Apostles. In Christian theology and ecclesiology, apostles, particularly the Twelve Apostles, were the primary disciples of Jesus according to the New Testament and the Qur'an. During the life and ministry of Jesus in the 1st century AD, the apostles were his closest followers and became the primary teachers of the gospel message of Jesus. While Christian tradition often refers to the apostles as being twelve in number, different gospel writers give different names for the same individual, and apostles mentioned in one gospel are not mentioned in others. There is also an Eastern Christian tradition derived from the Gospel of Luke of there having been as many as 70 apostles during the time of Jesus' ministry. Paul is often referred to as an apostle, because he was directly taught and commissioned by a vision of Christ during his journey to Damascus. The commissioning of the Twelve Apostles during the ministry of Jesus is recorded in the Synoptic Gospels. After his purported resurrection, Jesus sent eleven of them by the Great Commission to spread his teachings to all nations. This event has been called the Dispersion of the Apostles. In modern usage, missionaries under Pentecostal movements often refer to themselves as apostles, a practice which stems from the Latin equivalent of apostle, i.e. missio, the source of the English word missionary. For example, Saint Patrick was the Apostle of Ireland, Saint Boniface was the Apostle to the Germans, Saint Jose de Anchieta was the Apostle of Brazil and Saint Peter of Betancur was the Apostle of Guatemala. The period of early Christianity during the lifetimes of the apostles is called the Apostolic Age. During the 1st century AD, the apostles established churches throughout the territories of the Roman Empire and, according to tradition, through the Middle East, Africa, and India. Of the tombs of the apostles, all but two are claimed by premises of the Catholic Church, half of them located in the Diocese of Rome. The word apostle comes from the Greek word, formed from the prefix and root and originally meaning messenger, envoy. It has, however, a stronger sense than the word messenger, and is closer to a delegate. Bauer's Lexicon argues that its Christian use translated a Jewish position known in Hebrew as the sheliach. This ecclesiastical meaning of the word was later translated into Latin as missio, the source of the English missionary. states that Jesus initially sent out these twelve in pairs to towns in Galilee. The text states that their initial instructions were to heal the sick and drive out demons. They are also instructed to take nothing for their journey, except a staff only: no bread, no wallet, no money in their purse, but to wear sandals, and not put on two tunics, and that if any town rejects them they ought to shake the dust off their feet as they leave, a gesture which some scholars think was meant as a contemptuous threat. Later in the Gospel narratives the twelve apostles are described as having been commissioned to preach the Gospel to all the nations, regardless of whether Jew or Gentile. Paul emphasized the important role of the apostles in the church of God when he said that the household of God is built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. The three Synoptic Gospels record the circumstances in which some of the disciples were recruited, Matthew only describing the recruitment of Simon, Andrew, James, and John. All three Synoptic Gospels state that these four were recruited fairly soon after Jesus returned from being tempted by the devil. Despite Jesus only briefly requesting that they join him, they are all described as immediately consenting, and abandoning their nets to do so. The immediacy of their consent has been viewed as an example of divine power, although this is not stated in the text. The more ordinary explanation is that Jesus was friends with them beforehand, as implied by the Gospel of John, which states that Peter and Andrew were disciples of John the Baptist, and started following Jesus as soon as Jesus had been baptized. Albright and Mann extrapolate from Simon's and Andrew's abandonment of their nets that Matthew is emphasizing the importance of renunciation by converting to Christianity, since fishing was profitable, although required large start-up costs, and abandoning everything would have been an important sacrifice. Regardless, Simon and Andrew's abandonment of what were effectively their most important worldly possessions has been taken as a model by later Christian ascetics.