At today's eucharist we are remembering St Matthew, who is regarded as one of the twelve apostles and author of the gospel bearing his name. He is mentioned in Matthew chpts 9, 10 as a tax collector who converted to follow Jesus, but other gospels relating similar passages describe Jesus's calling of a tax collector called Levi, the son of Alphaeus, and do not explicitly associate him with the name Matthew.

According to early church writer, Clement of Alexandria, after the ascension of Christ, Matthew preached the gospel to the Jewish community in Judea, before taking it abroad. Church tradition has it that he visited Ethiopia, where he converted Ephigenia, the virgin daughter of King Egippus, to Christianity and admitted her as a nun. When Hirtacus succeeded Egippus as king, he asked Matthew if he would persuade Ephigenia to marry him. Matthew invited him a service the following Sunday, but then rebuked him for lusting after the girl, as she was now a nun and therefore a bride of Christ. The king was so enraged that he ordered his bodyguard to kill Matthew as he stood at the altar, making him a martyr. His tomb is located in the crypt of Salerno Cathedral in southern Italy.

Most modern scholars now believe that the Gospel of Matthew was written anonymously, and not by Matthew. While there are indications that the gospel’s stories of Jesus were gathered in Hebrew and later translated into Greek, it is generally thought that much of the content drew upon the first gospel to be written, that of St Mark, though supplemented with some of the author`s material from other sources.

Because of the likely connection with tax collecting, St Matthew is the patron saint of accountants, bankers, bookkeepers, security guards, and stockbrokers.

Picture above: part of a painting of St Matthew by Peter Paul Rubens - http://www.artbible.info/art/topics/rubens-apostles-series, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32560018