From sinner to saint
Levi, the publican, the “son of Alphaeus“ (Mk 2: 14) from the Galilee, was sitting at his tax booth. The righteous among the Jewish people were his enemies, and the traitors, the collaborators with Rome, his friends.
Let us look at the story of his call to following Jesus the Messiah with a bit of poetic liberty, in the spirit of the Italian painter Caravaggio…
Counting the hours. But from afar Levi hears that a whole crowd of people is moving closer… He has heard quite a bit about this man Jesus preaching throughout the Galilee and liberating people from demonic bondages and all kinds of diseases. He has heard quite a bit about his growing band of followers…
But rabbis and their teachings and yokes were not for him, right? He had decided upon a different life path. Only the yoke of Rome, providing for a good income. Why not? One must be realistic, arrange oneself with the times as they are. Rome rules, get over it, and make the most of it.
Is there anything more unrealistic, more unlikely than this man Jesus calling him – Levi, the publican. Who is He, then? No rabbi would ever do that… Every respectable scholar of the Torah knows that one should pick one‘s students wisely, and that a tax collector‘s booth certainly is not a place where to find yet another one of them.
“Again, Yeshua went out by the sea. The whole crowd kept coming to Him, and He continued to teach them. As He was passing by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. He said to him, ‘Follow Me.‘ And he got up and followed Him.
Mark 2: 13-17
Now it happens that Yeshua was reclining at the table in Levi‘s house, and many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Yeshua and His disciples. For there were many, and they were following Him. When the Torah scholars of the Pharisees saw Him eating with sinners and tax collectors, they began to say to His disciples, ‘With tax collectors and sinners He eats?‘
And when He heard this, Yeshua said to them, ‘Those who are healthy have no need for a doctor, but those who are sick do. I did not come to call the righteous, but the sinful.‘“
When this man calls someone, He calls with authority. An irresistible authority. It is as if God Himself sees you, looks at you, and calls out to you, with a voice that gently demands obedience… “Follow Me.“
Only Me – and not the empire destined to rise and fall that bribed you, not the rabbi down the street that despises you and warns his students to never associate with folks like you, and not your best old friend who talked you into the publicans‘ business in the first place…
The story of Levi is one of all those many stories recorded in the Gospels that make a point for Jesus being the Son of God, the Messiah – in a hidden manner. There is something very transcendent and very to the bones about Jesus calling a sinner like Levi with a voice that makes him recognize who God is, who he is before Him, and what the purpose of his life comes down to.
Levi leaves his tax booth and his old life immediately, holding a banquet to introduce all his old friends to this man. And Levi is not quite just Levi any more. He is Mattiya, Matthew – meaning “gift of the LORD“ – now. It is quite possible that he received his new name from the One who called him. From now on, he is who he is by the grace of God – “a gift“… for everyone.
“Note that there are four things about Matthew that deserve special consideration. The first is the quickness with which he obeyed. When Christ called him, he quit his customhouse immediately to become a follower of Christ and nothing else, not fearing his superiors though he left his accounts unfinished. (…)
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 572-573
The second notable thing about Matthew is his generosity, or liberality, because he quickly arranged to hold a great feast in his house for the Lord. (…)
The third quality worthy of note in Matthew is his humility, which was manifested in two ways. Firstly, he let himself be known as a tax-gatherer, a publican. The other evangelists (…) did not put in his common title, in order to spare him shame and to guard the honor of an evangelist, whereas he, following the prescription that the just man is his own first accuser, calls himself Matthew the publican. Thus he showed that no convert ought to be uncertain about his salvation, since a publican suddenly became an apostle and evangelist. Secondly, he proved his humility by his patience in bearing insults. (…)
The fourth thing to consider about Matthew is the high honor paid in the Church to the gospel that he wrote. His gospel is read more frequently in church than the others, as the Psalms and Paul‘s letters are heard more often than the other Scriptures.“
And so I cannot help but wonder whether this Levi, though a man of many gifts and talents, had been sitting all his life so far in a sort of comfortable mediocrity, secretly waiting for an opportunity to rise to greatness that in the end might never come one‘s way.
It might never come as one lives among a “brood of vipers“ (Mt 3: 7), among a generation that “at the judgment“ will be condemned by “the men of Niniveh“ (Mt 12: 41). Who would ever sharpen him like iron sharpens iron? Who under the whole wide Roman empire’s rising and setting sun would ever appeal to the saint and not the sinner in him or anyone else?
But then, in the blink of a moment, as unexpectedly as every miracle, as every encounter with God and as every conversion of heart, Matthew did so, courageously setting out for a life above and beyond that “same old same old“ – when he “got up“ (Mk 2: 14), answering to the One with “eyes like a flame a fire“ (Apoc 1: 14) and a “voice like the roar of rushing waters“ (Apoc 1: 15) who had dared to challenge him to rise. The One who would make a great saintly Apostle and Evangelist out of him…
Author of the “Hebrew Gospel“
“Matthew‘s gospel, written by his own hand, was discovered about A.D. 500 with the bones of Saint Barnabas. Saint Barnabas carried this gospel with him and placed it on sick persons, and it instantly cured the illness, as much by Barnabas‘s faith as by Matthew‘s merit.“
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 574
Before going to Ethiopia where Saint Matthew-Levi died as a martyr, the Apostle preached among the Jewish people for several years.
According to Origen, his gospel – written originally in Hebrew (or Aramaic) for these Jewish Christians of Judaea – was the first of the four gospel accounts. At times, it was also referred to as “The Gospel according to the Hebrews“ or “The Gospel of the Apostles“.
Saint Jerome, who translated the Old and the New Testament books into Latin, obtained a copy of this Hebrew gospel from the “Nazarenes“ about whom he stated that they were those “who accept Messiah in such a way that they do not cease to observe the old Law“.
The “Nazarenes“ were a community derived from Jewish converts who had once fled to Pella during the Jewish-Roman war of the first century and who still observed the Torah and kept the Sabbath while believing in Jesus as the Messiah and in the perpetual virginity of His Mother Mary.
Alongside Saint Jerome, Saint Epiphanius of Salamis, a bishop of the fourth century, in his compendium on various heresies, testifies about this Jewish Christian sect of the “Nazarenes“ that they held the gospel of Saint Matthew in high regard. He writes about them, that
“… they acknowledge both the resurrection of the dead and that all things have been created by God, and they declare that God is one, and that his Son is Jesus Christ.
Saint Epiphanius of Salamis: Panarion, Book 1 ch. 29 par. 7,3 – 9,4
They are perfectly versed in the Hebrew language, for the entire Law, the prophets, and the so-called Writings – I mean the poetic books, Kings, Chronicles, Esther and all the rest – are read in Hebrew among them, as of course they are among the Jews. They are different from Jews, and different from Christians, only in the following ways. They disagree with Jews because of their belief in Christ; but they are not in accord with Christians because they are still fettered by the Law – circumcision, the Sabbath, and the rest.
(…) This sect of Nazoraeans is to be found in Beroea near Coele – Syria, in the Decapolis near Pella, and in Bashanitis at the place called Cocabe – Khokhabe in Hebrew. For that was its place of origin, since all the disciples had settled in Pella after their remove from Jerusalem – Christ having told them to abandon Jerusalem and withdraw from it because of the siege it was about to undergo. And they settled in Peraea for this reason and, as I said, lived their lives there. It was from this that the Nazoraean sect had its origin.
(…) They have the Gospel according to Matthew in its entirety in Hebrew. For it is clear that they still preserve this as it was originally written, in the Hebrew alphabet.“
Saint Matthew’s gospel was the one most quoted by the Church Fathers and the one primarily used for catechesis in the ancient Church.
In the Middle Ages, the founder of the Order of Preachers, Saint Dominic de Guzmán, had a special love for Saint Matthew’s book. Together with the Epistles of Saint Paul, he carried a copy of it along with him while traveling. He knew this gospel intimately and drew a lot of inspiration from it for his preaching of the Word of God.
Apostle to Ethiopia
The faith of Israel came to Ethiopia during the days of King Solomon who had been visited by the Queen of Ethiopia as she had been looking for wisdom and truth. The first Christian believer of Ethiopia was the Jewish eunuch mentioned in the book of Acts…
“When the apostle arrived in the aforesaid city (of Nadaber in Ethiopia), he was given hospitality by the eunuch of Queen Candace, whom Philip had baptized.“
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 570
We do not know too much about Saint Matthew‘s stay and martyrdom in the land of Ethiopia, i.e. we do not know for sure why and how he testified to Christ the King with the shedding of his blood. The Roman Martyrology simply states for the 21st September, his annual feast day:
“The birthday of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist, who suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia, while engaged in preaching. The Gospel written by him in Hebrew was, by his own revelation, found in the time of the emperor Zeno, together with the relics of the blessed apostle Barnabas.“
Roman Martyrology
Yet, there is a tradition, quoted in the Golden Legend, whereby Saint Matthew was stabbed by an assassin sent by a king, whom the Apostle had called out concerning his lusting after a consecrated virgin, while the Holy Apostle
“… was standing before the altar with his hands raised to heaven in prayer.“
Jacobus de Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, Princeton University Press 1993, p. 571
Saint Matthew-Levi, holy Apostle and martyr, pray for us!