“A true Israelite“
“The next day, Yeshua decided to go to the Galilee. He finds Philip and says to him, ‘Follow Me!‘ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the same town as Andrew and Peter.
John 1: 43-51
Philip finds Nathanael and tells him, ‘We‘ve found the One that Moses in the Torah, and also the prophets, wrote about – Yeshua of Natzeret, the son of Joseph!‘
‘Natzeret!‘ Nathanael answered. ‘Can anything good come from there?‘
Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.‘
Yeshua saw Nathanael coming toward Him. He said, ‘Look, a true Israelite! There‘s nothing false in him.‘
Nathanael said to Him, ‘How do you know me?‘
Yeshua answered, ‘Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.‘
‘Rabbi,‘ Nathanael answered. ‘You are Ben-Elohim! You are the King of Israel!‘
‘Because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree, you believe?‘ Yeshua replied to him. ‘You will see greater things than that!‘ And He said, ‘Amen, amen I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God going up and coming down on the Son of Man!‘“
“After these things, Yeshua revealed Himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. Now here is how He appeared. Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in the Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two of the other disciples were together.“
John 21: 1-2
It is traditionally believed, and it follows from a logical analysis of the testimony of Sacred Scripture, that this “true Israelite“, “Nathanael of Cana“, who was among the very first followers of Jesus and was present with other Apostles when the risen Messiah appeared to them on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, is the same person as Saint Bartholomew mentioned in the list of the Twelve Apostles in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
In those lists, the name Bartholomew always follows Philip‘s name, while the Gospel of John presents Nathanael as a friend of Philip, whom Philip introduced to Jesus.
Saint John Crysostom, Saint Epiphanius of Salamis, Saint Cyril of Alexandria and other important Church Fathers all identify Saint Bartholomew and Nathanael to be one and the same man: a man by the name of Nathanael who was the “son of Talmai / Tholmai“, which is what “Bartholomew“ means. Today, on the 24th August, is his feast day.
Patron saint of the Armenian Church
Eusebius and Saint Jerome link Saint Bartholomew‘s missionary activity to India. Other legends speak of the regions of Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, Armenia, Lycaonia, Phyrgia, and the Black Sea.
Together with Saint Jude Thaddeus, Saint Bartholomew is the patron saint of the Armenian Church. Tradition has it that he converted the king of Armenia and was punished for this with a gruesome execution. Jacobus de Voragine, in his Golden Legend, quotes Saint Theodore and Saint Ambrose on this matter:
“Saint Theodore, abbot and eminent doctor, says, among other things, about this apostle: ‘Bartholomew, the blessed apostle of God, first preached in Lycaonia, later in India, and lastly in Albana, a city of Greater Armenia, where he was flayed alive and beheaded, then buried there. (…) All the apostles, diving the world among themselves, were constituted shepherds of the King of kings. Armenia, from Eiulath to Gabaoth, was Bartholomew‘s lot and portion. (…) After he underwent unbearable tortures, his skin was pulled off as if to make a bag.“
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 501
“Blessed Ambrose, in the Preface he wrote for this apostle, sums up his legend as follows. ‘(…) King and queen are baptized together with the people of twelve neighboring towns and follow you, our Father God, body and soul! And in the end, when the apostle is denounced by the priests of the temples, the tyrant brother of the neophyte Polemius has him, steadfast as always in the faith, beaten, flayed, and subjected to a bitter death. And the apostle, manfully facing the perils of death, carries the triumph of that glorious contest into the joys of heaven.‘“
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 500-501
Waiting for the Messiah “under the fig tree“
Let us return once more to the first encounter between Saint Nathanael Bartholomew and Jesus of Nazareth when Jesus says to Nathanael that He saw him “under the fig tree“…
We read that it was Philip who went to Nathanael to tell him that they found the Messiah of Israel. Nathanael‘s first reaction was not too positive though: The Messiah must be from Bethlehem after all, not Nazareth… But after the first little dialogue with Jesus, Nathanael, too, believes that Jesus is the long awaited Messiah, born in David’s town Bethlehem, raised by Joseph the carpenter and the Blessed Virgin Mary in an obscure place of the Galilee.
We can imagine that Nathanael bar Talmai was indeed sitting under a fig tree when Philip came to him – and that the Son of God knew him before he knew Jesus, seeing him there “under the fig tree“. But additionally to that, “under the fig tree“ is an expression pointing specifically to the Messianic Age. For example the following biblical passages establish a link between the time of the Messiah and the fig tree:
“For Torah will go forth from Zion, and the word of ADONAI from Jerusalem. He will judge between many peoples and decide for mighty nations far off. They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning shears. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, nor will they learn war again. But each man will sit under his vine and under his fig tree, with no one causing terror, for the mouth of ADONAI-Tzva‘ot has spoken.“
Micah 4: 2-4
“‘In that day,‘ declares ADONAI-Tzva‘ot, ‘every man will invite his neighbor to sit under the vine and under the fig tree.‘“
Zechariah 3: 10
Nathanael was waiting and searching for the Messiah and the Messianic Age. He knew the testimony of the Torah and the prophets just like Saint Philip the Apostle did.
And then something in Jesus‘ reply assured him personally that Jesus was the One he had been looking for. And that Jesus was the One who knew his innermost being, and his thoughts, hopes, and dreams.
We cannot know exactly what it was, we can only speculate: Did he meditate on one of those “fig tree“ prophecies right before meeting Jesus? Was “under the fig tree“ his favorite imagery of the Messianic Age for some reason? Had he himself received a revelation beforehand – maybe while sitting under a fig tree – that the true Messiah would say exactly this to him? We cannot know the details.
But there was something of a personal revelation and address in Jesus‘ reply that made Nathanael bar Talmai enthusiastically exclaim “You are Ben-Elohim! You are the King of Israel!“
The fig tree and the second coming of the Messiah
There also is an established symbolic connection between the fig tree and the nation of Israel in general. God speaks through the prophet Hosea,
“Like grapes in the wilderness I found Israel. Like early fruit on a fig tree in its first season I saw your fathers.“
Hosea 9: 10
Jesus in His discourse on the Mount of Olives with the disciples about the end of the ages, as recorded by Saint Matthew, uses the fig tree imagery:
“Now learn the parable from the fig tree. When its branch becomes tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, know that it is near, at the door. Amen, I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things happen.“
Matthew 24: 32-34
According to the Catholic theologian Dr. Brant Pitre, who gave a lecture on the “end times“ some years ago which I recently listened to, the most likely interpretation for everything that Jesus says in the Olivet Discourse right up to these very verses, which are concluding the first section of His teaching on the last age, refers to things that were about to happen within one generation after His death, resurrection and ascension into heaven – to prophecies that have already been fulfilled in the 1st century.
Starting with verse 35 (“Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away“), the attention then moves to the very end of the last age which was inaugurated when the risen Messiah ascended into heaven and took his throne at the right hand of the Father. The focus then shifts to the Messiah‘s second coming.
Some Christians though have interpreted the fig tree verse quoted above to mean that once the land of Israel is flourishing again with blooming fig trees, that once the nation of Israel, the “fig tree“, is like a young, tender and fruitful sprout again, as is supposedly the case since the year 1948, when the modern state of Israel was founded as the homestead of the Jewish people, the hour of Jesus‘ second coming might also be near.
It can be possible that the prophecies concerning events in the 1st century, which culminated in the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, could in some way, on a second level, also refer to the tribulation before Christ‘s second coming, including a future-oriented meaning of the fig tree metaphor.
Surely, such a re-blossoming of the “fig tree“ Israel as a sign of the imminent second coming of the Messiah would include not only the nation‘s physical and material restoration but also a large-scale spiritual awakening to the Messianic faith.
In the Catechism of the Catholic Church we find the teaching that the physical descendants of Abraham will come to faith in Jesus as the Messiah before He comes again explicated thus:
“The glorious Messiah’s coming is suspended at every moment of history until his recognition by ‘all Israel‘, for ‘a hardening has come upon part of Israel‘ in their ‘unbelief’ toward Jesus. St. Peter says to the Jews of Jerusalem after Pentecost: ‘Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.‘ St. Paul echoes him: ‘For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?‘ The ‘full inclusion‘ of the Jews in the Messiah’s salvation, in the wake of ‘the full number of the Gentiles‘, will enable the People of God to achieve ‘the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ‘, in which ‘God may be all in all‘.“
Catechism of the Catholic Church, par. 674
Saint Nathanael bar Talmai, Holy Apostle, “true Israelite“, pray for us!