Bartholomew’s martyrdoms: The Latin tradition

The martyrdom of the apostle Bartholomew can be discussed as a plural matter if we consider the different traditions that circulate around his way of dying in different regions. In the Latin tradition dating to the early Middle Ages Bartholomew is told to be beheaded, while in the Armenian tradition this founder of the local church is submitted to skinning – a typical Persian death sentence as Michel Van Esbroeck states. A third instrument of martyrdom is the cross, found in the Greek tradition where Bartholomew’s fate is described in the context of the Acts of Philip. While the Armenian and Greek testimonies are fairly consistent, the Latin transmission, both narrative and liturgical, seems to hesitate between skinning and beheading. In a number of manuscripts we find the word decollatus corrected into decoriatus. In this article I examine the art and nature of this adaptation, the underlying sources and the motivations of the correctors.