Apostle (Latter Day Saints) he chose and ordained (John 15:16) to be his closest disciples during his ministry on earth, and whom he sent forth to represent him after his ascension into heaven. The calling of an apostle is to be a special witness of the name of Jesus Christ in all the world, particularly of his divinity and of his bodily resurrection from the dead (; ). Twelve men with this high calling constitute an administrative council in the work of the ministry. When a vacancy occurred with the death of Judas Iscariot, Matthias was divinely appointed to that special office as a
Judas Iscariot was well-known among Christians in antiquity and was often told in competition with the two conflicting stories from the New Testament. According to the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, which was probably written in the fourth century AD, Judas was overcome with remorse and went home to tell his wife, who was roasting a chicken on a spit over a charcoal fire, that he was going to kill himself, because he knew Jesus would rise from the dead and, when he did, he would punish him. Judas's wife laughed and told him that Jesus could no more rise from the dead