The Bible says that Matthew left everything to follow Jesus. Tax collectors at that time were known as dishonest and corrupt people. Other scholars suspect that the Nazarenes only supplied Jerome with their own translations and commentary on Matthews Gospel. 3.2) that the Gospel according to the Hebrews was associated with Matthew. For a recent effort to argue that plural Aramaic and Greek sources underlie the double tradition, see Maurice Casey, An Aramaic Approach to Q: Sources for the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Mark 2:13-17. The diversity of text-forms evident in Matthews biblical citations and allusions, however, disproves the notion that the evangelist was reliant on one testimonium source. Impossible!"[3]. But Levis guests were of his social ilksinners and other tax collectors.The Pharisees (we get our word pharisaical meaning self-righteous; hypocritical from this sect in ancient Judaism) were always watching whatever Jesus did and said and they followed him to Levis house and were appalled to see Him eating and talking with tax collectors and sinners.Several of Jesus other disciples were near. Following Jesus Meant Matthew Lost His Lucrative Tax Collector Career. Based on Papiass title. Matthew, the Apostle of Yahshua (Popularly known as Jesus Christ) is best known as the publican or tax collector. Jesus asked him to be a *disciple (Matthew 9:9). At best, they were learned and prudent. For the theory that Matthew was either the founder of a putative Matthean community or the source of their traditions, see Pesch, Levi-Matthus, 56; Gundry. [41], Papiass notice that Matthew addressed a Palestinian Jewish audience in their own vernacular language (i.e., Aramaic) was repeated in subsequent Patristic literature (e.g., Irenaeus, haer. While He was on the cross, He cried out, "Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani," which means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?". Mich. 7.6; Is. Rudolf Pesch, LeviMatthus (Me 2.14/Mt 9.9; 10.3). What created confusion was that Irenaeus reported that Jewish Christ followers who were called Ebionites or poor ones had a special affinity for Matthews Gospel, just as Marcion was inclined toward Lukes Gospel and Valentinus toward Johns Gospel (haer. Indeed, Papias commented on a story about the Lords encounter with a condemned woman that Eusebius located in this Gospel (cf. Meier, The Vision of Matthew, 24; Luz, Matthew 820, 32, 32n.14. Jesus did not call us because of our righteousness or gifting. 1) The name of the collector whom Jesus summons is not "Levi, son of Alphaeus", but "Matthew" (9,9). The Calling of Saint Matthew depicts the moment from Matthew 9:9 when Jesus passes by Matthew, a tax collector, and says 'Follow me.' Matthew (also called Levi) did so and became one of Jesus . And he got up and followed him. It is not surprising he watched Jesus carefully and wrote down the first of the four Gospels, the biographies of Jesus of Nazareth. Acts 1:1-2 appears to tie the two books to the same author. Indeed, Levi is Israel's priestly tribe, as stated in the Bible: "The priests the Levites the priests the Levites the priests the Levites" (Deuteronomy 17:9, 17:18, 18:1). According to Luke 5:29, the aforementioned dinner was given by Levi in his house after his call. Vir. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?, On hearing this, Jesus said to them, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. [1] Regardless of how this name change is explained, this toll collector may have been trained in accounting and documenting records and may have been functionally bilingual or trilingual in order to converse with travellers moving between the territories of Philip and Antipas. h.e. [19] Josef Krzinger, Papias von Hierapolis und die Evangelien die Neuen Testaments (Regensberg: Pustet, 1983), 10-11, 4445; Gundry, Matthew, 614; idem, The Apostolically Johannine Pre-Papian Tradition Concerning the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, in The Old is Better: New Testament Essays in Support of Traditional Interpretations, WUNT 178 (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 56; cf. Luke, also, describes his calling: After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. 135). Supported by: Matthias was chosen to be one of the Apostles after Judas of Iscariot had betrayed Jesus and died ( Acts 1:26 NIV). Jesus was very popular in the Capernaum area where He and Levi lived and it is sure Levi had seen and heard the Nazarene. Religion is "a matter between every man and his maker, in which no other, & far less the public, [has] a . [1] The fact that three of the four Gospels recount the calling by Jesus of the tax collector Levi is important. "Follow me," he said to him. Teilband 1, ed. St. Matthew (Matthew 9:10) modestly says, "in the house," keeping himself as much as possible in the background.St. [28] On the contrary, there are cases when dialektos is translated as a language even when it is not preceded by an article (e.g., Philo, Mos. From the place where he collected taxes near the Sea of Galilee (probably on the outskirts of Capernaum), Matthew may often have heard Jesus speak and must have known about his many miracles. [33] For lexical discussion and debate about the term logion in Papiass vocabulary (cf. ; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 56869. 13:4; 19:1; 53:1; 62:3; 2 Clem. Matthew belonged to a family of tax gatherers, or publicans, but was himself a customs collector in Capernaum, where he lived. 3.2).[48]. There are a number of Patristic and Medieval quotations that purportedly derive from a text that was commonly dubbed as the, James R. Edwards has revived the older position that Matthew was the author of the, Conversely, Papias may not have known the. The meaning in Hebrew of the word day always means a 24 hour period of time. So it is more than probable that Matthew or someone else translated Matthews biography of Christ into Greek in order to spread the Good News beyond the Jews. [27] The most natural reading is that a language was meant by the combination of the noun dialektos, especially when modified with the name of an ethnic group (cf. ill. 3; Tract. F. C. Burkitt, Levi Son of Alphaeus JTS 28 (1927): 27374; Metzger, Textual Commentary, 78; Brent Nongbri, Matthew and Levi. Benjamin Bacon (Studies in Matthew [New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1930], 3940) conjectures that the textual variant in Mark 2:14 predated the composition of Matthews Gospel, leading a pre-Matthean scribe who was transmitting a list of the Twelve that was originally independent of Mark 3:1619 to preface the name James the son of Alphaeus with the title the toll collector. The author of Matthews Gospel, however, copied this list in Matthew 10:24 and wrongly took this scribal insertion in reference to Matthew since James was immediately preceded by Matthew in the list of names. 1.9.9). St. Matthew, also called St. Matthew the Evangelist, St. Matthew the Apostle, or Levi, (flourished 1st century ce, Palestine; Western feast day September 21, Eastern feast day November 16), one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ and the traditional author of the first Synoptic Gospel (the Gospel According to Matthew). [2] B. Matthew (Levi) who wrote the first of the Gospels did write it in the Hebrew tongue which at that time was Aramaic. Another option is that Papias was referring to a lost source. in Mt. In many Western Christian traditions, there are 12 days of Christmas, culminating around . He was a man of moderate wealth, the only one of any means belonging to the apostolic corps. Levi had to keep very accurate records. 3.27.4). Early Christian CommunionWine or Mingled Wine? This quote from Powerss monograph on the Synoptic Problem may presume too much about the literary skills, and psychological motivations, of a relatively low-level functionary operating a toll booth on the outskirts of the Galilean village of Capernaum (Matt 9:1, 9; cf. When Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 30.1; Jerome, Matt. Warren Carter underscores how Papiass erroneous supposition served to underline the antiquity of this gospel and link it to the apostles.. See John P. Meier, The Vision of Matthew: Christ, Church, and Morality in the First Gospel(New York: Paulist, 1978), 2425. A minority view during the Patristic period was that Levi and Matthew were separate individuals. 3.11.7), which is hard to reconcile with the Ebionitess denial of the virginal conception of Jesus (1.26.2; 3.21.1; 5.1.3; contra Matt 1:23). Francis Watson, Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 126. In this post, let us take a deeper . For two reasons *Jews did not like the men who did that work. DepartmentBldg Tucson, AZ 85721 TEL 520-621-6897 FAX 520-626-9014. I. Baum, Ein aramischer Urmatthus, 26364. On the other hand, after scrutinizing the onomastic data compiled by Tal Ilan. Other than naming Matthew in the list of Apostles, usually pairing him with St. Thomas, the New Testament offers scant and uncertain information about him. [45] Luomanen, Jewish-Christian Sects, 100101; Kok, Gospel according to the Hebrews, 41; Gregory, Gospel according to the Hebrews, 47, 47n.28. Some Patristic interpreters guessed that the evangelists Mark and Luke called Matthew by his less popular name Levi out of deference for his apostolic status, while Matthew himself had the humility to confess that he was once employed in a disreputable profession under his better-known name (e.g., John Chrysostom, When Origen of Alexandria searched for a parallel for why Saul was surnamed Paul in the preface of his. They were dishonest and were also seen as. Matthew's " original name, Levi, suggests that he was a man of the priestly tribe." Levi means " adhesion ." But Matthew was re-Christened " gift " or "given," a profound switch for a tax. Beth: And it's in a chapel with two other paintings by Caravaggio all about Matthew. Christoph Markschies und Jens Schrter (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck 2012), 62354. However, Bacons hypothesis depends on his suppositions that the source of Matthew 10:24 was not simply Mark 3:1619 and that the author of Matthews Gospel did not just alter Marks order by moving Thomas before Matthew. Sextus Julius AfricanusWhy Did The Magi Come ? But Pilate replied, I imagine, "What happens in Jerusalem, stays in . Legend differs as to the scene of his missions and as to whether he died a natural death or a martyrs. 16:18) Mark and Luke were probably stunned by Jesus' inclusion of a hated tax collector in His Twelve. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? On hearing this, Jesus said,It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. Th. [21] Krzinger, Papias, 1214, 2122, 5256; Gundry, Matthew, xxixxii, 61820; idem, Pre-Papian Tradition, 6364, 6768. The other Eleven were ordinary men. Matthias was the only one who was not chosen by Jesus . 18) or Origen (cf. The double tradition is mostly comprised of sayings, but there are a couple of narratives (e.g., Matt 4:111/Luke 4:113; Matt 8:513/Luke 7:110). Follow me, he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. The whole crowd came to him, and he taught them. December 29, 2020 7:00 AM EST. [33] Some scholars equate Matthews oracles with the hypothetical sources Q or M supposedly underlying the double tradition shared by Matthew and Luke and the singly attested traditions in Matthews Gospel respectively. Perhaps they did so because Levis call narrative closely resembled the summons of the first four apostles to discipleship in Mark 1:1620 and Alpheus was already remembered as the father of one of the apostles in Mark 3:18. Hence, Eusebius corrected Irenaeus by substituting the Gospel according to the Hebrews as the Ebionitess preferred Gospel (h.e. A survey of the ancient traditions about how the evangelist Matthew wrote his Gospel in Aramaic for a Jewish audience before it was translated into Greek suggests that the modern assumptions about the Apostles fluency in Greek or education in rhetorical composition may not have necessarily been shared by the Patristic intelligentsia. It is beyond the scope of this paper to determine why Matthew was substituted for Levi.