if our forefathers are to be believed, when he was
told of the Assumption of the Virgin, and Mary was fain to show Herself
to him and throw down Her girdle to convince him.

"Saint Bartholomew is even more obscure, lost in the thick shade of the
ages. He was the best educated of the Apostles, says Sister Emmerich,
for the others, particularly Peter and Andrew, had preserved rough
manners and a clumsy exterior from their humble origin.

"It is supposed that his name was Bartholomew. The Synoptical Gospels
number him among the Apostles, but Saint John omits him, and mentions in
his place one Nathanael, of whom the other three Evangelists do not
speak.

"It seems tolerably certain that these two were identical, and Saint
Bernard supposed that this Bartholomew or Nathanael was the bridegroom
of the marriage at Cana.

"He is said to have preached in Arabia, in Persia, in Abyssinia, to have
baptized among the Iberi, the races of the Caucasus, and, like Saint
Thomas, in India, but there is no authentic evidence to show this.
According to some writers he was decapitated; others say he was flayed
alive and then crucified, near the frontiers of Armenia.

"This last view was adopted by the Roman Breviary and prevailed; hence
he was chosen as the patron Saint of fleshers, who skin beasts, of
leather-dressers and skinners, shoemakers and binders, who use leather,
and even of tailors, for the early painters represent him with half his
body flayed and carrying his skin over his arm like a coat.

"Stranger and still more puzzling is Saint Jude. He was also called
Thaddaeus and Lebbaeus, and was the son of Cleophas and of Mary the
Virgin's sister; he is said to have married and had children.

"He is scarcely mentioned in the Gospels, but they point out that he is
not to be confounded with Judas--which, however, was done, actually by
reason of the similarity of name, during the Middle Ages; Christians
rejected him and sorcerers appealed to him.

"He never speaks in the course of the Sacred Narrative but when he
breaks silence at the scene of the Last Supper to ask the Lord a
question as to predestination; and Christ replies beside the mark, or
rather does not answer him at all. He was also the author of a Canonical
Epistle, in which he seems to have been inspired by the Second Epistle
of Saint Peter; and, according to Saint Augustine, it was he who
introduced the dogma of the Resurrection of the flesh into the _Credo_.

"In le