Sources & method

Source basis: Scripture refs resolve into the hosted reader; every mission and death claim names its earliest source and wears a grade — scripture, early source, or later tradition. Sources

The sending.

One room, twelve men, and a commission with no geographic ceiling: witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and , and to the uttermost parts of the earth. This map draws what the record can actually support — real coastlines, cities at true coordinates, each road running from Jerusalem along its claimed corridor to the place where the man's trail ends. The line itself tells you how much to trust it: solid where scripture speaks, dashed where an early source speaks, dotted where only later tradition does. Three seats get no road at all — two the record cannot honestly place, and one that was never sent; they are listed beneath the map. And the ring at the center is the seat scripture itself keeps in Jerusalem. That restraint is the point of this site.

scripture early source later tradition ? — even the destination is disputed

Real coastlines (Natural Earth, public domain); cities sit at true coordinates except where the pin itself says the site is disputed. Each road follows its claim’s corridor as an illustration — the era’s documented Red Sea and monsoon lane for Thomas, the Antioch road for Peter — never a surveyed itinerary; the grades belong to the claims, not the waypoints. Thaddaeus’s Edessa leg is faded because Eusebius credits that story to a Thaddaeus of the seventy. The ring at Jerusalem is James of Zebedee, who never left the city.

The roads, claim by claim

Peter → Rome

early source Worked outward through Judea and to Rome; killed there under .

1 Clement 5 (~96); Ignatius, To the Romans 4 (~110) · source

Andrew → Scythia · Patras

early source Assigned Scythia, north of the Black Sea, in the earliest mission list.

Origen via Eusebius, Church History 3.1 · source

Origen names only the region; the Crimea corridor drawn here is the later Andrew legend's routing of it.

later tradition Died on a cross at Patras in Greece.

Acts of Andrew (~200), apocryphal · source

James of Zebedee → Jerusalem — he never left

scripture Herod Agrippa's sword found him in Jerusalem around 44 AD, before any road did.

Acts 12:1–2 · source

John → Ephesus · Patmos

scripture Exiled on 'because of the word of God' — the one apostolic address scripture itself gives outside the holy land.

Revelation 1:9 · source

early source Settled and died old at , teacher of .

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.1.1 (~180) · source

Philip → Hierapolis

early source Buried at in Phrygia, attested by a of the region within living memory.

Polycrates of Ephesus (~190) via Eusebius, Church History 3.31 · source

Bartholomew → Armenia

early source Left a Hebrew Matthew with believers in 'India' found there a century later.

Pantaenus via Eusebius, Church History 5.10 (~180s) · source

later tradition Evangelized Armenia with Thaddaeus and died there — the Armenian tradition points to Albak in Vaspurakan; the Western martyrology's 'Albanopolis' points to Caucasian Albania instead.

Armenian national histories, 5th century · source

Two traditions, two regions. The pin sits with the cited Armenian histories, hollow because the site is disputed either way.

Thomas → India — Mylapore

early source Assigned Parthia in the earliest list; carried to the Malabar coast in the tradition, with a continuous local church claiming him ever since.

Origen via Eusebius, Church History 3.1; Acts of Thomas (~220) · source

early source Speared on a hill at Mylapore near modern Chennai.

Acts of Thomas (~220); Ephrem the Syrian knows the relics at Edessa by the 4th century · source

Matthew → 'Ethiopia' — disputed

later tradition Sent to 'Ethiopia' in some late lists, Persia in others; the earliest voice on his death reports no at all.

Heracleon via Clement of Alexandria (~180) for the natural death; Rufinus (4th–5th c.) for Ethiopia · source

'Ethiopia' is itself contested ground — the African kingdom of Aksum, or the Caucasus coast the same legends mean elsewhere (see Matthias). The pin is a question, not an answer.

Thaddaeus → Armenia — Artaz

early source The mission that healed king — told of a Thaddaeus counts among the seventy, not the twelve.

Eusebius, Church History 1.13, from the Edessa archives · source

later tradition Evangelized Armenia with Bartholomew; the monastery carrying his name claims his grave, on a shrine tradition dated to 68 AD.

Armenian national histories, 5th century; St. Thaddeus Monastery (UNESCO) · source

Simon the Zealot → Persia — disputed

later tradition Egypt, north Africa, Persia, or Britain — the late lists send him everywhere and agree nowhere.

Pseudo-Abdias and late martyrologies (~6th century) · source

The seats the chart refuses to place

James of AlphaeusNo early source records his road or his end. The chart leaves him in the upper room rather than invent a destination.
MatthiasThe twelfth seat's replacement — the late legends that move him confuse him with Matthew, so the chart declines to draw them.
Judas IscariotNot sent. His road ended at a field outside the city wall before Pentecost — Akeldama, Field of Blood, in both canonical accounts.

A chart this honest stays half-empty on purpose. The full evidence for every line — and for the lines this page declines to draw — is in the records; what grew where the roads ended is in the church.