Bede

James of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas of James. Some think that there were two apostles called James, namely James of Zebedee and James of Alphaeus, and that the third James, the brother of the Lord, was not an apostle but the bishop of Jerusalem. That is by no means true, but according to the faith of the Gospels, it should be known that this same James, the son of Alphaeus and an apostle, was in charge of Jerusalem, who was called the brother of the Lord, because he was the son of the Lord’s maternal aunt, of whom John the evangelist mentions. However, he says, “standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary of Clopas” (John 19). Naming this Mary of Clopas from her father or family. For how could the brother of the Lord be said to be not an apostle but the third James, when Paul also names him an apostle: “But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the brother of the Lord” (Galatians 1)? And the evangelist Mark calls him the same, not the third but the other, saying: “There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the Younger and Joses, and Salome” (Mark 15). For since "greater" and "lesser" usually provide a distinction not among three but between two, the lesser James is called the son of Alphaeus, in distinction from the greater who was the son of Zebedee. Read the book of blessed Jerome against Helvidius. However, Simon the Zealot is the one who is written in the Gospels as the Canaanite. For Cana interprets as zeal. He was from a village in Galilee, Cana, where the Lord turned water into wine, and after his brother James, he ruled the Church of Jerusalem and at the age of one hundred and twenty ascended the cross under Trajan. He is declared to be according to the flesh a cousin of the Savior, because Hegesippus testified that his father Clopas was the brother of Joseph. And Judas of James, that is, the brother of James, is the same as the one called Thaddeus in the Gospels, and he was sent to Edessa to Abgarus, the king of Osroene, as ecclesiastical history tells. It continues:

And when they had entered the upper room, they went up where they were staying. For in Greek the order of words is also placed thus: And when they had gone into the upper room, they went up where they were staying—Peter and John, and Andrew and James. In Greek the order of names is thus: Peter and Andrew, and James and John, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. Histories recount concerning these, in which the passions of the apostles are contained, and many deem them apocryphal, that they preached in Persia, and there were killed by the priests of the temples in the city of Suanir, and they underwent glorious martyrdom. The Book of Martyrology, which is titled with the name and preface of blessed Jerome, although Jerome himself was not the author but the translator, and Eusebius is narrated to have been the author, affirms this as well. Further, Isidore believes that this Simon is the one who ruled the Church of Jerusalem after James the brother of the Lord, and was crowned with martyrdom of the cross under Trajan, being a hundred and twenty years old, whom we also followed formerly in the first book of the Acts of the Apostles, not examining what he wrote scrupulously, but simply listening to his words, believing that he learned these things from certain ancient histories. We dare not deny this even now, especially since he who wrote the aforementioned passions of the apostles has most certainly revealed that he wrote uncertain and false things. For he says that the eunuch of Candace, whom Philip baptized in Judea, was in Ethiopia at the time when Matthew was teaching there and helped him in his teaching, while it is manifest that Candace is the name not of a man, but of a woman, that is, not of the eunuch, but of his mistress, namely the queen of the Ethiopians, who, as we have learned from ancient records, were all commonly called thus in olden times. I wrote in the same work, following Jerome's commentary, and concerning Judas the brother of James, who was also called Thaddaeus, that he was sent to Abgar, king of Osroene, as ecclesiastical history has handed down; but afterward, examining the ecclesiastical history itself more diligently, I found it not written there that Thaddaeus the apostle, one of the twelve, but Thaddaeus one of the seventy disciples, was sent to heal the aforementioned king. I do not think an error should be imputed to me, where, following the authority of great doctors, I believed without doubt what I found in their small works should be accepted.

Brethren, it is necessary to fulfill the Scripture which the Holy Spirit foretold, etc. Peter the Apostle feared to remain in the number eleven. For all sin is 'eleven,' because through perverse actions, it transgresses the precepts of the Decalogue. Hence, because none of our justice is innocent by itself, the tabernacle that contained the Ark of the Lord was overlaid inside with eleven goat-hair curtains. And he restored the number of apostles to twelve, so that by the two parts of seven (for three times four is a fine sum), they would maintain the grace they preached and with the number, and those who were to preach the faith of the Holy Trinity to the fourfold world, as the Lord says: "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19), they would also strengthen the perfection of work by the sacrament of the number. According to the higher understanding, the loss that the Church suffers from false brethren persists to the greatest extent unaddressed. But when at the end of the world, the people of the Jews who crucified the Lord are believed to be reconciled to the Church, like on the approaching fiftieth day, the number of the apostles is restored.

Let his habitation be desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it, and let another take his office. Indeed, these verses are clear and openly explained by the blessed Peter, because Judas received the deserved punishment for his transgression, and going to his own place, namely infernal hell, he deserted the common habitation of human conversation by an untimely and impious death, and nonetheless, with the holy Matthias taking his place in the ministry and apostleship, the most sacred sum of apostolic perfection was restored. But it is to be noted that the whole testimony is not taken from the one hundred and eighth psalm according to the Vulgate Edition, but only the final part, while the former is from the sixty-eighth, in which it is said of the Jews: Let their habitation be desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in their tents. For while the blessed Peter wished to confirm both the rejection of Judas and the election of Matthias with prophetic testimonies, he joined the testimony which was specifically about Matthias's episcopate with that which was generally placed about the rejection of the Jews, among whom Judas was also numbered. This, I know not by which first unskilled editor, was added to the one hundred and eighth psalm. When he saw these verses put together by the blessed Peter, and his Psalter not having them together, he began to think his Codex falsified, and presumed to add what he did not have. In the same way, eight verses from the thirteenth psalm were added in the Epistle of Paul to the Romans, which he had composed from various psalms and the prophet Isaiah. The first of these is: Their throat is an open sepulcher. The last: There is no fear of God before their eyes. These things which I have said, not only the Hebrew truth and the more correct edition of the seventy interpreters confirm, but also open reason proves, that in the same one hundred and eighth psalm, excepting these verses, there are thirty curses laid upon Judas Iscariot, according to the number of pieces of silver with which he did not fear to sell the Lord. The first of which is: Set a sinner over him. The last: And let them be covered with their own confusion as with a cloak.

And they gave forth their lots, etc. This example, or because the prophet Jonah was caught by lot, should not be indiscriminately relied upon for lots, "since the privileges of individuals," as Jerome says, "can by no means make a common law." For there, even the Gentile men, driven by the storm, sought the author of the danger by lot, and here Matthias is chosen by lot, lest the selection of the apostles seem to differ from the command of the old law, where the high priest was commanded to be sought by lot, as it is said about Zechariah: According to the custom of the priesthood, it fell to him by lot to put incense (Luke 1). Therefore, as I think, he was then chosen by lot, so that by the type it might be figured that a true priest should always have been sought, until he came for whom it was reserved, who not by the blood of sacrifices, but by his own blood entered once into the holy places having obtained eternal redemption (Hebrews 9). Whose sacrifice, offered at the time of Passover, but truly consumed on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit appeared in fire. For it was the custom of the old to consume victims accepted by God with heavenly fire. Therefore, until the truth was fulfilled, it was allowed to practice the figure. Hence it is that Matthias, who is ordained before Pentecost, is sought by lot; but the seven deacons afterward are not ordained by lot, but only by the election of the disciples and the prayer and imposition of hands by the apostles. But if any, compelled by some necessity, think that God should be consulted by lots as an example of the apostles, let them see that the apostles themselves did this not except by gathering the brotherhood and pouring out prayers to God.

And when the days of Pentecost were completed, they were all together in the same place. This is in the upper room, which they are said to have ascended. For whoever desires to be filled with the Holy Spirit must necessarily transcend the dwelling of the flesh through the contemplation of the mind. Just as the forty days during which the Lord conversed with His disciples after His resurrection signify the Church's journey in this world with the risen Christ, so the fiftieth day, on which the Holy Spirit is received, fittingly expresses the perfection of blessed rest, by which the labor of the temporal Church will be rewarded with eternal denarius. For the number forty itself, when computed by its equal parts, adds that denarius and makes fifty. The half of the number forty is twenty, a quarter is ten, a fifth is eight, an eighth is five, a tenth is four, a twentieth is two, a fortieth is one. Twenty, ten, eight, five, four, two, and one make fifty. The figure of this calculation is easily evident, because the present conflict generates for us the eternal joy of the jubilee, as the Apostle says: For our momentary and light affliction works for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure (II Cor. IV). Our true blessedness, however, is the eternal vision of the most high and blessed Trinity, wherein we glory in the immortality of both body and soul. For we consist of the four well-known qualities of the body. In the inner man, we are commanded to love God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind. And this is the perfect denarius of life, to rejoice in the present vision of divine glory. It is to be noted historically that among the ancients, the day of Pentecost, that is, the fiftieth day on which the law was given, was counted from the slaughter of the lamb. However, as the blessed Augustine explains, the fiftieth day here is counted not from the Lord's Passion, but from His resurrection, on which the Holy Spirit was sent. He, by the return of the old sign's example, most manifestly consecrated the Lord's day by His coming. At that same point in time, He showed that the true Pascha is to be celebrated on the Lord's day. For just as here, so also there God appeared in the vision of fire, as Exodus says: And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire (Exod. XIX).

And suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting, etc. And in the very giving of the law and grace, the most evident difference between the old and new testament is apparent. There, the people stood far off, there was fear, but no love. For they were so afraid that they said to Moses: Speak to us yourself, and do not let the Lord speak to us, lest we die (Exodus 20). Therefore, God descended, as it is written, on Sinai in fire, but terrifying the people standing far off, He wrote the law with His finger on stone, not with His spirit in the heart. But here, when the Holy Spirit came, the faithful were gathered together in one place; He did not terrify them on a mountain, but entered the house. Indeed, a sound came suddenly from heaven, and it sounded as if a violent wind was coming; but no one was afraid. You heard the sound, see the fire, because on the mountain there was both, and fire and sound, but there also smoke, here fire, divided tongues as of fire. Was He terrifying from afar? By no means. For He sat on each one of them, and they began to speak in tongues, as the Holy Spirit gave them to utter. Hear the tongue speaking, and understand the Spirit writing not on stone, but in the heart.