Jude Thaddeus

The holy Apostle Jude Thaddeus, called in the Gospels "Judas of James" and, in other lists, Thaddeus or Lebbaeus, was one of the twelve apostles of Christ. The Orthodox Church celebrates him on 19 June as "kinsman of the Lord" and regards him as the author of the Catholic Epistle of Jude in the New Testament. What is told of his life is often mingled with that of the Apostle Thaddeus of the Seventy, commemorated on 21 August, and the synaxaria do not always keep the two apart.

Name and kinship

In the Gospels of Luke and John and in the Acts of the Apostles the apostle is called Judas of James, that is, son or brother of James, and is distinguished from Judas Iscariot. In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark a Thaddeus stands in his place, and from early times tradition took these to be one person. The Greek synaxarion at saint.gr records several views. According to one, Jude was the brother of the Lord according to the flesh and of the Apostle James, a son of Joseph by an earlier marriage. According to another, he was the son of Alphaeus and brother of James the Less, called Thaddeus or Lebbaeus. Scholars still divide on the identification.

At the Last Supper Judas, "not Iscariot", asked the Lord why He would show Himself to them and not to the world, as the Gospel of John records.

The Epistle

The short Epistle of Jude urges Christians to build themselves up in their most holy faith, to pray in the Holy Spirit and to keep themselves in the love of God in a world corrupted by sin. Tradition makes him its author; some modern scholars see it as a later writing under his name.

Preaching and martyrdom

After Pentecost, the synaxarion says, he laboured briefly in Jerusalem and then preached in Mesopotamia amid many dangers. Traditions about his end do not agree. The Greek synaxarion says he visited Edessa and was seized in the city of Ararat, where unbelievers shot him with arrows. Another account has him die at Edessa. The tradition of the Armenian Church holds that he suffered in Armenia in the year 66, by order of King Sanatruk, together with the holy Apostle Bartholomew; for this reason Armenians honour both as patrons of their Church. Western tradition speaks of a martyrdom at Beirut around 65 together with Simon the Zealot. The story of Edessa and King Abgar is linked above all with Thaddeus of the Seventy, whom some regard as the same person.

Veneration

The Church celebrates him on 19 June, and on 30 June remembers him in the Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles. According to a Western tradition, his relics lie in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome in a common tomb with those of Simon.