One of Jesus’ Twelve Apostles, Traditionally Author of the Gospel of Matthew
The New Testament records that Matthew was a tax collector serving the Roman authority, a profession then widely seen in Jewish society as collaboration and the extortion of one’s own people, and much despised. Jesus called him, "follow me," and Matthew at once left the tax booth to follow him, drawing the Pharisees’ question of why Jesus dined with tax collectors and sinners; Jesus answered, "it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." Church tradition holds the Gospel of Matthew to be his work, though modern biblical scholarship holds varying views on its authorship.
As Jesus walked he saw Matthew sitting at the tax booth and said to him, "follow me." Matthew rose and followed, then held a banquet at his own house and invited many tax collectors and sinners to dine with Jesus, drawing the Pharisees’ censure — by which Jesus made clear that those he came to reach were precisely "the lost."
Church tradition holds the author of the Gospel of Matthew to be the apostle Matthew himself, but modern biblical scholarship holds varying views on the authorship of the four Gospels; this site presents the church-traditional account.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
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