The day of Pentecost, Christians celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit on a group of disciples of Jesus, including the famous “twelve apostles”. But who are they exactly?
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On the historical level first of all: the twelve apostles of Jesus existed. The four Gospels are unanimous on this point, and not only the whole posterior tradition attests to it, but the presence of Judas within the small group constitutes a famous proof.
Who would have brought the traitor from the intimate circle of Jesus if it had had to invent it? This betrayal is too disturbing not to be historic. On the other hand, it is necessary to be precise on the contours of this cenacle: all the apostles are not the twelve, and the twelve are not the only ones to be the families of Jesus.
If we account for all those whose texts tell us that they follow Jesus, we can spot at least five distinct groups. First there are the crowds, which have the particularity of being inconstant, go and come: they are attached to Jesus when the latter nourishes and heals them, but they leave him as soon as his teaching seems too difficult .
There are then the disciples, who follow him with more diligence. They too can turn away from him, as Jesus in the Gospel of John’s Gospel (6, 60-66).
There are, in addition, all friends, like Marthe, Mary and Lazarus, of whom Jesus speaks as “our friend”, the household of Peter whose Jesus heaks the mother-in-law, Simon the leper who Invite a meal, etc. Within this indistinct circle of familiar/disciples, some are delegated two by two to spread the message of Jesus (Lk 10, 1-17), thus becoming apostles (in Greek, apostolos means “sent”).
The twelve, a whole symbol
But others can be sent individually and also claim the qualifier of apostle: thus Mary of Magdala, “sent” by Jesus to announce the resurrection to his brothers (Jn 20, 17-18), or Paul, who claims to have been sent by the resurrected Christ: at the time of Jesus and in the primitive Church, it seems that this term covered a temporary function rather than hierarchical dignity.
Finally, among the envoys that we talked about, we can distinguish a last group, the twelve. This is established: Jesus has selected them and this choice seems to have been accompanied by a certain solemnity, because the three synoptic Gospels (we call “synoptics” the Gospels of Matthew, Marc and Luke who follow the same narrative frame) identify A special moment of institution. So we read Matthieu: “Having brought his twelve disciples, Jesus gave them authority over unclean spirits, so that they chase them and heal any disease and any infirmity.”
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