september 2024

THE ACTS OF ST. MATTHEW

Written by: D. P. Curtin

The identity of St. Matthew has been the source of considerable confusion. The Gospel accounts name him as a publican in the service of the Herodian administration in Galilee (Matt. 9:9, 10:3), before being called by Christ to his ministry (Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13). Elsewhere there is a mysterious character referred to as Levi the tax collector (Mark 2:15; Luke 5:29), son of Alphaeus (Mark 2:14), who appears in place of Matthew in some lists of the apostles. Church tradition has merged these two personalities for the sake of narrative convenience. Often, historians attempt to explain this discrepancy with the claim of a dual name, Matthew-Levi, citing various other biblical personalities who have this: Simon Peter, Thomas Didymas, Judas Iscariot, et cetera. And while this is true, these are usually Jewish names paired with Hellenic secondary names. There is no example of anyone in the first century with two Hebrew names. What is more, the church fathers reference only an apostle named Matthew (Irenaeus, Contra Haereses, 3:1; Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, 6:25; Jerome, De Viris Illustribus, III). Assuming that Matthew has been confabulated with this Levi, the patronic title “son of Alphaeus”, he was a cousin to Christ, through the brother of Joseph: Alphaeus/Cleophas/Clopas.

Matthew also stands alone amongst the early disciples of Christ in that he is accounted for independently in non-Christian sources. The Babylonian Talmud grants his name as “Mattai” and states that he was one of the five disciples of Christ (Sanhedrin, 43a), mentioned along with Nakai (Nicanor the deacon), Netzer (James the Nazarite), Buni (Nicodemus), and Toda (Thaddaeus). This Rabbinical account claims that Matthew was executed at this time, perhaps following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. While this account has no secondary gain in laying claim to this turn of events, it does not stand alone. Accounts of the death of St. Matthew are frequent in the canon of Christian apocrypha, and are commonly confused and contradictory. This text is a relatively later entry into the genre of Apostolic Romances, probably being composed sometime in the  5th to 6th century. Manuscripts only survive in Latin, Greek, and Armenian, suggesting that its distribution was limited to the Roman Empire. The manuscripts that we have also appear to be incomplete, as the text makes strange omissions and jumps in the continuity of the narrative. It is worth noting that while some apostles have a litany of literature regarding their deeds and adventures, Matthew does not. As a character of apocryphal imagination, ancient pens did not compose on his name very frequently, in contrast to Andrew, Peter, and Paul, all of whom have various works attributed to their journeys.  

While it is not certain, the content of the Acts of St. Matthew appears largely similar to an earlier Apostolic Romance, the Acts of Sts. Andrew and Matthias. For that reason, we might presume that our author was familiar with that work. It is, therefore, not surprising that there are a number of minority manuscripts that grant the name of the apostle as Matthias, not Matthew. This would also account for the confusion in the patristic tradition, as Matthew is said to have abided in Judea for some time following the foundation of the church (Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, 3.1.1). 

The ministry of St. Matthew is confused in the tradition. Eusebius, one of the earliest sources, makes note that Matthew’s time was spent exclusively in Judea, where he allegedly composed the Gospel attributed to him (Historia Ecclesiastica, 4.24.6). This is reiterated by Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, 6:5) and Irenaeus of Lyons (Contra Haereses, 3:1). No other place is attributed to Matthew at this time, which would account for the lack of folk tales about him. The Coptic account grants that he was active in the Levant before moving to Ethiopia. There he was able to appoint a bishop in a place only identified as “the city of priests” (Baba, 12). After this he returned to Judea and was executed by the Roman governor in 41 AD. A late Egyptian Gnostic tradition states that Matthew traveled to the unknown city of Myrna, which contains similar character names to those found in this text. However, it makes no attempt to offer any geographic identification.  Nicephorus reiterates the name of the city, calling it ‘Myrmene’, claiming that it is in the abode of the mythical Anthropophagi (Historia Ecclesiastica, 2:41). Similarly, the Perfetto Legendario claims that Matthew resided in Egypt and Ethiopia, residing with the Ethiopian Eunuch. 

Conversely, there is an account of Matthew having traveled east, which is noted by Pseudo-Hippolytus, who mentions his death in Parthia at a place called ‘Hieeres’. A medieval source makes the same claim, identifying the city as Hierapolis in Parthia (Dorotheus of Tyre, List of the Apostles, 8). Paulinus of Nola repeats the belief that Matthew died in Parthia (Poema, 19:81), as does St.Ambrose of Milan (Commentary on Psalm 45) and St. Isidore (De Ortu et Obitu Patrum, 76), but they mention no specific place or township.  Conversely, Persian sources say that the apostle died in Syria, at a place called ‘Gabbula’ (modern al-Jabbul), near Antioch, but repeat his distinctively Jewish ministry (Solomon of Basrah, Book of the Bee, 48). While these accounts are possible, little survives of the Persian church to grant us corroboration of these legends. 

Finally, the legend that has come down to us most vividly is that of Matthew in Ethiopia (Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica, 1.19; Rufinus, Liber de fide, 100; Clement of Alexandria, Paedogoluge, 2.1), or perhaps more accurately Nubia. As mentioned with the Persian church, there is scant surviving documentation of Nubian legend; we therefore cannot verify any information with the native churches, who would have been the successors of Matthew. However, this account features heavily in European legend. Famously, it appears in the Golden Legend, wherein Matthew travels to the city of Nadaber in Ethiopia and encounters the eunuch of Queen Candace. Just the same, the Roman Martyrology tells us it was precisely in Ethiopia that Matthew faced his death, but grants no further details. The Latin church also mentions the name of a disciple of St. Matthew, Ephigenia, a native woman converted by him during his mission there. She is a significant figure in the hagiography of the Latin church and appears as a minor saint within various Greek medieval Synaxaria, but curiously she does not appear in Ethiopian or Coptic legend. It appears that her legend is misplaced for the period, as the Nubians  did not embrace Greek culturally as a national language until the 5th century, well after the time of St. Matthew. Ergo, this legend does not help in the task of identifying Matthew’s activities. Most significantly, the Ethiopian church claims its foundation with St. Frumentius in the 4th century, not with St. Matthew at all.

This is all to say that St. Matthew is a largely historically obscure character. Traditions regarding his later life go well beyond historical verification into the realm of competing myths, none of which can be taken securely. The Nubian account is the most intriguing, as we have little information on the early church along the Nile river valley. However, this mission is out of place, as most apostolic missions were directed to areas with significant Jewish populations living in exile. For that reason, we might assume that there is little historical value in such a text, something that even the early church fathers appear to agree with. This type of romance is more valuable as a piece of ancient geographic literature, a work of proto-fiction that spoke to exotic places and peoples, but has little interest in granting details of events. If this legend contains the smallest fragment of the lived experience of  St. Matthew, it is impossible to determine with certainty based upon the limited surviving textual evidence.