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Saints from the Holy Land

  • John the ApostleJohn the Apostle, tradition says, was the only one of the Twelve who died peacefully.
  • EusebiusMany lost ancient books survive only because Eusebius of Caesarea quoted them. Some fragments exist nowhere else.
  • Mary, mother of JesusMary, mother of Jesus, is named more often in the Quran than any other woman. The Quran mentions her 50 times.
  • Saint PeterSaint Peter denied knowing Jesus three times on the night Jesus was arrested. Later, he three times said he loved him.
  • Thomas the ApostleThomas the Apostle, one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus according to the New Testament, has bones that came close to being sold. In late December 1943, the Italian town of Ortona became a battlefield. The basilica there was blown up…
  • Mary MagdaleneThe English word maudlin, meaning sickeningly sentimental, comes from the way painters showed Mary Magdalene weeping. The woman behind that word left no writings of her own. She is never mentioned in any of the letters of Paul or in the…
  • Saint JosephSaint Joseph, the husband of Mary and the legal father of Jesus, shares his name with the most common place name in the world. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency identifies that name as the Spanish form, San Jose. Yet the man…
  • Andrew the ApostleAndrew the Apostle was one of the Twelve chosen by Jesus, yet his most visible legacy is a pattern of color. The white diagonal cross on a blue field that flies over Scotland carries his name. The same cross sits inside the Union Flag, on…
  • John the BaptistJohn the Baptist is the only saint whose birth and death are both commemorated in the Roman martyrology. He was a Jewish preacher who worked along the Jordan River in the early first century AD, and he is thought to have been born around 6…
  • Lazarus of BethanyLazarus of Bethany was already in his tomb when Jesus asked for the stone to be rolled away, and his sister Martha objected on practical grounds. There would be a smell, she warned. Her brother had been dead four days. Jesus had the stone…

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