Apostle

The term apostle comes from the Greek word apostolos, which roughly means ‘someone sent'. There are 80 references to apostles in the New Testament, but some scholars would argue that there appear to be two different types (although the distinctions aren't all that clear). Many of those references are to the 12 men who were sent out by Christ to preach during his lifetime and who were later witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus (Matthew 10.1-4; Acts 1.21-22). As such, they were viewed in some sense as authority figures within the early Christian community.

Later, Matthias and Paul were also understood as apostles in this way (Acts 1.26; 1 Corinthians 9.1). However, there were also a wider group of people called ‘apostles' who were sent out as messengers to/from churches or as missionaries (Acts 13.1-3; 14.4; 1 Corinthians 12.27-29; 2 Corinthians 8.23; Philippians 2.25). It is in this second sense that some later Christian writers described Mary Magdalene as the ‘apostle to the apostles'. This was because she was sent by Jesus with a message to the 12 apostles.