01 — Foundations
The historical and scriptural ground on which the witness of St. Matthew the Evangelist stands: the world of the Galilean tax-collectors into which Christ reached, and the call at the customs-post that turned the publican Levi into the apostle Matthew. Of the man the Gospels record almost nothing beyond this call and his place in the lists of the Twelve; these files establish what can be said and how securely, beginning from the threefold Gospel witness that identifies Matthew with Levi.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle and Evangelist)
Matthew is the apostle whom the Church remembers above all as the man called from the tax-booth — the despised collaborator with Rome whom Christ summoned with a single word, and who rose at once and followed (Matt. 9:9). This section sets the social and religious context of the telōnēs, the tax-farmer of Roman Galilee whose trade made him an outcast among his own people; examines the call narrative as it stands in all three Synoptics and the long tradition that identifies the “Matthew” of the First Gospel with the “Levi” of Mark and Luke; and locates the man within the company of the Twelve. The figure who emerges is paradoxical and deliberately so: the most despised of sinners made an evangelist of the Kingdom, the tax-collector turned author of the most Jewish of the Gospels.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Levi the Publican | The world of the Roman tax-farmers; the telōnēs and the social and religious stigma of the publican in first-century Galilee; “tax-collectors and sinners” as a Gospel category; and what the office tells us about the man Christ called. |
| The Call of Matthew | The call at the customs-post in all three Synoptics (Matt. 9:9; Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27–28); the identification of Matthew with Levi; the banquet that follows and “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners”; and Matthew’s place in the lists of the Twelve. |
See Also
- The Gospel of Matthew — the book the called publican is held to have written
- The Ecclesial Gospel — the Gospel’s distinctive concern with mercy toward sinners and the Church
- Authorship and Dating — what can be known of the man behind the Gospel
- Holy Scripture — the Gospels in the canon of Scripture
References
- The Holy Gospel according to Matthew (and parallels in Mark and Luke). Cited by chapter and verse.
- John Chrysostom. Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew. Trans. George Prevost, rev. M. B. Riddle. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I, Vol. 10. Buffalo: Christian Literature Company, 1888.
- Eusebius of Caesarea. The Ecclesiastical History. Trans. Arthur C. McGiffert. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol. 1. 1890.