He was called Levi and the son of Alpheus. He may have collected taxes for
Herod Antipas; Jews who collected taxes were despised, but he would be
literate in Aramaic and Greek.
He was one of the witnesses of the Resurrection and the Ascension. Later
Church Fathers claimed that Matthew preached the Gospel to the Jewish
community in Judea before going to other countries. Muslim tradition says
that he went to Ethiopia with Andrew.
There is a tradition that he died a martyr. Consensus in the Middle Ages (e.g.
Augustine of Hippo) puts the Gospel of Matthew at about 15 years after the
Ascension and being the first. Modern scholars think that the Gospel was
originally written in Greek by a non-eyewitness, whose name is unknown and
depended on sources like Mark (and Q).
30 September St Jerome (ca 347-420)
Jerome was a Latin Christian priest, theologian and historian who became a
Doctor of the Church.
He is best known for his translation of the Bible into Latin, the ‘Vulgata’ and
for commentaries to the ‘Gospel of the Hebrews,’ thought to be by Matthew.
Born in Stridon, he went to Rome to study in 366.
He merrily indulged in student life and repented it bitterly afterwards. He was
converted to Christianity in Rome and travelled to Gaul and settled in Trier to
study theology.
About 373 he went on a
long journey through Asia
Minor and to Antioch.
Seriously ill, he devoted
himself there to study the
Bible, learning Hebrew to
translate the ‘Gospel of the
Hebrews’
into
Greek.
Ordained in 378 in Rome,
he worked for the Pope and
undertook a revision of the
Latin Bible based on Greek
manuscripts of the New
Testament. Forced to leave Rome, he went back to Antioch and by 388 to
Jerusalem.
He spent the rest of his life as a hermit in a cell near Bethlehem. In his last
34 years he wrote his most important works, among them his version of the
Old Testament from the Hebrew text.
He is the most voluminous writer of Latin Christianity. He died near Bethlehem
in 420, his remains were later taken to Rome. He is often depicted with a lion,
after the story of his removal of a thorn from the lion’s paw. He is the Patron
Saint of translators, librarians and encyclopaedists.
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