page_title: Matthew the Apostle
section_title: Non-canonical or Apocryphal Gospels
hierarchical_section_title: Matthew the Apostle / Non-canonical or Apocryphal Gospels
context_page_description: Matthew the Apostle, also known as Saint Matthew and as Levi, was, according to the New Testament, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. According to Christian tradition, he was also one of the four Evangelists and thus is also known as Matthew the Evangelist.
  The New Testament records that as a disciple, he followed Jesus, and was one of the witnesses of the Ascension of Jesus. Later Church fathers such as Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria claim that Matthew preached the Gospel to the Jewish community in Judea, before going to other countries.
context_section_description: In the 3rd-century Jewish–Christian gospels attributed to Matthew were used by Jewish–Christian groups such as the Nazarenes and Ebionites. Fragments of these gospels survive in quotations by Jerome, Epiphanius and others. Most academic study follows the distinction of Gospel of the Nazarenes (36 fragments), Gospel of the Ebionites (7 fragments), and Gospel of the Hebrews (7 fragments) found in Schneemelcher's New Testament Apocrypha. Critical commentators generally regard these texts as having been composed in Greek and related to Greek Matthew. A minority of commentators consider them to be fragments of a lost Aramaic- or Hebrew-language original.
  The Infancy Gospel of Matthew is a 7th-century compilation of three other texts: the Protevangelium of James, the Flight into Egypt, and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.
  Origen said the first Gospel was written by Matthew. This Gospel was composed in Hebrew near Jerusalem for Hebrew Christians and translated into Greek, but the Greek copy was lost. The Hebrew original was kept at the Library of Caesarea. The Nazarene Community transcribed a copy for Jerome which he used in his work. Matthew's Gospel was called the Gospel according to the Hebrews or sometimes the Gospel of the Apostles and it was once believed that it was the original to the Greek Matthew found in the Bible. However, this has been challenged by modern biblical scholars such as Bart Ehrman and James R. Edwards.
  Jerome relates that Matthew was supposed by the Nazarenes to have composed their Gospel of the Hebrews though Irenaeus and Epiphanius of Salamis consider this simply a revised version of the canonical Gospel. This Gospel has been partially preserved in the writings of the Church Fathers, said to have been written by Matthew. Epiphanius does not make his own the claim about a Gospel of the Hebrews written by Matthew, a claim that he merely attributes to the heretical Ebionites.
caption: Saint Matthew (1713–1715) by Camillo Rusconi, Archbasilica of St. John Lateran in Rome
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D70", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "DxO Optics Pro Standard 4.5 (MacOS X) W1MW2TFUPG", "Image DateTime": "2006:09:07 10:31:36", "Image Artist": "Marie-Lan Nguyen", "Image Copyright": "Wikimedia Commons", "Image DateTimeOriginal": "2006:09:07 10:31:36", "Image Tag 0x9216": "[1, 0, 0, 0]", "Image ExifOffset": "338", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2394", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6645", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/80", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:09:07 10:31:36", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:09:07 10:31:36", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "790241/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "59417/20000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-1/3", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Fine weather", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "35", "EXIF SubSecTime": "10", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "10", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "10", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3008", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2000", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "52", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}