Saint Matthew

One day, as he was sitting in his office on the shore of the Sea of Gennesaret, Our Lord, who was passing by, had pity on him, and, looking at him with an eye of mercy, said to him: "Follow me."

At these words, Matthew was filled with a heavenly light that made him know in an instant the vanity of all earthly things; he saw that his happiness consisted in following Jesus Christ. He therefore rose immediately, abandoned his employment, and began to follow this great Master.

This teaches us with what promptness we must obey the voice of God when He knocks at the door of our heart and calls us to His service. Saint Matthew did not deliberate, did not consult anyone, did not ask for time, did not demand miracles, did not propose to test himself beforehand to see if he could follow the One who was calling him; the presence of those with whom he was did not embarrass him; his riches did not hold him back either; in a word, neither human respect, nor attachment to his fortune, nor any of the considerations that ordinarily keep one in the world, were capable of making him delay for a moment in giving himself entirely and without reserve to Jesus Christ. This is the manner in which we must correspond to grace.

The Gospel further teaches us that after his conversion he held a feast in his house, to which he invited Jesus Christ and several publicans with him. In his ardent zeal, he desired to make Our Lord known and to procure for others the same grace that he himself had received.

We also find in his own Gospel a beautiful example of his humility: in listing the twelve Apostles whom Jesus Christ chose from among his disciples, he confesses that he had been but a publican, in order to make the excellence of the grace by which he had been called to the apostolate appear all the more. This is all that the sacred Text teaches us about our holy Evangelist.

After the Ascension of Our Lord into heaven, and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, he began to preach, with the others, the Mysteries of a crucified God; and, when they dispersed throughout the earth and left Judea, which they had endeavored to enlighten and convert first, Ethiopia fell to his lot. It i s believed l'Éthiopie Principal place of mission and martyrdom of the apostle. that by this time he had already written his Gospel: he composed it i n Hebrew, or son Évangile Sacred text written by the apostle. rather in Syriac, which was the vulgar tongue of the Hebrews, in order to confirm those of that nation who had already received the faith. Saint Epiphanius says that he wrote it by order of the other Apostles.

The distribution of the provinces having been made, Saint Matthew immediately took the road to Ethiopia to bring the faith there. He passed through Egypt, where his ardor in announcing the law of grace allowed him to overcome an infinity of obstacles that presented themselves there. He showed the way to heaven to these peoples, as much by the holiness of his life as by the strength of his doctrine and the brilliance of his miracles. Clement of Alexandria says that he was very given to contemplation, that he led a very austere life, that he ate no meat, and that he lived only on herbs, roots, and wild fruits. From Egypt, he went to Ethiopia, to the city of Naddaver, a city considerable for its population and the metropolis of the Ethiopian kingdom, where he was received by that eunuch of Queen Candace whom Saint Philip the Deacon had baptized, as is reported in the Acts of the Apostles. He found in this city two magicians, named Zaroes and Arfaxat, who, by their prestidigitation, deceived these poor idolaters, causing them illnesses and then healing them, in order to have them render, through these false miracles, respects that were not due to them. When they saw that the Apostle was uncovering their sorcery and disabusing the people, they brought forth, by their diabolical art, two terrifying dragons to cast terror throughout the city; but Saint Matthew, having made the sign of the cross, rendered these animals as gentle as lambs and forced them to return to their caves. This wonder began to reassure the inhabitants against the charms of these impostors and gave the holy Apostle the means to announce the Savior to them, by whose virtue he had performed this prodigy: so that many were converted by his preaching and embraced the Christian religion. But another miracle, much more striking than the first, allowed him to make even more considerable progress and finished destroying the credit of the two magicians. Death had taken the king's son, named Euphranor, and Saint Matthew, having invoked the name of Jesus Christ over the body of the deceased, immediately restored him to life.

This wonder was the cause of the conversion of the king, the queen, the royal household, and the entire province, who all received holy baptism. What marvelously consoled our Apostle was that Princess Iphigen ia, daughter of thi princesse Iphigénie Daughter of the King of Ethiopia, consecrated to virginity by Matthew. s same king, who was a prodigy of beauty and wisdom, having heard him speak of the happiness of the Virgins who choose Jesus Christ as their Spouse, resolved to keep her virginity and to consecrate to God alone all the inclinations of her heart. Her example having excited many other young girls to do the same, the Saint advised them all to withdraw together into a private house, to live there, under the guidance of the princess, as the faithful Spouses of the Son of God.

Some writers have inferred from this that Saint Matthew is the author of The Veil and the Consecration of Virgins. But this illustrious conquest, which he made for the Savior of the world, finally cost him his life; for, after the dea Birtace King of Ethiopia and persecutor of Matthew. th of Aeglippus, Hirtacus, his brother, having seized the kingdom, wished to marry Iphigenia, either because of her beauty or to secure the crown more firmly by marrying the heiress. To succeed in his design, as he knew the influence the Apostle had over the mind of the princess, he asked him to dispose her to consent to this marriage; the Saint replied that he could attend a discourse he was to give to the community of virgins, and that he would hear for himself the counsel he would give to Iphigenia. Hirtacus did not fail to be there. But Saint Matthew, far from urging her toward marriage, spoke only of the excellence of virginity, of the blessings of heaven by which it is always accompanied, and of the great rewards that are due to its merit. Hirtacus, blinded by passion, flew into such a rage at this discourse that he resolved on the spot to take revenge; and, leaving the church, he sent executioners there almost at that very hour to put the holy Apostle to death. They found him at the end of the sacrifice of the Mass which he was celebrating; and without respecting the holiness of the place, nor the sacred mysteries he held in his hands, they struck him several blows from which he fell stone dead at the feet of the altar, which was stained with his blood. Saint Hippolytus calls him the Host and the victim of Virginity, because he was martyred for the defense and glory of this angelic virtue. He had remained twenty-three years in Ethiopia, during which he had won thousands of souls to the true God, overturned the temples of idols, erected churches in their place, ordained priests, and consecrated bishops for the complete establishment of the Christian religion. This is what the best authors of ecclesiastical history teach us about Saint Matthew. To which the lessons of the Roman Breviary are entirely in conformity.

We find in the Constitutions of Saint Cl ement, Pope, book V saint Clément, pape Pope who ordained and sent Latuin on a mission. III, chap. xxv, that Saint Matthew is the institutor of holy water, and he even reports the prayer he used to perform this blessing. He adds that it was also he who ordered that the faithful should offer to Our Lord the first fruits and the tithe of their income for the maintenance of the ministers of the Church and the assistance of the poor.

Saint Matthew is represented, on the oldest monuments, usually standing, without any attribute that distinguishes him from the other Apostles. At Saint Paul Outside the Walls, in Rome, he is seen standing, arms crossed. A stained-glass window in the Chartres Chartres Episcopal city of the saint. Cathedral represents him mounted on the back of a Prophet: this representation has a high symbolic significance. It is, it is said, a figure of the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament by the figures of the New. He is also represented with the head of an ox, to recall the animal given to him as an attribute. At the Cabinet des Estampes in Paris, he is seen represented: 1° killed at the altar while he was saying Mass; 2° extinguishing a fire and killing two dragons; 3° leaving his tax office, at the voice of Jesus Christ, who orders him to follow Him; 4° seeing in the sky the rod of Jesse; 5° holding a bag, to recall his duties as a tax collector; 6° holding a sword as the instrument of his martyrdom. He is also seen holding an open book and sometimes a banner on which is written: Liber generationis Jesu Christi, etc.

## CULT AND RELICS. — WRITINGS.

A great number of places and churches have been, from time immemorial, consecrated to God under the name of Saint Matthew. Among the most famous churches dedicated to him, one may cite that of the Monastery known as Saint Matthew, in Mesopotamia, called today Dierbeckie, situated near Mosul, or new Nineveh; in Rome, the church of Saint Matthew (in Merulana), which possesses an arm of the Saint.

The body of this holy Apostle was always kept with great veneration in the city of Naddaver, in Ethiopia, where he endured martyrdom, until it was transferred to Salerno, in the kingd om of N Salerne Port of embarkation for the Holy Land. aples, in 954. As one often found oneself in those times in the perils of war, and as it was feared that someone might come furtively to seize the relics, they were hidden, and the secret place where they were deposited was known only to a few people; this is what caused the body of Saint Matthew to remain hidden for about one hundred and twenty years in a secret vault which was discovered at Salerno, in 1080, under the pontificate of Saint Gregory saint Grégoire VII Pope during whose pontificate Saint Gausbert died. VII, as seen in a letter from this Pope written to Alfano, Bishop of Salerno. From there his sacred head was transported to France, and deposited in the cathedral of Beauv Beauvais City and diocese of the saint's origin. ais, except for a part which is still religiously preserved in the monastery of the Visitation of Saint Mary, in Chartres. As for the head of Saint Matthew, preserved in the cathedral of Beauvais before the Revolution, it disappeared in 1792.

Saint Matthew wrote his Gospel at the request of the converted Jews of Palestine. He enters into the detailed circumstances of the Savior's actions. From the fifth chapter to the fourteenth, he differs from the other evangelists in the manner of arranging the facts; he neglects the chronological order to bring together the instructions of Jesus Christ and to show more perfectly the connection that exists between them. He insists mainly on moral precepts, and gives the genealogy of the Savior, to show the fulfillment of the promises according to which the Messiah was to come from the race of Abraham and David.

All the ancient Fathers assure in the most positive manner that his Gospel was originally written in modern Hebrew, or in Syro-Chaldean, which was the language spoken by the Jews after the captivity. It was translated into Greek in the time of the Apostles. Saint Jerome says that the Hebrew text was at Caesarea in the library of Saint Pamphilus and that he himself had a copy taken from the exemplar used by the Nazarenes of the city of Beroea.

The Gospel of Saint Matthew was found, by divine revelation, on the island of Cyprus , with the bo île de Chypre Place of preservation of the cross of the Penitent Thief. dy of Saint Barnabas, under the empire of Zeno.

We have used, to complete this biography, *L'Histoire des Apôtres* (The History of the Apostles), by Abbé Maistre, and *Notes provided by the Vicar General of Beauvais and by M. Paquest*, Vicar General of Chartres.