Matthew

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

an apostle of Jesus, almost certainly the same as Levi, the son of Alpheus. (See Matt. ix: 9-13, Mark ii: 14-16, and Luke v: 27.) He was a "publican" i. e., a taxgatherer-who sat at the receipt of custom at Capernaum on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Taxgatherers are rarely popular men; and, moreover, the money which Matthew raised was not for the Jewish, but for the Roman government, he was, therefore, regarded as outside the pale of society, and his companions, when he was called to the apostleship, were "publicans and sinners." After his call he figures in all the lists of apostles. (Matt. x: 3; Mark iii: 18; Acts i: 13.) Clement of Alexandria represents him as dying a natural death; much later tradition death of his brother Ernest. He was represents him as having been martyred. elected King of Hungary in 1607, King The Gospel according to St. Matthew, the first of the four Gospels in arrangement, and long most universally held to have been the first in point of publication, though it is more probable that Mark came first and Matthew only second in point of time. Eusebius fixes the date of its publication in the third year of Caligula, A. D. 41, but lived too late really to know; Irenæus is in favor of a later date, apparently 60. Rationalistic writers, who disbelieve in prophecy, place it after the destruction of Jerusalem. In 1771 Williams attacked the authenticity of the first two chapters. He was followed by Stroth, Hesse, Ammon, Schleiermacher, Norton, etc. They were defended by Fleming, Griesbach, Hug, Credner, Paulus, Kuinoel, Neander, etc. All the old manuscripts and versions contain them, and they are quoted by the fathers of the 2d and 3d centuries.