CATALOGUES of the APOSTLES. - In Mt. 10:2-4; Mk. 3:14-19; Lk. 6:14-16 and Acts 1:13 the list of the names of the twelve Apostles is found. This catalogue of names is divided into 3 groups, the first of which is headed by Peter, the second by Philip and the third by James the son of Alphaeus. The so-called catalogue represents an old oral tradition, anterior to the written Gospels, and was only slightly framed by Mark within the historical narrative (cf. M. Dibelius, Formgeschichte des Evangeliums, 2nd ed., Tübingen 1933, p. 227).
It may be that the three names which head the three groups were intended to indicate three sources of the oral tradition. In this case James the son of Alphaeus would represent the tradition of Mary, his mother (Mk. 15:40; 16:1; Mt. 27:56; Lk. 24:10), as a witness of the Resurrection of Christ. In the various so-called catalogues the names of the individual Apostles are almost always the same. Only Simon the Cananaean (Mt. 10:4; Mk. 3:18) has in Lk. 6:15 (cf. Acts 1:13) taken the name “Simon called the Zealot,” that is, his Aramaic surname: “Cananaean” has been translated into Greek, while for the name of Thaddeus (Mt. 10:3; Mk. 3:18) the manuscripts also give that of Lebbaeus, but Lk. 6:16 (= Acts 1:13) knows for Thaddeus the name: Judas the son of James.
Besides this more ancient catalogue in the canonical Gospels, there is still an interesting catalogue in the apocryphal Apostolic Church Order (preface). The list comprises the names of: John, Matthew, Peter, Andrew, Philip, Simon, James, Nathanael, Thomas, Cephas, Bartholomew and Judas the son of James (cf. A. Harnack, Die Lehre der zwölf Apostel, Leipzig 1884, p. 225). Similar is the list in the so-called Epistle of the Apostles, ch. 2: John, Thomas, Peter, Andrew, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Nathanael, Judas the Zealot, Cephas. Characteristics of these two catalogues are: the fact that John stands at the head of the list; the presence of Nathanael; the distinction between Peter and Cephas. The origin of the catalogue of Apostles in these two writings has been sought in the Gospel according to the Egyptians (A. Baumstark, Alte und neue Spuren eines ausserkanon. Evangeliums, in Zeitschrift für neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, 14 [1913], pp. 232 sqq.; cf. F. Haase, ibid., 16 [1915], p. 106). John as head of the catalogue probably stands in opposition to an Ebionite catalogue with Matthew at its head (Epiphanius, Panarion haer., XXX, 13, 3 and Ps.-Clement, Recogn., I, 55 sqq.); that is, to the list of the Judaising Christians who preferred the Gospel of Matthew there was opposed a list of the names of the Apostles based on the preference given in Egypt to the Gospel of John. But these catalogues of the Ebionites in Palestine and of the Egyptians are based on the existence of a written Gospel, whereas the older catalogue of the canonical Gospels still presupposes the existence of an oral tradition. A catalogue which has quite special characteristics is that inserted in the Canon of the Mass (v.).