WHERE DID THE ORIGINAL APOSTLES GO? – (Part Two)
U.S.A.
It is one of history’s best-kept secrets! But the moment has now come, in this climactic “time of the end,” to pull back the shroud of history and reveal where the original 12 apostles went.
What happened to the original 12 apostles after they departed from the land of Judea?
And why have their journeys been cloaked in mystery until now?
Last issue we learned that Christ commanded the 12 apostles to preach the Gospel to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. But we found that it was not God’s purpose, at that time, to reveal the whereabouts of the Lost Ten Tribes.
Yet both the Bible and secular history clearly point to where the Lost Ten Tribes migrated after their removal from the area of Palestine by the Assyrians in 721 B.C.! When we find where the Lost Ten Tribes were, we will have found where the original apostles went!
By early New Testament times, remnants of the House of Israel had settled in the British Isles and the Parthian Empire. Some had migrated toward northern Asia Minor.
Now to draw back the curtain of history and see where each of the original 12 apostles preached . You’ll be amazed!
What Greek historians report
Why is it that almost no one has thought of it before? If multitudes of Greeks in southern Asia Minor were being converted to Christ by Paul, and at the same time multitudes among the lost 10 tribes of the House of Israel were being converted in northern Asia Minor, should not those Greeks have left the record of which of the 12 apostles carried the Gospel there?
Consider this also: The Greeks have not lost the Greek New Testament. They have handed it down from generation to generation. ls it not just as likely that Greek scholars should have preserved the true account of the ministry of Jesus Christ’s original apostles?
They have done just that! Yet almost no one has believed them. What the Greeks report is not what most people expect to find. Some, who do not understand the difference between the House of Israel and the Jews, imagine the apostles went exclusively to Jews. Even some of those who know where the House of Israel is today often cannot believe that several of the tribes of Israel were not, in the apostles’ day, where they are today.
Scholars have long puzzled over the remarkable information the Greeks have handed down. Greek historians, in the early Middle Ages, left us information from original documents that apparently are no longer extant. They had firsthand sources of information not now available to the scholarly world. What do those Greek historians report?
One valuable source of information is the Greek and Latin Ecclesiasticae Historiae of Nicephorus Callistus. Another, in English, is Antiquitates Apostolicae by William Cave.
Universal Greek tradition declares that the apostles did not leave the Syro-Palestinian region until the end of 12 years’ ministry. The number 12 symbolizes a new organized beginning. Before those 12 years were up one of the apostles was already dead – James, the brother of John. He was beheaded by Herod (Acts 12:1-2)
But where did the remaining apostles go?
Simon Peter in Britain
Begin with Simon Peter. Peter was made by Christ the chief among the 12 apostles to coordinate their work. Of necessity Peter would be found traveling to many more regions than he would be personally ministering to.
The question is, Where did Peter spend most of his time after those first 12 years in the Holy Land?
Metaphrastes, the Greek historian, reports “that Peter was not only in these western parts” – the western Mediterranean – “but particularly that he was a long time” – here we have Peter ‘ s main life work to the Lost Ten Tribes – “in Britain, where he converted many nations to the faith.” (See p.45 in Cave’s Antiquitates Apostolicae.)
Peter preached the Gospel in Great Britain. Paul preached in Rome. The true Gospel had not been publicly preached in Rome before Paul arrived in A.D. 60. Paul never mentions Peter in his epistle to the brethren in Rome, most of whom had been converted on Pentecost in A.D. 31.
Not even the Jews at Rome had heard the Gospel preached before Paul arrived.
Here is Luke’s inspired account of Paul’s arrival in Rome:
“And it came to pass after three days that Paul called the leaders of the Jews together” (Acts 28:17). Continuing, verses 2 1- 23 : “ And they” – the Jews at Rome – “said to him ”We neither received letters from Judea concerning you, nor have any of the brethren who came reported or spoken any evil of you. But we desire to hear from you what you think; for concerning this sect, we know that it is spoken against everywhere.” So when they had appointed him a day, many came to him at his lodging, to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the Law of Moses and the Prophets, from morning till evening.”
Simon Peter, Christ’s apostle was in Britain, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. The very fact that Peter preached in Britain is evidence that part of the Lost House of Israel was already there. Peter was commissioned to go to the lost tribes.
And significantly, about A.D. 60 great wars overtook Britain – just as James warned the 12 tribes of Israel (James 4:1). Could history be any clearer? For the full proof of the identity of Great Britain as chief tribe in Israel write for the free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy. It makes history and the Bible plain.
Where are Peter and Paul buried?
For centuries the Christian world has taken for granted that Peter and Paul arc buried in Rome. No one, it seems, has thought to question the tradition. Granted, Paul was brought to Rome in A.D. 67. He was beheaded in the end of spring A.D. 68, then buried on the Ostian Way. But are his remains still there? Granted, too. that universal tradition declared the apostle Peter was also brought to Rome in Nero’s reign and martyred about the same time.
Many pieces of ancient literature – some spurious, some factual – confirm that both Simon Magus, the false apostle who masqueraded as Peter and Peter himself died at Rome. The question is, Were the bones of the apostles Peter and Paul moved from Rome?
Yes!
Here is what happened. In the year 656 Pope Vitalian decided the Catholic church should send the remains of the apostles Peter and Paul. The Pope therefore ordered them sent to Oswy, King of Britain! Here is part of his letter to the British king:
“However, we have ordered the blessed gifts of the holy martyrs, that is, the relic s of the blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, and of the holy martyrs. Laurentius, John, and Paul, and Gregory, and Pancratius, to be delivered to the bearers of these our letters, to be by them delivered to you” (Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, book III chapter 29).
Could anything be more astounding? The bones of Peter and Paul (termed “relics” in the Pope’s letter) were sent by the Pope from Rome to Britain – to the land of the lost tribes of Israel!
About a century and a half earlier Constantius of Lyons took the relics of all the apostles and martyrs from Gaul and buried them in a special tomb at St. Albans in Britain (Life of St. Germanus ).
And Andrew his brother?
Britain, after A.D. 449, was settled by hundreds of thousands of new people not there in Peter ‘s day. History knows them as Angles and Saxons. They came originally from the shores of the Black Sea to the Cymbric Peninsula (Denmark) opposite Britain. These were the people to whose ancestors Peter wrote his epistles. Which one of the 12 apostles preached to their ancestors while they abode by the Bosporus and on the Black Sea? Listen to the answer from Greek historians:
“In this division St. Andrew had Scythia, and the neighboring countries primarily allotted him for his province. First then he travelled through Cappadocia, (Upper) Galatia and Bithynia and instructed them in the faith of Christ, passing all along the Euxine Sea – the old name for the Black Sea – and so into the solitudes of Scythia.”
One early Greek author gives these journeys in special detail, just as if Luke had written an account of the other apostles as he did of Paul.
Andrew “went next to Trapezus, a maritime city upon the Euxine Sea, whence after many other places he came to Nice, where he stayed two years, preaching and working miracles with great success: thence to Nicomedia. and so to Chalcedon; whence sailing through the Propontis he came by the Euxine Sea to Heraclea, and from thence to Amastris. . . . He next came to Sinope, a city situated upon the same sea … here … he met with his brother Peter, with whom he stayed a considerable time. . . . Departing hence, he went again to Amynsus and then … he purposed to return to Jerusalem” – the headquarters church.
“Whence after some time he betook himself … to the country of the Abasgi [a land in the Caucasus] … Hence he removed into . . . Asiatic Scythia or Sarmatia, but finding the inhabitants very barbarous a n d intractable, he stayed not long among them, only at Cherson, or Chersonesus, a great and populous city within the Bosphorus [this Bosphorus is the m o d e r n Crimea], he continued some time instructing and confirming them in the faith. Hence taking ship he sailed across the sea to Sinope, situated in Paphlagonia” (pp. 137-138 of Cave’s Antiquitates Apostolicae ).
Here we find Andrew preaching to the very areas in Asia Minor which Paul bypassed. From this region, and from north of the Black Sea, migrated the ancestors of the Scots and Anglo-Saxons as we have already seen. They are of the House of Israel – or else Andrew disobeyed his commission!
And what of the modern Scottish tradition that Andrew preached to their ancestors? Significant? Indeed!
And the other apostles?
And where did Simon the Zealot carry the Gospel? Here, from the Greek records, is the route of his journey:
Simon “directed his journey toward Egypt, thence to Cyrene, and Africa … and throughout Mauritania and all Libya, preaching the gospel. … Nor could the coldness of the climate benumb his zeal, or hinder him from shipping himself and the Christian doctrine over to the western islands, yea, even to Britain itself. Here he preached. and wrought many miracles.”
Nicephorus and Dorotheus both wrote “that he went at last into Britain, and … was crucified … and buried there” (Antiquitates Apostolicae. p. 203).
Think of it. Another of the 12 apostles is found preaching to the Lost Tribes of Israel in Britain and the West. But what is Simon the Zealot doing in North Africa? Were remnants of the House of Israel living there, too? Had some fled westward in 721 B.C. at the time of the Assyrian conquest? Here is Geoffrey of Monmouth’s answer: “The Saxons … went unto Gormund, King of the Africans in Ireland, wherein. adventuring thither with a vast fleet, he had conquered the folk of the country. Thereupon, by the treachery of the Saxons, he sailed across with a hundred and sixty thousand Africans into Britain . . . [ and ] laid waste, as hath been said, well-nigh the whole island with his countless thousands of Africans” (book xi. sections 8, 10).
These countless thousands were not Berbers or Arabs. They were whites who came to Ireland from North Africa and Mauritania, where Simon preached. These, declares the Universal History (1748 – Vol. xviii. p. 194). “gave out, that their ancestors were driven out of Asia by a powerful enemy and pursued into Greece; from whence they made their escape” to North Africa. “But this … was to be understood only of the white nations inhabiting some parts of western Barbary and Numidia.”
What white nation was driven from the western shores of Asia? The House of Israel! Their enemy? The Assyrians! For almost three centuries after the time of Simon Zelotes they remained in Mauritania. But they are not in North Africa today. They arrived in Britain shortly after A.D.449, the time of the Anglo-Saxon invasion.
And Ireland, too
Another of the apostles sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel was James, the son of Alphaeus. Some early writers were confused by the fact that two of the 12 apostles were named James. James, son of Alphaeus, was the one who left Palestine after the first 12 years. The deeds of this apostle are sometimes mistakenly assigned to James, John’s brother. But that James had already been martyred by Herod (Acts 12:1-2).
Where did James, son of Alphaeus, preach?
“The Spanish writers generally contend . . . after the death of Stephen he came to these western parts. and particularly into Spain (some add Britain and lreland) where he planted Christianity” (Antiquitates Apostolicae. p. 148). Note it. Yet another apostle sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel ends in the British Isles – in Ireland as well as in Britain.
Even in Spain James spent some time. Why Spain? From ancient times Spain was the high road of migration from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the British Isles. The ancient royal House of Ireland for a time dwelt in Spain. The prophet Jeremiah passed through Spain into Ireland with one of Zedekiah’s daughters (Jeremiah 41:10; 43:6). Even today a vital part of the Iberian Peninsula – Gibraltar – belongs to the birthright tribe of Ephraim – the British.
Paul in Britain, too?
Turn, now, to added proof of the apostles’ mission to the House of Israel in the British Isles.
From an old volume, published in 1674 by William Camden, we read: “The true Christian Religion was planted here most anciently by Joseph of Arimathea, Simon Zelotes, Aristobulus, by St. Peter and St. Paul, as may be proved by Dorotheus, Theodoretus and Sophronius” (Remains of Britain, p.5).
Did you catch that?
Paul is now included! Had Paul planned to go from Italy into Spain and – then Britain? Here is his answer: .. “I shall go by way of you to Spain” (Romans 1 5:28 ). Clement of Rome, in his letter to the Corinthians. confirms Paul’s journey to the West. But did that include Britain?
Listen to the words of the Greek church historian Theodoret. He reports ”that St. Paul brought salvation to the isles that lie in the ocean” (book 1 on Psalm cxvi. p. 870). The British Isles!
Model of a Roman merchant ship.The original apostles travelled on ships of this type to preach the Gospel during the early New Testament Church.
But was that merely to preach to the gentiles? Not at all. Remember that the third and last part of Paul’s commission, after he revealed Christ to the kings and rulers at Rome was to bear the name of Jesus to the “children of Israel” (Acts 9:15) – The Lost Ten Tribes.
This is not a prophecy concerning Jews, whom Paul previously had reached in the Greek world of the eastern Mediterranean. This is a prophecy of Paul’s mission all the way to the British Isles. Could anything be more astounding?
On the shores of the Caspian Sea
James referred to Israel as scattered abroad. We have found them in Northwest Europe and in North Africa – from whence they migrated into Ireland and Britain in the fifth century – and in northern Asia Minor, associated with the Assyrians. In A.D. 256 they migrated from the regions of the Black Sea to Denmark, thence into the British Isles in 449.
But remnants of the Lost Ten Tribes were yet in another vast region beyond the confines of the Roman Empire. That region was known as the Kingdom of Parthia.
The Parthians appear near the Caspian Sea around 700 B.C. as slaves of the Assyrians. “According to Diodorus, who probably followed Ctesias, they passed from the dominion of the Assyrians to that of the Medes. and from dependence upon the Medes to a similar position under the Persians” (The Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy p.26, quoted from Diodorus Siculus, ii 2 . § 3: 34. § 1 and § 6).
The Parthians rose to power around 250 B.C. in the lands along the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. That was the land into which a major part of Israel was exiled! Some of the Lost Ten Tribes remained in the land of their captivity until A.D. 226. when the Persians defeated the Parthians.
Now consider this: James addressed his letter to the 12 tribes of Israel scattered abroad. He warns the Israelites against the wars being waged among themselves. Whcn James wrote his letter about A.D. 60 the world was at peace except for two regions – Britain and Parthia. There is no mistaking this. Parthia and Britain were lands where the Israelites lived .
Which of the original 12 apostles carried the Gospel to the Israelites in Parthia?
The Greek historians reveal that Thomas brought the Gospel to “Parthia, after which Sophronius and others inform us, that he preached the gospel to the Medes, Persians, Carmans, Hyrcani, Bactrians and the neighbour nations” (Antiquitates Apostolicae, p. 189). These lands we know today as Iran (or Persia) and Afghanistan as far as western India. In apostolic days a major part of this region was subject to the Parthians.
Though certain Israelites had left the region already, multitudes remained behind, spread over adjoining territory. They lost their identity and became identified with the names of the districts in which they lived.
Josephus, the Jewish historian, was familiar with Parthia as a major dwelling place of the Ten Tribes. He declares: “But then the entire body of the people of Israel [the Ten Tribes] remained in that country (they did not return to Palestine): wherefore there are but two tribes in Asia and Europe subject to the Romans while the ten tribes are beyond Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude and not to be estimated by numbers” (Antiquities of the Jews. book xi. chapter v. § 2).
There it is! The very area to which Thomas sojourned was, reports Josephus, filled with uncounted multitudes of the Ten Tribes. Josephus was, apparently, unaware of those who had already migrated westward. But he does make it plain that only the House of Judah ever returned to Palestine. The House of Israel was “ beyond Euphrates till now.”
Parthia was defeated by Persia in A.D. 226. Expelled from Parthia, the Ten Tribes and the Medes moved north of the Black Sea into Scythia. (See R.G. Latham’s The Native Races of the Russian Empire, p. 216.)
From there, around A.D. 256, the Ten Tribes migrated with their brethren from Asia Minor into Northwest Europe.
Thomas also journeyed into northwest India, east of Persia, where the “White Indians” dwelt, who have since, like the Frisians earlier in 330 B.C., migrated from India far to the north west.
Bartholomew shared, with Thomas, the same vast plains, according to Nicephorus. Bartholomew also spent part of his time in ncighbouring Armenia and a portion of Upper Phrygia in Asia Minor. This was the same district to which Andrew carried the Gospel and to which Peter sent two of his letters.
Jude, also named Lebbaeus Thaddaeus, had part in the ministry in Assyria and Mesopotamia. That is part of Parthia which Josephus designated as still inhabited by the Ten Tribes. The Parthian kingdom, which included remnants of the Ten Tribes, possessed Assyria and Mesopotamia during most of the New Testament period.
Scythia and Upper Asia (meaning Asia Minor) were the regions assigned to Philip (see Cave’s Antiquitates Apostolicae, p. 168 ). Scythia was the name of the vast plain north of the Black and the Caspian seas. To this region a great colony of Israelites migrated after the fall of the Persian Empire in 331. From Scythia migrated the Scots. The word Scot is derived from the word Scyth. It means “an inhabitant of Scythia.” The Scots are part of the House of Israel.
Interestingly, the word Scythia, in Celtic, has the same meaning that Hebrew does in Semitic — a “migrant” or “wanderer.”
Where did Matthew go?
Matthew, Metaphrastes tells us, “went first into Parthia, and having successfully planted Christianity in those parts thence travelled into Aethiopia, that is, the Asiatic Aethiopia, lying near to India” (Antiquitates· Apostolicae, p. 182).
For some centuries this region of the Hindu Kush, bordering on Scythia and Parthia, was known as “White India.” It lies slightly east of the area where the Assyrians settled the Israelite captives. A natural process of growth led the House of Israel to these sparsely populated regions. From there prophecy reveals they migrated to northwest Europe in the sixth century. Dorotheus declares Matthew was buried at Hierapolis in Parthia.
Ethiopic and Greek sources designate Dacia (modern Romania) and Macedonia, north of Greece, as part of the ministry of Matthias. Dacia was the extreme western part of Scythia. From Dacia came the Normans who settled in Scandinavia, France and Britain.
The French tradition that Mary, the mother of Jesus, journeyed into Gaul (modern France) lends weight to John’s having been in Gaul in his earlier years. It was to John that Jesus committed Mary’s care. She would be where he was working. Paul knew Gaul to be an area settled by the House of Israel. He bypassed Gaul on his way from Italy to Spain (Romans 15:24, 28).
Here is historic evidence to confirm the identity and location of “the House of Israel.” How marvelous are the mysteries of God when we truly understand them!
