Choosing the Disciples.

(Matt. 10:2-4; Mark 3:13-19; Luke 6:12-19).

Having spent the whole night in prayer on the mountain (in the opinion of the ancients — Mt. Tabor), praying undoubtedly about augmenting the Church He had established, the Lord summons His disciples and chooses twelve from among them, so that they would be constantly with Him, and later, be able to give witness about Him. They would be akin to leaders of the future twelve tribes of New Israel. The figure 12 has a denominative meaning in the Holy Scripture, as a product of 3 and 4; three — the eternal non-created Divine Being, and four — the number of earth, four sides of the world. Twelve denotes the penetration of the human and the earthly by the Divine. The first three Evangelists and the Acts, give us the names of all the twelve Apostles. The remarkable thing about this list is that the Apostles are divided into 3 groups of 4 people each, and with that — sorry your Grace, but I couldn’t translate the rest as I could not understand it (or the local clergy to who I referred this passage). I could not find three Apostles with the same name. Incidentally, would you please enlighten me on these passages. Also, when you get the chance, would you likewise let me know the English name for GASHAGE`B — the Samaritan’s name for God. Many thanks.

These are the names of the Apostles: 1) Simon-Peter, 2) Andrew, 3) James, 4) John, 5) Philip, 6) Bartholomew, 7) Thomas, 8) Matthew, 9) James son of Alphaeus, 10) Lebbaeus (or Thaddeus, as Judas the son of James), 11) Simon the Cananite (or Zealot), 12) Judas Escariot. Evangelist John calls Bartholomew, Nathanael. Cananite, is a Hebrew translation of the Greek word zealot, which means ardent follower. Zealot was the name used by the Jewish organisation, fervently battling for the independence of the Jewish state. The word Escariot is a composite one, made up of : es (man) and cariot (name of a city). The word apostle is a translation from Greek, meaning messenger, which corresponds to the designation of those chosen — to be messengers through sermons. In order to have greater success with their sermons, the Lord endowed them with powers of healing the sick and drive out demons.