A comparison of the four lists of the Apostles (Matthew 10:2-4; Mark 3:16-19; Luke 6:13-16; Acts 1:13) brings out some interesting facts. (1.) The name of Peter is always first, that of Judas always last. In the former case we recognise acknowledged preeminence. The position of the latter may have been the consequence of the infamy which attached to the name of the traitor; but it is possible (and this may have been one of the elements that entered into his guilt) that his place had always been one of inferiority.
(2.) All the lists divide themselves into three groups of four, the persons in each group being always the same (assuming that the three names, Judas the brother (?) of James, Thaddæus, and Lebbæus, belong to the same person), though the order in each group varies.
(3.) The first group includes the two sons of Jona and the two sons of Zebedee, whose twofold call is related in Matthew 4:18-21; John 1:40. In two lists (Mark and Acts) the name of Andrew stands last; in two (Matt. and Luke) that of John. In none of them are the names of Peter and John coupled together, as might have been expected from their close companionship (John 20:2; Acts 3:1). The four obviously occupied the innermost place in the company of the Twelve, and were chosen out of the chosen. The three, Peter, James, and John, were the only witnesses of the healing of Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5:37), of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1), and of the Agony in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:37). Something seems to have excluded Andrew, though he had been the first called of all (John 1:40), from this intimate companionship; but we find him joined with the other three as called to listen to the great prophetic discourse on the Mount of Olives (Mark 13:3). All the four appear to have come from Bethsaida, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.
(4.) The name of Philip is always first in the second group, and he, too, came from Bethsaida. Next, in the three Gospel lists, comes that of Bartholomew. The name, like Barjona and Bartimæus, was obviously a patronymic, and it was at least probable that he had some other name. The absence of any mention of Bartholomew in St. John’s Gospel, or of Nathanael (John 1:45) in the other three, has led most modern commentators to the conclusion that they were two names for the same person; and the juxtaposition of the two names in their lists agrees with the fact that it was Philip who brought him to know Jesus as the Christ (John 1:45). On this assumption, Bartholomew was of Cana, the scene of our Lord’s first miracle (John 21:2). The name of Matthew stands before that of Thomas in Mark and Luke, after it in the Gospel which beare his own name. On the change of name from Levi, and his description as the son of Alphæus, see Notes on Matthew 9:9. As the name of Thomas, or Didymus, means “twin,” there seems some ground for believing, from the way in which the two names are grouped together, that here too we have another pair of brothers called to the service of their Master. Eusebius (H. E. i. 13), in his account of the conversion of Abgarus of Edessa, speaks of this Apostle as “Judas who is also Thomas.” and this suggests the reason why the cognomen of “the Twin” prevailed over the name which was already borne by two out of the company of the Twelve.
(5.) The third group always begins with “James the son of Alphæus;” and this description suggests some interesting inferences: — (1.) That he too was a brother of Matthew (there are no grounds for assuming two persons of the name of Alphæus), and probably, therefore, of Thomas also. (2.) That if the Clopas (not Cleopas) of John 19:25, was, as is generally believed, only the less Græcised form of the name Alphæus, then his mother Mary may have been the sister of Mary the mother of the Lord (see Notes on John 19:25). (3.) This Mary, in her turn, is identified, on comparing John 19:25 with Mark 15:40, with the mother of James the Less (literally, the Little) and of Joses. The term probably pointed, not to subordinate position, but, as in the case of Zacchæus, to short stature, and appears to have been an epithet (Luke 19:3) distinguishing him from the James of the first list. The Greek form in both cases was Jacôbus — the Jacob of the Old Testament — which has passed, like Joannes, through many changes, till it appears in its present clipped and curtailed shape. (4.) On the assumption that the James and Joses of Mark 15:40 are two of the “brethren of the Lord” of Matthew 13:55, this James might, perhaps, be identified with the James “the brother of the Lord” of Galatians 1:19 and Acts 15:13, the writer of the Epistle. The balance of evidence is, however, decidedly against this view. (Comp. Note on Matthew 13:55.) The next name appears in three different forms: Judas the brother of James (it must be noted, however, that the collocation of the two names is that which is elsewhere rendered “the son of...” and that the insertion of the word “brother” is an inference from Jude 1:1) in Luke and Acts; Lebbæus in Matthew (with the addition, in later MSS. and the textus receptus, of “who is also surnamed Thaddæus”); Thaddæus in Mark; St. John names him simply as “Judas, not Iscariot” (Matthew 14:22). The explanation of the variations is natural enough. One who bore the name of Judas wanted something to distinguish him. This might be found either in the term which expressed his relation as son or brother to James the son of Alphæus, or in a personal epithet. Lebbæus suggests a derivation from the Hebrew leb (heart), and points to warmth and earnestness of character; thad, in later Hebrew, meant the female breast, and may have been the origin of Thaddæus, as indicating, even more than the other sobriquet, a feminine devotedness. Taking the three names together, they suggest the thought that he was one of the youngest of the Twelve, and was looked upon by the others with an affection which showed itself in the name thus given to him. Simon, too, needed a distinguishing epithet, and it was found in the two forms of Zelotes and Cananite (not Canaanite). The former may point to zeal as his chief characteristic, but it was more probably used in the sense in which the followers of Judas of Galilee bore the name, and under which they were prominent in the later struggle with the Romans, as in a special sense “zealots for the law” (Jos. Wars, iv. 3, § 9). (Comp. a like use of the word in Acts 21:20.) On this assumption we get a glimpse, full of interest, into the earlier life of the Apostle so named. The other term, Cananite — which is not a local term, but connected with a Hebrew verb, kanà, to be hot, to glow, to be zealous — expresses the same idea. Lastly, we have “Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him,” described by St. John as the “son of Simon” (John 6:71; John 12:4; John 13:2; John 13:26), the term “Iscariot” being applied in the first and last of these passages to the father. These facts seem to leave little doubt that the name is local, and is the Græcised form of Ish-Kerioth (a man of Kerioth), a town in Judah mentioned in the list of Joshua 15:25. Assuming this inference, we have in him the only one among the Twelve of whom it is probable that he was of Judah, and not of Galilee. This also may not have been without its influence on his character, separating him, as it might well tend to do, from the devoted loyalty of the others.