Matthew the Apostle
Christian evangelist and apostle (10-74)
Matthew the Apostle was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. According to many Christian traditions, he was also one of the four Evangelists as author of the Gospel of Matthew, and thus is also known as Matthew the Evangelist. The gospel, one of the three synoptics, contains the complete Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes.
The New Testament records that as an Apostle, he followed Jesus. Church Fathers, such as Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria, relate that Matthew preached the gospel in Judea before going to other countries.
In the New Testament
Matthew is mentioned in Matthew 9:9 and Matthew 10:3 as a tax collector (in the New International Version and other translations of the Bible) who, while sitting at the "receipt of custom" in Capernaum, was called to follow Jesus. He is also listed among the Twelve Disciples, but without identification of his background, in Mark 3:18, Luke 6:15 and Acts 1:13. In passages parallel to Matthew 9:9, both Mark 2:14 and Luke 5:27 describe Jesus's calling of the tax collector Levi, the son of Alphaeus. They do not associate it with the name Matthew, but all three passages are remarkably similar.
Since the father of both Matthew (known as Levi) and James, son of Alphaeus is named Alphaeus, according to the tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church the two apostles were brothers.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as christian evangelist and apostle (10-74). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q43600. VIAF identifies the subject as 316749278. The Library of Congress control number is n82220255. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Matthew the Apostle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.