It is a commonplace of New Testament study that the word "apostle" means "one who is sent." Beyond this, it is also interesting to know that this word, and probably also the office it designates, have a colorful background that throws light on the function of the Christian apostles in the early church.
The Greek word apostolos, "apostle," is a compound from the preposition apo, "off," "away," and stello, "to send." Thus it means, literally, one that is "sent off" on a mission. In classical Greek it was frequently connected with the sending off of a ship or a naval expedition, and it was also used for the commander of a squadron and for an ambassador. These two general applications, to things and to persons, carried over into Hellenistic, or Koine, Greek. Thus an Egyptian papyrus from the second or third century A.D. speaks of the logos apostolou Triadelphou, "the account of the ship of Triadelphus." The papyri also show that from the ship itself the meaning of the word was transferred to its cargo, for that also was "sent." Not only was the cargo called apostolos, but also the documents that represented the ship and its cargo, so that the word might refer to an order for the dispatch of a vessel, a bill of lading, or even an export license (see H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, vol. 1, p. 220; J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament, p. 70). At the same time, in Koine as in classical Greek, aposto/os might refer to a person. Thus Josephus (Antiquities xvii. 11. 1) uses it of ambassadors sent by the Jews to Rome.
None of these usages, however, appears to shed light directly on the origin of the word "apostle" in early Christianity. Paul is the first New Testament writer to use the word (1 Thess. 2:6), and for him it was already a technical team designating a specific group of men performing with authority generally recognized functions in the church (see I Cor. 4:9; 9:1, 2). The fact that in this very earliest Christian literature such a specific meaning of the word already was taken for granted suggests that it probably had some earlier authoritative inauguration. Writing in Greek, years after Jesus' death, Luke and John used the word "apostle." Thus Luke declares that "he chose twelve, whom also he named [Gr. Onomasen apostles" (Luke 6:13). This would seem to indicate that Jesus gave to the twelve a designation in Aramaic that was equivalent to the Greek apostolos and formed the immediate basis for its later use by the church. In Luke 11:49 and John 13: 16 apostolos again is used in quoting Jesus' words. Thus the office of apostle in the early church apparently stems from Jesus' ordination and commission of the twelve disciples.
In naming His disciples "apostles," Jesus probably used the Aramaic word shelicha', the equivalent of the Hebrew participle, shaluach, "sent." This is suggested by the fact that in the LXX of 1 (3) Kings 14:6, the prophet Ahijah calls himself an apostolos to the wife of Jeroboam; here the LXX translators rendered the Hebrew shaluach by the Greek noun apostolos. Although this can hardly be considered a technical usage, it has nevertheless much the same sense that apostolos has in several passages in the New Testament (see John 13:16; Phil. 2:25; Heb. 3:1)—the general sense of one sent on a mission, rather than that of a specific group of men carrying out official duties. Furthermore, the New Testament in Syriac, a language closely related to the Aramaic of Jesus' day, translates the Greek apostolos as shelicha'. Therefore it seems reasonable to conclude that Jesus and His followers probably drew on Jewish backgrounds for their use of apostolos.
Technical Use Among the Jews
These words appear to have had a technical use among the Jews, as well as among Christians. Rabbinical literature uses the term shaluach (or shaliach) of various authoritative messengers. Justin Martyr (c. A.D. 146) says that the Jews sent messengers throughout the world telling blasphemies against Christ (Dialogue With Trypho xvii, cviii). The existence of such apostles may be reflected as early as the first century in the assurances of the Roman Jews to Paul that no one had come to Rome with a bad report about him (Acts 28:21). Eusebius, the fourth-century church historian, declares that writings already ancient in his day recorded that the Jewish priests and elders sent men all over the world to warn their people against Christianity. He goes on to call these Jews "apostles," and says that in his own time they traveled throughout the Dispersion with encyclical letters (Commentaria in Isaiam xviii. 1, 2). Epiphanius (c. A.D. 400) records that these "apostles" sat in the highest councils of the Jews and traveled among the Jews outside Palestine restoring peace to disorderly congregations and collecting tithes and first fruits—functions that have striking parallels with the apostolate of Paul (see Acts 11:27-30; Rom. 15:25-28; 1 Cor. 16:1; Epiphanius Adversus Haeresis, lib. i, torn. ii, Hoer. xxx. 4, 11). The Theodosian Code (A.D. 438) remarks:
It is part of this worthless superstition that the Jews have chiefs of their synagogues, or elders, or persons whom they call apostles, who are appointed by the patriarch at a certain season to collect gold and silver.—xvi. 8. 14; translation in A. Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 1, p. 329.
Although the word apostolos does not appear in connection with these Jewish emissaries before the report of Eusebius, and it cannot be proved that they existed in New Testament times, the evidence strongly suggests that they did, and that they were called by the term shaluach (or, shaliach) in Hebrew, and by its counterpart in Greek, apostolos. If this is true, it makes more understandable how Jesus and His followers took both a term and an institution that were familiar to their times, and gave them a distinctly Christian adaptation and usage for the upbuilding and glory of the kingdom of God.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
HARNACK, A. The Mission and Expansion of Christianity, vol. 1, pp. 319-331.
Krerer, G., ed. Theologisches Warterbuch rum Neuen Testament, vol. 1, pp. 414-431.
STRACK, H. L., and P. BILLERBECK, Kommentar rum Neuen Testament any Talmud und Midrasch, vol. 3, pp. 2-4.