Saint Matthias

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This article is about the New Testament figure. For the 19th-century American religious figure, see Robert Matthews.

In the New Testament Acts of the Apostles, the author of Luke records that Matthias was the Apostle chosen by the remaining eleven apostles to replace Judas Iscariot, following Judas' betrayal of Jesus and his suicide (Acts 1:21 - 26).

1 Biography
2 Writings
3 Veneration
4 External links

[edit] Biography

Though there is no mention of a Matthias among the lists of disciples in the three synoptic gospels, according to Acts 1, in the days following the Ascension of Jesus, Peter proposed to the assembled disciples, who numbered about one hundred and twenty, that they choose one to fill the place of the traitor Judas in the Apostolate:

23.So they proposed two men: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. 24.Then they prayed, "Lord, you know everyone's heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen 25.to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs." 26.Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.

Eduard Zeller declared this narrative inconsistent with the history of the Apostles' movements, in that the Apostles were in Galilee after the Crucifixion. The Acts of the Apostles clearly states (i.12) that they returned to Jerusalem.

No further information about Matthias is to be found in the canonical New Testament. Even his name is variable: the Syriac version of Eusebius calls him throughout not Matthias but "Tolmai", i.e. Bartholomew, without confusing him with the Bartholomew who was originally one of the twelve Apostles; Matthias is often identified with the Nathanael mentioned in the Gospel of John; Clement of Alexandria says some identified him with Zacchaeus; the Clementine Recognitions identify him with Barnabas; Hilgenfeld thinks he is the same as Nathanael.

According to Nicephorus (Historia eccl., 2, 40), Matthias first preached the Gospel in Judea, then in Ethiopia (made out to be a synonym for the geographically quite separate Colchis (now Caucasian Georgia) and was crucified in Colchis. A marker placed in the ruins of the Roman fortress at Gonio (Apsaros) in the modern Georgian region of Adjara claims that Matthias is buried at that site.

The Synopsis of Dorotheus contains this tradition:

Matthias in interiore Æthiopia, ubi Hyssus maris portus et Phasis fluvius est, hominibus barbaris et carnivoris praedicavit Evangelium. Mortuus est autem in Sebastopoli, ibique prope templum Solis sepultus. ("Matthias preached the Gospel to barbarians and meat-eaters in the interior of Ethiopia, where the sea harbor of Hyssus is, at the mouth of the river Phasis. He died at Sebastopolis, and was buried there, near the Temple of the Sun.")

An extant Coptic Acts of Andrew and Matthias, places his activity similarly in "the city of the cannibals" in Ethiopia.

Alternately, another tradition maintains that Matthias was stoned at Jerusalem by the Jews, and then beheaded (cf. Tillemont, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire ecclesiastique des six premiers siècles, I, 406-7).

Clement of Alexandria observed (Stromateis vi.13.):

Not that they became apostles through being chosen for some distinguished peculiarity of nature, since also Judas was chosen along with them. But they were capable of becoming apostles on being chosen by Him who foresees even ultimate issues. Matthias, accordingly, who was not chosen along with them, on showing himself worthy of becoming an apostle, is substituted for Judas.

[edit] Writings

The lost Gospel of Matthias is attributed to Matthias.

[edit] Veneration

Saint Matthias is venerated with a feast day in the Roman Catholic Church that was February 24, until it was moved in the 20th century to May 14. The vigil of his feast was also distinctive in that, in leap year, it moved to the traditional leap day of February 24, with the feast one day later. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, his feast is celebrated on August 9.

It is said that Helena, mother of Constantine the Great brought the relics of St. Matthias to Rome, and that a portion of them was at Trier. The Bollandists (Acta Sanctorum, May, III) doubts whether the relics that are in Rome are not rather those of the St Matthias who was Bishop of Jerusalem about the year 120, and whose history would seem to have been confounded with that of the Apostle.