ST. MATTHEW,
APOSTLE and EVANGELIST
Feast: September 21
Matthew the Apostle and
Evangelist, also called Levi, was sitting at his tax-collector's desk in Caphernaum when he was called by Christ. He followed Him at once, and also gave
a feast for Him and the other disciples. After the resurrection of Christ, while
Matthew was still in Judea before going to the district which it had fallen to
his lot to evangelize, he wrote the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Hebrew for the
sake of the Jews who had become believers. Then he went to Ethiopia and preached
the Gospel, confirming his teaching with many miracles.
By one of his greatest miracles, that of bringing
back to life the king's daughter, he converted the king and his wife together
with the whole country to the faith of Christ. When the king died, his successor Hirtacus wished to marry Iphigenia, the daughter of the former king; but she had
vowed her virginity to God, and she persevered in her holy determination. Since
the vow had been taken through Matthew's influence, Hirtacus had Matthew killed
at the altar while celebrating Mass. It was on the 21st of September that
Matthew's apostolic work was crowned with the glory of martyrdom. His body was
taken to Salerno, and later, under Pope Gregory VII, it was transferred to the
church dedicated to St. Matthew. There it is honored devoutly by a great number
of persons.
(From the Second Nocturn of Matins of the feast of St.
Matthew)
In the first century few people love the
tax-collector. Even in these days when the relation between taxer and taxed is,
no doubt, scrupulously correct, his name strikes cold. Much more was this so in
the Palestine of the first century, when it was in his interests to bully and
harry and falsify. But even the mild and honest tax-collector was not acceptable
to official Judaism: he did business with the gentile and handled his money; he
was legally impure, socially outcast. A Jewish Rabbi would be bold indeed to
invite him to join his inner circle of disciples: it would be a gesture of
defiance to the established prejudice. And so the formula 'publicans and
sinners' slipped even into the phrase-book of the evangelists and, quaintly
enough, into the Gospel of Matthew the publican. This term 'publican,' by the
way, does not accurately describe Matthew's profession but flatters it. The
Roman publicanus was a wealthy farmer of State taxes, not a humble collector (portitor).
On the other hand, we should not picture Matthew going from door to door. He had
his office in Capharnaum, Peter's home town and the headquarters of our Lord's
Galilean ministry. The place naturally had its custom house, since it lay on the
road that leads from Damascus just where, at the northwest corner of Lake
Galilee, that road passed from the territory of Herod Philip to the domains of
his brother, Herod Antipas. Not customs only but road-tolls would be calculated
and exacted here, according to a vague tariff that would leave a certain
lucrative freedom to the customs officer himself. The Pharisees might despise
it, but the trade was a profitable one and much sought after: whether it was to
be pursued honestly or dishonestly would depend on the character of the officer.
'And as Jesus passed further on, he saw Levi,
the son of Alphaeus, sitting at work in the customs-house and said to him,
"Follow me"; and he rose up and followed him' (Mark 2:14). That this was a call
to the apostolate there is no doubt-its terms too closely match those of the
call of Simon and Andrew to be otherwise (cf. Mark 1:16ff.). Yet 'Levi' does not
appear in any list of the Twelve (Mark 3:16ff.; Matthew 10:3ff.; Luke 6:14ff.;
Acts 1 :13). Now the vocation of the tax-collector is reported in the first
Gospel too, but there he is called 'Matthew' (Matthew 9:9ff.), thus identifying
him with the Matthew who appears in all the apostolic lists. The widely accepted
and most natural explanation is that Matthew and Levi are one person with two
Semitic names (not unprecedented; cf. e.g. the Machabee brothers in 1 Machabee
2:2-5). It may be that our Lord himself gave him the name Matthew (Mattai, 'gift
of God,' in Aramaic) as he gave Kepha to Simon.
This Matthew, then, got up from his registers
and henceforth--at our Lord's suggestion--took a lesson from the lilies and the
birds who never did a day's calculation in their lives (Matthew 6:25ff.). His
master was no longer Antipas, the shrewd 'fox' (Luke 13:32), but one who, unlike
the foxes, had not even a home (Matthew 8:20). The change destroyed all
Matthew's worldly prospects: Simon and Andrew might return to their fish,
waiting for them in the lake, but Matthew had thrown over a coveted business and
could never recover it. He left it gladly, it seems, and completely--at least it
was not he but Judas who kept the accounts for the apostolic group (John 13:
29).
Matthew's new style of life (he would have
called it 'improvident' once) must have wrenched his careful temperament sorely,
but this temperament was to have its almost humorous revenge as we shall shortly
discover. After the incident of his call Matthew disappears from the New
Testament except as a name in the apostolic lists. What became of him? We have a
sentence from a book by Bishop Papias of Hierapolis who was born about 70 A.D.,
and who published his Explanation of the Oracles of the Lord about 125. 'Matthew
wrote an ordered account of the oracles (of our Lord )and each interpreted these
oracles according to his ability' (Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, iii.39).
That Matthew wrote in Aramaic for converted Jews appears from other authorities
of the second and third centuries. Time had had its revenge. When the need for a
written gospel record began to be felt, upon which of the Apostles would the
choice fall? Upon one who was used to the pen, no doubt. Poor Matthew was back
where he started, but this time with an eager will and a high purpose. In
Palestine, some time between the years 40 and 50, this ex-civil servant produced
not the lively and artless Gospel of a St Mark but the orderly,
almost
ledger-like, treatise which we know as 'The Gospel according to St Matthew.'
For
if we are to judge from our surviving Greek edition of it, whose substantial
identity with its Aramaic original there is no reason to doubt, Matthew's
mathematical temperament has reasserted itself with a certain arithmetical
neatness. Hence the seven parables of the Kingdom, the seven woes for the
Pharisees, seven invocations of the Lord's Prayer, the probable number of seven
Beatitudes. So, too, with the number five: five disputes with the Pharisees, the
five loaves, five talents and above all the five books into which the body of
his Gospel is clearly divided. And then, as we might expect, a sign of special
knowledge on the financial side. Thus the 'denarius' of Mark and Luke becomes
'the coin of the tribute'--a customs officer has his own way of looking at these
things. So also, though Mark and Luke omit it, we find the incident of the
Temple tax in the first Gospel complete with its little technicalities of
indirect tax and poll tax, its 'didrachmas' and its 'staler.'
And so Matthew's old trade entered a new
service: the accountant became an evangelist; the ledger turned into a Gospel.
It is not surprising that he alone records his Master's words: 'Every scholar
whose learning is of the kingdom of heaven . . . knows how to bring both new and
old things out of his treasure-house' (13:52). For there is no poor tool of ours
that God's service will not perfect and dignify.
The first
Gospel, the church's favorite, is Matthew's memorial: the rest of his apostolic
work is lost in the mists of contradiction. That he preached the gospel to the
Jews in Palestine for perhaps fifteen years after the crucifixion is fairly sure
(Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, iii.24.265), but confusion of his name with
that of Matthias (Acts 1:26) has left us with a varying tradition: Ethiopia,
Parthia, Macedonia are all mentioned and even an apostolate among the cannibals.
It is commonly but not unanimously affirmed he died a martyr's death;
but we
know for certain that he lived a martyr's life-and that is enough.
Read more.....St. Matthew, Apostle - Evangelist
Pray the.........Liturgy of the Hours
