Saint Matthew

Saint Matthew was a Galilean. He was also known as Levi (Mark 2,14; Luke 5,27; Matt.9,9). As taxgatherer at Capharnaum, he collected customs duties for King Herod. Although a Jew, he was despised by the Pharisees, who hated all "publicans", as the tax-collectors were called. One day while Matthew was sitting at the place of toll, Jesus passed by and said to him: "Follow Me". Matthew immediately arose and followed Him and made a great feast for Him and His disciples in his house. He accompanied Jesus up to His Passion, and was a witness of His Resurrection and Ascension. After the Decent of the Holy Ghost, he preached the Gospel in Palestine. Later on, he went to Ethiopia, according to one tradition, and to the countries south of the Caspian Sea, according to another. The Church celebrates his feast on the 21st of September. His tomb is in the Cathedral of Amalfi.

St. Matthew, Author of the First Gospel According to the testimony of all antiquity, St. Matthew wrote the Gospel which bears his name. Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, who was acquainted with St. John the Evangelist, says: "Matthew wrote the Oracles (Logia) of the Lord in the Hebrew language; but everyone interpreted them as best he could" (Quoted by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, III,39,16). The "Hebrew language" is not the old Hebrew in which most of the books of the Old Testament were written, but the language of Palestine in Our Lord's time, that is, Aramaic, a dialect very akin to the ancient Hebrew. In this dialect Matthew had preached to his countrymen, and it was but natural that he should choose it as the vehicle for his written message. By the term Logia (Oracles) Papias does not mean a mere collection of Our Lord's sayings, but a work substantially identical with the Gospel of St. Matthew. The expressions "Logia of the Lord" and "words and works of the Lord" are used synonymously by Papias, as we know from his remark about St. Mark. Besides, there is no record anywhere of a work by St. Matthew which contained only sayings or sermons of Jesus. St. Irenaeus, who died about 202 A.D. and was well acquainted with the writings of Papias, says: "Matthew published his Gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue" (Adversus Haereses, III,1,1). He evidently understood Papias to mean by the Logia of Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew. The conviction that St. Matthew wrote the first Gospel wa so firmly established in the early Church that no one questioned its authenticity.

In the Gospel itself there are a number of indications which throw light on the personality of the author. He is extremely well informed about Jewish matters -geographical, historical, religious, and cultural- and presumes an equal knowledge in his readers. No one can read the Sermon on the Mount or the account of the great conflict between Christ and the Scribes and Pharisees without gaining the conviction that the writer was a Jew of Palestine writing for the Jews of Palestine.

Purpose of St. Matthew's Gospel.

"The Most Important Book in the History of the World ".

(to be continued)