MATTHEW (MarOcaos ; Lachmann, Alford, Ma08dios, with B. D. ; Matthaus). Few things are more suggestive to the thoughtful mind than the scantiness of our knowledge of the lives and actions of the apostles and evangelists of our Lord. Of several of the twelve nothing beyond the names has reached us ; others are barely mentioned in the gospel narrative, and that chiefly in the way of blame or remonstrance. Of the very chiefest of them, the thing to be noted is, not what we know, but what we do not know. Of their work in the evangelization of the world little or nothing remains beyond vague traditions. St. Matthew is no ex ception to this rule. Once, and once only, he appears in the gospel history. He is called from the receipt of custom,' when the Lord ' beside you breezy lake Bade the meek publican his gainful seat forsake.' (Keble's Christian Year. St. Matthew's Day.') He leaves all at His command.— ' At once he rose, and left his gold ; His treasure and his heart transferred ;'—./b.
makes a great feast in Christ's honour, and then disappears, nor is ever seen again except in the catalogues of the apostles. Tradition, as we shall see, adds more ; but its statements are inconsistent, and the sharpness of their definitions, increasing the further we remove from the facts, inspires little confidence. Matthew had also the name of Levi, Mark ii. 14 ; Luke v. 27 ; and, according to Mark, he was the son of Alphceus, who has been identi fied by many able commentators with the father of James the Less, Mark iii. i8 (Euthym. Zigab., Schleusner, Paulus, Bretschneider, Grotius, Ewald, Doddridge). In the catalogues—Mark iii. 18 ; Luke vi. r5—he is coupled with Thomas, which has given rise to the not altogether unfounded conjec ture, that Matthew was the twin brother of Thomas (p)RITI =a twin), whose real name, according to Euseb. H. E., i. 13, was Judas, and that they were both brethren of our Lord' (Donaldson, yashar, p. to; cf. Matt. xiii. 55 ; Mark vi. 3). This would account for Matthew's immediate obedience to the call of Christ, but is hardly consistent with the indefiniteness of the words with which he is intro duced—dv0pwrov Mar°. Xey6A., Matt. ix. 9 ; TE Xthpriv Aeulv, Luke v. 27—or the unbelief of our Lord's brothers, John vii. 5. The identity of profession, the place and circumstances of the call, and its immediate consequences, and even the very words in which it is recorded, leave no reasonable doubt that the three evangelists are de scribing the same event, and that Levi and Matthew are one and the same person. The grounds on
which this has been questioned are very insufficient. IIeracleon, as quoted by Clem. Alex. (Strom. iv. it), mentions Levi as well as Matthew among the early teachers who did not suffer martyrdom. Ori gen also (Contr. Cels., i., sec. 62 [48]) speaks of
TEA6pn5 fixoXouOijaas
together with Matthew the publican ;' but the names AEMS and Aeuts are by no means identical, and there is a hesitation about his language which shows that even then the tradition was hardly trustworthy. The attempt of Theod. Hase (Bibl. Breen., torn. v. P. 475) to identify Levi with the apostle
is an example of misapplied ingenuity which de serves little attention (cf. Wolf. Cur. ad Marc. ii. 14). The distinction between Levi and Matthew has, however, been maintained by Grotius (though he acknowledges that the voice of antiquity is against him, et sane congruent circumstantix'), Michaelis, De Wette, Sieffert, Ewald, etc. But it is in the highest degree improbable that two publi cans should have been called by Christ in the same words, at the same place, and with the same atten dant circumstances and consequences ; and that, while one became an apostle, the other dropt en tirely out of memory. Still less can we acquiesce in the hypothesis of Sieffert (Ur:J.*. d. erst. Zenon. Ev., P. 59) and Ewald (Drei Erse. Ev., p. 344 Christus, pp. 289, 32r), that the name Matthew' is due to the Greek editor of St. Matthew's Gos pel, who substituted it by an error in the narrative of the call of Levi. On the other hand, their iden tity was assumed by Eusebius and Jerome, and most ancient writers, and has been accepted by the soundest commentators (Tischendorf, Meyer, Ne ander, Lardner, Ellicott, etc. etc.) The double name only supplies a difficulty to those who are resolved to find such everywhere in the gospel nar rative. It is analogous to what we find in the case of Simon Peter, John Mark, Paul, Jude, etc., which may all admit of the same explanation, and be regarded as indicating a crisis in the spiritual life of the individual, and his passing into new exter nal relations. Matthew, like Matthias, according to Gesenius, is a contraction of Mattathias, and=
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