A reader writes:
My husband and I have a question about "The Lord’s Supper" and the apostles in attendance. Our confusion arises from a very old print of "The Lord’s Supper" that we found many years ago at an antique shop in Florida. It is in an old gray-colored frame under "bubble" glass, and I was drawn to it because it is exactly like one that my grandparents always had in their home. On this print are the names of the apostles at the bottom edge of the tablecloth (altar cloth).
The names listed (in Hebrew? Latin?) are as follows (from left to right):
Bartholomaeus Bartholomew
Jacobus II James II (meaning: James son of Alphaeus)
Andreas Andrew
Judas Judas (meaning Judas Iscariot)
Petrus Peter
Joannes John
Jesus Christus Jesus Christ
Thomas Thomas
Jacobus I James I (meaning: James son of Zebedee)
Philipus Philip
Matthaeus Matthew
Thaddaeus Thaddeus (a.k.a., Judas not Iscariot or Judas the son of James)
Simon Simon (a.k.a., Simon the Zealot, the Zealots being a political movement)
Therein lies our confusion. After Judas betrayed Jesus and committed suicide, the apostles continued the Apostolic Succession by "voting" for Matthew to join the fold. On our print, "Matthaeus" is listed as one of the apostles at the Passover. Was there another Matthew who was already part of the original Twelve? Or are the names incorrect or simply added as "artistic license?" (We also know the English translations as most are obvious and that Jacobus is the Hebrew/Latin? name for James.)
I think I can clear up the confusion. Matthew was a disciple who was named an apostle during Jesus’ ministry (see Matthew 10:2-4). The guy who was elected an apostle after the suicide of Judas Iscariot was a different guy but had a similar name: Matthias. You can read about him in Acts 1:12-26 (you’ll note that Matthew is listed among the apostles before the election of Matthias in Acts 1:13).
Incidentally, the names above are Latinized forms of Aramaic names. The "bar-" in Bartholomew is a dead giveaway. "Bar" is Aramaic for "son of." If the name were Hebrew, that would be "ben." ("Bartholomew" = "son of Ptolemy," though Ptolemy isn’t an Aramaic name; it was popular around this time due to being the name of one of Alexander the Great’s generals who later ruled Egypt). What happened is the folks of olden times took the Aramaic names of Jesus and the apostles, passed them through Greek (where they got modified a little) and then made them sound Latin by adding Latin endings and such to them.
I’ve put the English equivalents along with some explanatory notes alongside the names above in red. Hope it’s useful.
We want to share this information with our church family at our Cathedral in Charleston, SC. We have a fabulous stained glass window of the Lord’s Supper and were discussing the names of the Apostles with the head of the tour guides. Many had never seen the names of the Apostles listed, so we wanted to share accurate information. Any assistance that you may offer would be appreciated, or if you could direct us to another resource. We were unable to find the exact names and the seating order in the Bible. Our print is certainly not a "DaVinci," but it is quite beautiful and a prayerful part of our dining area.
Cool! Hope the above helps.
Incidentally, the seating order is something made up by the artist, so you should examine the stained glass version to see if it seems to have the apostles in the same places. Generally there are little visual signs to indicate which are which. For example, Peter is depicted as an old man, while John is depicted as a young man (and is always seated next to Christ in pictures of the Last Supper, typically with Peter next to him).