Matthew

(first century)

   Apostle and Historian.

   The name Matthew appears in the Gospel lists of the twelve Apostles of Jesus. According to the First Gospel, Matthew was a tax-collector who left his livelihood to follow Jesus. However, in the Gospels of mark and luke, the same story is told of levi. Since the time of Irenaeus, the First Gospel has been ascribed to the Apostle Matthew. papias wrote that Matthew wrote the ‘logia’ (sayings) in Hebrew and this may perhaps refer to the Gospel. In any event, most modern scholars believe that the author of the First Gospel knew Mark’s Gospel and it does seem unlikely that one of the original apostles would be so dependent on a secondary historical work.

   The Gospel emphasises how Jesus ful- filled the prophecies of the Hebrew scriptures and it contains a full summary of Jesus’s ethical teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. There are various legends about Matthew the Apostle. According to eusebius of caesarea, he preached to the Jews and, according to the Roman martyrology, he died for his faith in Ethiopia.

   J.C. Fenton, The Gospel According to St Matthew (1963);

   R.T. France, The Gospel according to Matthew: An Introduction and Commentary (1985);

   B.M. Metzger and M.D. Coogan (eds), The Oxford Companion to the Bible (1993).