many, if not most of them would have been among the “five hundred brothers” to
whom Jesus appeared following his resurrection from the dead (1 Cor. 15:6). Based on such texts and various traditions of
church fathers, the Eastern Church names the “Apostles of the Seventy” as:
James the Brother of the Lord, Mark
and Luke the Evangelists, Cleopas, Symeon, Barnabas, Justus, Thaddeus, Ananias,
Stephen the Protomartyr and Archdeacon, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon,
Parmenas, Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Onesimus, Epaphras, Archippus, Silas,
Silvanus, Crescens, Crispus, Epenetus, Andronicus, Stachys, Amplias, Urban,
Narcissus, Apelles, Aristobulus, Herodion, Agabus, Rufus, Asyncritus, Phlegon,
Hermes, Patrobus, Hermas, Linus, Gaius, Philologus, Lucius, Jason, Sosipater,
Olympas, Tertius, Erastus, Quartus, Euodias, Onesiphorus, Clement, Sosthenes,
Apollos, Tychicus, Epaphroditus, Carpus, Quadratus, Mark called John, Zenas,
Aristarchus, Pudens, Trophimus, Mark nephew of Barnabas, Artemas, Aquila,
Fortunatus, and Achaicus.[5]
The
point of this list here is not to say
that these were the seventy disciples
that Jesus sent (ἀπέστειλεν, aposteilen) ahead of him (Luke 10:1) but that church fathers have
described other apostles beyond the original twelve. Such lists were based on the NT, traditions
passed down from church fathers, and accounts of early historians. The fact that such lists include two of the
Evangelists—Mark, the companion of Peter, and Luke, the companion of Paul—makes
it, at least in principle, difficult to refute.
They were authors of canonical scriptures, the written form of the
apostles’ teaching.
Beyond the seventy, the Eastern,
Roman, and Protestant branches of the church have identified historically additional
missionaries as apostles, giving further evidence of the church’s apostolic
nature. Many of these apostles are:
•Abercius of Hieropolis, d. 167, evangelized
Syria and Mesopotamia and considered in the Eastern Church as “Equal to the
Apostles”[7]
•Gregory the Illuminator, Apostle
to the Armenians, 256–331; credited with converting Armenia from paganism to
Christianity[10]
• Remigius, Apostle to the Franks,
c. 437 – 533; baptized King Clovis, leading to the conversion of the Frankish
people to Nicene Christianity[14]
•Felix of Burgundy, Apostle to the
East Angles; introduced Christianity in eastern England, d. ca. 648[17]
•Hubertus, Apostle to the Ardennes,
656–727; preached in the dense forests of the Ardennes (Belgium and Luxembourg
but stretching into Germany and France)
•Modestus, Apostle to Carantania,
c. 720; evangelized Alpine Slavic people (Austria and north-eastern Slovenia)[23]
•Cyril, 826-869, and Methodius,
815-885, Apostles to the Slavs, considered by the Eastern Church as “Equals-to-the-Apostles”;
were missionaries to Bulgaria, Moravia, and Bohemia.[25]
•Otto von Bamberg, Apostle to the
Pomeranians, 1060–1139; traveled to Stettin on the Baltic Sea.[27]
•Sava, Founder of the Serbian
Church (1175 – 1235); considered by the Eastern Church as “Equal to the
Apostles.”[28]
•Stephen of Perm, Apostle to the
Komi Permyaks (Russia), 1340–1396; rather than imposing Latin or ecclesial Slavonic
on the indigenous pagans as contemporary missionaries did, he learned the Perm
language and traditions and worked out a distinct writing system.[29]
• Francis Xavier, Apostle to the
Indies (eastern Indonesia) and Japan, 1506–1552; co-founder of the Jesuits[31]
• John Williams, Apostle to the
South Seas, 1796-1839; worked among the Pacific Islands near Tahiti
The title of apostle given to these pioneering leaders through the church’s
history describes them as gifted by God, sent or commissioned with authority to
extend the church to an area without a viable witness to the gospel. This list is not to establish that they were
necessarily all apostles but that the church historically has identified
certain people as such. It can be argued that while their work was built on the
foundation of Jesus and the original twelve apostles, many had ministries that
were at least equal to if not greater in scope
or influence for the gospel than the original twelve apostles of Jesus.
Is the “apostolic church” missional? The traditions of the Eastern, Roman, and
Protestant churches argue that it is.
Continued.
[1] Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereticorum: XXXII, “ex apostolis uel apostolicis uiris, qui
tamen cum apostolis perseuerauerit”; “of
the apostles or of apostolic men,—a man, moreover, who continued steadfast with
the apostles.”
[2]
Hippolytus’s list of the Seventy Apostles was regarded dubious, and thus put in
the Appendix of his works in the collection of Early Church Fathers.
[3] He
changed: “The all-praised ten and twain, leading the seventy-two, their rivals
in zeal, were manifested as perfect.”
[4]
Some manuscripts say seventy-two.
[5]
Hieromonk Leonty Durkit (Transl.). The
Lives of the Seventy Apostles. Elkhorn, WV: Orthodox Brotherhood of the
Virgin Mary, 1997. There were discrepancies and errors in some lists of the
Seventy. See: Demetrius of Rostov , The Great Collection of the Lives of the
Saints, Volume 5: January.
[6]
Philip Carrington, The Early Christian
Church: Volume 1, The First Christian Church. Cambridge University Press,
2011.
[7] F.
G. Holweck, A Biographical Dictionary of
the Saints (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1924).
[8]
Richard Travers Smith, The Church in
Roman Gaul (London : Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1882). 111.
[9] Marjory
and Oliver Wardrop, The Life of Saint
Nino (Piscataway, NJ : Gorgias Press, 2006).
[10] R.G.
Hovannisian, The Armenian People From
Ancient to Modern Times, Volume I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to
the Fourteenth Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
[11]
Rabenstein, Katherine. “Frumentius of Ethiopia. For All the Saints (Washington, D.C. : Saint Patrick’s Church, 1997).
[12] Philip
Freeman, St. Patrick of Ireland: A
Biography (Simon & Schuster, 2005)
[13]
Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Book
III, Chapter IV, 271, 273.
[14]
A. Hauck, Remigius of Reims, in Philip Schaff, The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge
[15] F. A. (Frances Alice) Forbes, Life of Saint Columba Apostle of Scotland
(London : R. & T. Washbourne, 1919).
[16]
Michael Green, St. Augustine of
Canterbury (London: Janus Publ., 1997).
[17] Bede,The Ecclesiastical History of the English
Nation, Book II (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1999), chs. 15, 18.
[18]
Friedrich Lauchert, “St. Kilian,” The
Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910).
[19] John
Cyril Sladden, Boniface of Devon: Apostle
of Germany (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1980).
[20] Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of
the English Nation, Book III (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1999),
ch. 5.
[21]
Henry Wace, Dictionary of Christian
Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century A.D. (London, J.
Murray, 1911).
[22] Bede,
The Ecclesiastical History of the English
Nation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1999).
[23] Michael
J. Walsh, A New Dictionary of Saints
(London, 2007).
[24] Rimbert
and Charles H. Robinson, Anskar, the
Apostle of the North, 801-865 (London: Society for the Propagation of the Gospel,
1921).
[25] Cyril
J Potoček, Saints Cyril and Methodius, Apostles
of the Slavs (New York, P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1941).
[26] John
McClintock, James Strong, Cyclopaedia of
Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, Volume 1, 2 New York,
Arno Press, 1969; 17-218.
[27]
Charles Henry Robinson, ed., The Life of
Otto, Apostle of Pomerania, 1060-1139 (New York: The Macmillan Company,
1920).
[28] Velimirović,
Nikolaj. The Life of St. Sava (Crestwood,
N.Y. : St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1989).
[29] Joshua
Fishman, Charles Ferguson, and J. Das Gupta, eds., Language Problems of Developing Nations (New York: Wiley and Sons,
1968): 27–35.
[30] Arthur
Helps, The Life of Las Casas, “the Apostle
of the Indies” (London: Bell and Daldy, 1868).
[31]
Louis F. Hartman, “Saint Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies and Japan,” Lives of Saints (New York: John J.
Crawley, 1963.)
[32]
Martin Moore, The Life and Character of
Rev. John Eliot, Apostle of the N.A. Indians (Boston: T. Bedlington, 1822).
[33]
Eve Garnett, To Greenland’s Icy
Mountains: The Story of Hans Egede, Explorer, Coloniser, Missionary (London:
Heinemann, 1968).
[34] Robert
Lahaise, “Picquet François,” Dictionary
of Canadian Biography, Vol. IV, University of Toronto/Université Laval,
1979.
[35] Charles
R. Hale, Innocent of Moscow, the Apostle
of Kamchatka and Alaska (Davenport, IA.: Borcherdt, 1888).
[36] Joyce
B. Phillips and Paul Gary Phillips, The
Brainerd Journal: A Mission to the Cherokees, 1817-1823 (University of
Nebraska Press, 1998).
[37]
Ruth Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya:
A Biographical History of Christian Missions (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1983): 173.
[38] Doreen
Bartholomew. “Enlightener of Japan, Blessed Nicholas Kasatkin" Orthodox America XII (No. 5-6, Jan-Feb,
1992).
