Calling of Matthew

Episode in the synoptic gospels

The Calling of St. Matthew, by Vittore Carpaccio, 1502. Calling of St. Matthew by Alexandre Bida, 1875.

The Calling of Matthew, also known as the Calling of Levi, is an episode in the life of Jesus which appears in all three synoptic gospels, Matthew 9:9–13, Mark 2:13–17 and Luke 5:27–28, and relates the initial encounter between Jesus and Matthew, the tax collector who became a disciple.[1]

## Biblical narratives

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According to the Gospel of Matthew: "As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me", he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him."[2]

A tax collector could be either an independent contractor with the Roman government, who paid a fee to Rome to obtain the right to extract taxes from the people in a certain area, with an added fee for the collector and his employees; or he might have also been a toll collector for Herod Antipas,[3] Capernaum was an area with a high traffic of people and merchants.[4] In any case, Levi-Matthew would have been a very unpopular individual.

The Biblical Greek: τὸ τελώνιον (to telōnion) is often translated as "the tax collector's booth" (e.g. NIV) or "tax office" (e.g. RSV). The King James Version says Matthew was "sitting at the receipt of custom". Wycliffe's translation was "sitting in a tollbooth", and the Expanded Bible suggests that the telōnion was "probably a tariff booth for taxing goods in transit".[5]

In all three synoptic gospels, this episode takes place shortly after the miracle of healing the paralytic at Capernaum and is followed by Jesus' image of the danger of putting new wine into old wineskins. In the Gospels of Mark and Luke, the person called is called Levi, who was the son of Alpheus according to Mark (Luke does not mention Alpheus).[6]

Also in all three synoptic accounts Jesus is then invited to a banquet, with a crowd of tax collectors and others. The Pharisees then complain:

> 29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. 30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" 31 Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."[7]

## Commentary

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Roger Baxter reflects on Matthew's call in his Meditations, writing that:

> Great was the force of this call, which was able to withdraw a man from his riches: and yet the same call, perhaps, would not be forcible enough to withdraw you from smaller impediments. Who can despair of salvation, when he sees public sinners taken out of a custom house, assumed not only to the friendship of God, but raised to the highest dignity of the apostleship." Truly, " His tender mercies are over all His works." (Ps. 144:9.)[8]

Cornelius a Lapide in his commentary writes:

> Thus then as a magnet draws iron unto it, so did Christ draw Matthew, and by His drawing, gave him his virtues, and chiefly his exceeding love of God, zeal for souls, ardour in preaching. Listen to the account of S. Matthew’s conversion, which he himself gave to St. Bridget of Sweden, when praying at his tomb at Malphi: “It was my desire at the time I was a publican to defraud no man, and I wished to find out a way by which I might abandon that employment, and cleave to God alone with my whole heart. When therefore He who loved me, even Jesus Christ was preaching, His call was a flame of fire in my heart; and so sweet were His words unto my taste, that I thought no more of riches than of straws: yea, it was delightful to me to weep for joy, that my God had deigned to call one of such small account, and so great a sinner as I to His grace. And as I clave unto my Lord, His burning words became fixed in my heart, and day and night I fed upon them by meditation, as upon sweetest food.”[9][10]

## In art

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The calling of Matthew has been the subject of works of art by several painters, including:

* The Calling of St Matthew by Caravaggio (1599–1600) at Contarelli Chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome
* Hendrick ter Brugghen (1621)
* Juan de Pareja (1661).

* The Calling of Saint Matthew, by Caravaggio

* The Calling of St. Matthew, by Hendrick ter Brugghen

* The Calling of St Matthew, by the Master of the Abbey of Dilighem

* The Calling of St. Matthew, by Orcagna

* The Calling of St. Matthew, by Naldini

## See also

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* Commissioning the twelve Apostles
* First disciples of Jesus
* Gospel harmony: Matthew 9, Mark 2, Luke 5
* Great Commission
* Life of Jesus in the New Testament
* Jesus eats with sinners and tax-collectors

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Calling of Saint Matthew.

## References

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1. ^ France, R.T. (2007), The Gospel of Matthew, p. 349, ISBN 978-0-8028-2501-8.
2. ^ Matthew 9:9: KJV
3. ^ Brown, Raymond E. (1990), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, et al., Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-614934-0.
4. ^ Kilgallen, John J. (1989), A Brief Commentary on the Gospel of Mark, Paulist Press, ISBN 0-8091-3059-9.
5. ^ Matthew 9:9: Expanded Bible
6. ^ Strauss, David Friedrich (1860), The Life of Jesus, Calvin Blanchard, p. 340.
7. ^ Luke 5:29–32
8. ^ Baxter, Roger (1823). "Call of Matthew" . Meditations For Every Day In The Year. New York: Benziger Brothers.
9. ^ ""The New (& the Old) Evangelization: From tax collector to apostle"". Catholic News Agency. Retrieved 2022-04-18.
10. ^ Lapide, Cornelius (1908). The Great Commentary of Cornelius À Lapide: S. Matthew's gospel, chaps. 1-9. J. Grant.

## External links

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* St Matthew the Apostle from The Golden Legend
* Apostle and Evangelist Matthew Orthodox icon and synaxarion

Calling of Matthew

Life of Jesus

Preceded by

Hometown Rejection of Jesus,
Physician, heal thyself

|  New Testament
Events  | Succeeded by

New Wine into Old Wineskins

* v
* t
* e

Twelve Apostles of Jesus

Apostles|

* Andrew
* Bartholomew
* Nathanael
* James, son of Alphaeus
* the Less
* James, son of Zebedee
* John
* Beloved
* Evangelist
* Patmos
* Judas Iscariot
* Jude Thaddaeus
* Matthew
* Philip
* Simon Peter
* Simon the Zealot
* Thomas

Later|

* Seventy disciples
* Matthias
* James, brother of Jesus
* Paul
* conversion
* Barnabas

Related|

* Commissioning of the Twelve
* calling of the disciples
* calling of Matthew
* Mission Discourse
* coming persecutions
* Holy Kinship
* Last Supper
* Farewell Discourse
* Great Commission
* Apostolic Age
* Apostolic see
* Acts of the Apostles
* Pentecost
* Holy Spirit
* Dispersion
* Pauline epistles
* Relics and burial sites
* Apostolic succession
* Apostles' Creed
* Early Christianity

* v
* t
* e

Gospel of Matthew

Bible
(New Testament)|

| Chapters|

* Matthew 1
* 2
* 3
* 4
* 5
* 6
* 7
* 8
* 9
* 10
* 11
* 12
* 13
* 14
* 15
* 16
* 17
* 18
* 19
* 20
* 21
* 22
* 23
* 24
* 25
* 26
* 27
* 28

|

Verses|

* Matthew 1
* 2
* 3
* 4
* 5
* 6
* 7
* 8
* 9
* 10
* 11
* 12
* 14
* 15
* 16:2b–3,19
* 27:1–12; 52–66
* 28

Events
and phrases|

* Jesus' birth
* Star of Bethlehem
* Magi
* Flight into Egypt
* Massacre of the Innocents
* Return to Nazareth
* Kingdom of heaven
* Baptism
* Temptation
* Galilean ministry
* Fishers of men
* Behold the bridegroom
* Sermon on the Mount
* Beatitudes
* Lord's Prayer
* Golden Rule
* Jesus preaches in a ship
* Calming the storm
* Feeding the multitude
* Walking on water
* Transfiguration
* Great Commandment
* Olivet Discourse
* Ten Virgins
* Anointing
* Passion of Jesus
* Last Supper
* Crucifixion of Jesus
* Burial
* Empty tomb
* Resurrection
* Great Commission

People|

* Andrew
* Caiaphas
* Herod
* James
* Jeremiah
* Jesus Christ
* John
* John the Baptist
* Joseph
* Judas Iscariot
* Mary
* Mary Magdalene
* Mary, sister of Martha
* Matthew
* Philip
* Pontius Pilate
* Rachel
* Simon Peter
* Thomas
* Zebedee

Groups
Angels
Pharisees
Sadducees
Sanhedrin

Places|

* Bethany
* Bethlehem
* Bethsaida
* Capernaum
* Egypt
* Galilee
* Jerusalem
* Jordan River
* Judea
* Samaria
* Sea of Galilee

Related|

* Q source
* M source
* Gospel of Mark
* Textual variants
* Augustinian hypothesis
* Two-gospel hypothesis
* Matthean Posteriority
* Genealogy of Jesus
* Five Discourses of Matthew
* Calling of Matthew
* Kingdom of heaven
* Immanuel
* Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew
* Rabbinical translations
* Shem Tob
* Joseph Smith–Matthew

In culture|

* St Matthew Passion (Bach, 1727/29)
* Structure
* The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964 film)
* Godspell (1971 musical)
* Godspell (1973 film)
* The Visual Bible: Matthew (1993 film)

Manuscripts|

* Papyrus 1
* 4
* 19
* 21
* 25
* 35
* 37
* 44
* 45
* 53
* 62
* 70
* 71
* 73
* 77
* 83
* 86
* 96
* 101
* 102
* 103
* 104
* 105
* 110
* Magdalen papyrus

Sources|

* Greek Text
* Latin Vulgate
* Wycliffe Version
* King James Version
* American Standard Version
* World English Version

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