St. Matthew

St. Matthew, also called St. Matthew the Evangelist, St. Matthew the Apostle, or Levi, (flourished 1st century CE, Palestine; Western feast day September 21, Eastern feast day November 16), one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ and the traditional author of the first Synoptic Gospel (the Gospel According to Matthew).

According to Matthew 9:9 and Mark 2:14, Matthew was sitting by the customs house in Capernaum (near modern Almagor, Israel, on the Sea of Galilee) when Jesus called him into his company. Assuming that the identification of Matthew with Levi is correct, Matthew (probably meaning “Yahweh’s Gift”) would appear to be the Christian name of Levi (called by Mark “Levi the son of Alphaeus”), who had been employed as a tax collector in the service of Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee. Because Levi’s occupation was one that earned distrust and contempt everywhere, the scribes of the Pharisees criticized Jesus on seeing him eat with tax collectors and sinners, whereupon Jesus answered, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:15–17). According to Luke 5:29, the aforementioned dinner was given by Levi in his house after his call.

Other than naming Matthew in the list of Apostles, usually pairing him with St. Thomas, the New Testament offers scant and uncertain information about him. Outside the New Testament, a statement of importance about him is the passage from the Apostolic Father Papias of Hierapolis preserved by Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea: “So then Matthew composed the Oracles in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as he could.” The Gospel According to Matthew was certainly written for a Jewish-Christian church in a strongly Jewish environment, but that this Matthew is definitely the Synoptic author is seriously doubted. Tradition notes his ministry in Judaea, after which he supposedly missioned to the East, suggesting Ethiopia and Persia. Legend differs as to the scene of his missions and as to whether he died a natural death or a martyr’s. Matthew’s relics were reputedly discovered in Salerno (Italy) in 1080. His symbol is an angel, and he is a patron saint of tax collectors and accountants.

IN THE LANDwhere Jesus lived there was among the Jews one class of people whom all other Jews despised.  This class was the publicans, or tax-gatherers, who worked for the Roman government.    The Jews hated the Roman government because they wished to be an independent nation, having a Jewish ruler over them.  For this reason they were eagerly awaiting the time when the kingdom of God should come.  They believed the kingdom of God would set up in the same country as that in which David used to live and rule.  And they expected to become the greatest people in all the world when that kingdom should be set up.  Any Jew who was friendly with the Roman government they hated, because they thought he was not being true to his own nation.

For many years the Jews had believed God would send them a King who would deliver them from the rule of stronger nations.  They did not understand when the prophets taught of Jesus’ coming to earth that he would come to free them from their greatest enemy, Satan.  They seemed to forget that they needed freedom from sin’s bondage more than they needed freedom from the rule of the heathen kings.

But the Jews who were more friendly toward the Romans, and who worked for the Roman government, were called publicans.  They took the tax money from the Jews, which the ruler at Rome demanded of them.  And often they took more money than the Roman ruler called for.  In this manner they stole from the people, and became very rich themselves.  And the people hated them, and called them sinners.

Not all the publicans robbed the people by asking too much tax money from them.  But because many of them did this, the people believed that all of them were guilty of such wrong-doing.  And they called every publican a sinner.

One day while Jesus was passing along a street in the city of Capernaum he saw a man named Matthew sitting at a publican’s table, taking the tax money from the people.  Although Matthew was a publican, whom other Jews despised, Jesus saw the heart of this man and he knew Matthew would make a good disciple.  So he called this publican to follow him, and Matthew gladly left his money-table and obeyed the call.