“As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax office; and he said to him, 'Follow me.' And he rose and followed him.” (Mt 9:9).

Matthew the evangelist was a tax collector (or “publican”) before his call to follow Jesus. As a tax collector, Matthew could read and write competently. Most people, at that time in history, were illiterate or could read and write only a little.

Matthew was also called Levi (Mk 2:14), a Jewish name. Matthew was both a tax collector for the Romans and a Jew. For this reason, he was something of an outcast in devout Jewish society; the scribes and Pharisees treated Jewish tax collectors unkindly and would not even eat a meal with them (Mk 2:16).

After Christ's Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension, Matthias was chosen to replace Judas Iscariot as the twelfth Apostle. After Pentecost, the Twelve Apostles remained in Jerusalem and the surrounding area. They did not yet travel to distant lands to preach the Gospel. At the time of the appointment of the first Deacons, the Twelve Apostles were still together.

“And the twelve summoned the body of the disciples and said, 'It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brethren, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.' ” (Acts 2-4).

After the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, one of the first Deacons, there was a persecution: “And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.” (Acts 8:1). Notice that even though many disciples were scattered by the persecution in Jerusalem, they still remained in the general area. Jerusalem is found within the area of Judea, and Samaria is just to the north of Judea. But the Apostles were not scattered by this persecution; they remained in Jerusalem.

By the time that St. James the greater was beheaded by Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:1-3), only Peter and James the Less were left in Jerusalem and the surrounding area. If other the Apostles had been in Jerusalem at that time, Herod would have tried to arrest them, just as he arrested Peter. After his escape from jail, Peter fled to Rome. The Apostle James the Less remained always in Jerusalem, for he was the leader of that community (Acts 12:17); James was the Bishop of Jerusalem.

At some point between the martyrdom of Stephen and the martyrdom of James the greater, the Apostles began to travel to distant lands to preach the Gospel. But they did not leave all at once. They left one or two at a time to preach the Gospel in distant lands. It might have seemed to some of the disciples that eventually all of the Apostles would leave. As one Apostle after another left the area, the Christians of Judea became anxious to have a written record of the Gospel message. Most of the first Christians of Judea were converts from the Jewish faith. Those among them who could read and write were most fluent in Hebrew. The schools they attended were taught by the Jewish priests. They needed someone to write the Gospel in Hebrew. Matthew was the obvious choice. He was, like them, a Jew turned Christian. He could read and write fluently (an essential skill for both tax collectors and Gospel writers).

It was not Matthew's idea to write the Gospel. He was prevailed upon by the Hebraic Christians of Judea to write the Gospel in their language, Hebrew, before he left to preach in distant lands. According to Eusebius:

“Matthew had begun by preaching to Hebrews; and when he made up his mind to go to others too, he committed his own gospel to writing in his native tongue, so that for those with whom he was no longer present the gap left by his departure was filled by what he wrote.”
(Eusebius, History of the Church, 3.24.6-7).

Eusebius was Bishop of Caesarea, a student of Pamphilus, and an early Church historian. He lived from approximately A.D. 260 to 340. Saint Jerome was born roughly about the same time that Eusebius died, about A.D. 340 or so. Jerome also states that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew.

“Matthew, also called Levi, apostle and aforetimes publican, composed a gospel of Christ at first published in Judea in Hebrew for the sake of those of the circumcision who believed, but this was afterwards translated into Greek though by what author is uncertain. The Hebrew itself has been preserved until the present day in the library at Caesarea which Pamphilus so diligently gathered. I have also had the opportunity of having the volume described to me by the Nazarenes of Beroea, a city of Syria, who use it.”
(Jerome, Lives of Illustrious Men, chapter 3).

Saint Jerome states that the Hebrew version of Matthew was still in existence during his lifetime in Pamphilus' library at Caesarea. Eusebius was Bishop of Caesarea (about a generation or two before Jerome). Eusebius studied under Pamphilus at Caesarea and he also spoke of Matthew's Gospel in the original Hebrew. Jerome also knew that the Hebrew version of Matthew's Gospel was in use during his lifetime by a certain group of Christians in Syria.

And Saint Jerome gives us further evidence that Matthew's Gospel was originally written in Hebrew. He tells us that copies of the Hebrew version were to be found in Alexandria:

“Pantaenus …was sent to India by Demetrius bishop of Alexandria, where he found that Bartholomew, one of the twelve apostles, had preached the advent of the Lord Jesus according to the gospel of Matthew, and on his return to Alexandria he brought this with him written in Hebrew characters.”
(Jerome, Lives of Illustrious Men, chapter 36).

The name Pantaenus refers to Saint Pantaenus, who lived about 100 years before Eusebius. The name “India,” during the time of Pantaenus, was used to refer to various areas east of the Red Sea, including Arabia, Persia, and Parthia, but not present-day India.

The Gospel of Matthew, according to Jerome and Eusebius, was written before the other Gospels. Matthew wrote it for the first generation of Christians, who lived in Judea and were mostly (former) Jews. He wrote it before he left for distant lands to preach the Gospel and before Peter left Jerusalem for Rome.

The Gospel of Matthew was written between three to six years after the Ascension of Christ, during the reign of the emperor Gaius [Caligula]. See the author's book, Important Dates in the Lives of Jesus and Mary, chapter 11, for a detailed chronology of the early Church, the Gospels, and Paul's missionary journeys.


-- by Ronald L Conte Jr

(Portions of this article have been adapted from the author's book, Important Dates in the Lives of Jesus and Mary, chapter 11.)