Which apostle was not martyred?

Answer 1

A:As far as is known for certain, none of the apostles was martyred. Clement of Rome, writing at the end of the first century, seems to have believed that Paul travelled to the west (Spain) and spent the remainder of his time there. Clement also seems unaware that Peter ever visited Rome or that he was executed there, so the tradition of Peter's martyrdom seems to have begun with the second-century pope, Anicetus, who wished to claim that he spoke with the authority of Peter. Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says that we can never verify the martyrdom or even existence of Stephen. There was no tradition of the martyrdom of the other apostles until long afterwards, when traditions gradually arose that all the early apostles were martyred except John.

Answer 2

Another answer from our community:

Tradition tells us that John the apostle was exiled to the Greek Island of Patmos, and lived there until a great age - possibly into his late 80s. Judas Iscariot committed suicide after betraying Christ (Matthew), or died by misadventure (Acts). Apart from well-documented martyrdoms of some of the other apostles like Peter and Andrew (Peter crucified upside down on a cross, and Andrew crucified on an X-shaped cross) many of the other disciples' deaths are not so well documented and therefore their nature is not so reliable, although it is believed that most were eventually martyred.

Answer 3

As far as we can tell, none of the apostles actually suffered a martyr's death. Acts of the Apostles mentions the imprisonment and miraculous release of Peter, but does not say anything about his subsequent death, even though the book was written around the end of the century, long after Peter would have died. A second-century tradition was that he was beheaded, while a later tradition was that Peter was crucified upside down. In fact, the story in Acts is dubious at best, and the later traditions have no evidence to support them.

At the time of Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria, martyrdom was confined to St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. James. The rest of the disciples were gradually discovered to have been martyred by the more recent Greeks, who prudently selected for the theatre of the disciples' preaching and sufferings some remote country beyond the Roman Empire, where proof to the contrary could never be ascertained. Burton L. Mack (Who Wrote the New Testament) says that a second-century focus on the apostles saw them imagined to have performed miracles as Jesus did, to have preached as he did and died as he did. Stories of their martyrdom were developed at this time and began to circulate.

Some believe that John was miraculously able to avoid martyrdom and was eventually exiled under guard in Patmos.

Answer 4

The Apostle John. He was exiled to the Isle of Patmos by emperor Domitian.