Apostle Matthias

Matthias, whose name derives from the Hebrew Mattityahu, meaning 'gift of Yahweh,' is known from the New Testament as the disciple chosen to restore the number of the Twelve after the defection and death of Judas Iscariot. The sole canonical narrative concerning him is found in the Acts of the Apostles (1:15–26). In the days following the Ascension, the community of disciples in Jerusalem, numbering about one hundred and twenty persons, heard the apostle Peter propose that the vacant share in the apostolic ministry be given to someone who had been with them during the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among them, beginning from the baptism of John until the day he was taken up, so that the chosen man might become a witness with them of the Resurrection. Two candidates were named: Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias. The assembly prayed that the Lord, who knows the hearts of all, would show which of the two he had chosen, and they cast lots. The lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles. After this episode the New Testament is silent about him.

Beyond this brief notice, almost nothing about Matthias can be established from contemporary or near-contemporary historical sources. Later Christian writers associated him with the group of seventy (or seventy-two) disciples sent out by Jesus as described in the Gospel of Luke, an identification already found in Clement of Alexandria in the late second century. Clement also preserved a few sayings attributed to Matthias and referred to a work called the Traditions of Matthias. A Gospel of Matthias is mentioned by Origen and listed among heretical writings by Eusebius of Caesarea and in the Decretum Gelasianum; the text itself has not survived and cannot be reconstructed with confidence. These notices show that Matthias’s name circulated in early Christian literature, but they do not yield a reliable biography. No verified year or place of birth is recorded, and claims that he came from Bethlehem or elsewhere in Judaea belong to later hagiography rather than to demonstrable history.

Subsequent ecclesiastical traditions concerning his missionary activity and death are numerous and mutually inconsistent, reflecting the tendency of later hagiography to assign the apostles far-flung missions. One strand, represented in various forms in Greek and Latin sources, holds that Matthias preached in Judaea and was eventually stoned and then beheaded, or otherwise put to death, in Jerusalem. Another tradition, found in Nicephorus and related Byzantine accounts, states that he preached in Cappadocia and on the coasts of the Caspian, or in 'Ethiopia,' a name that in this context often designates Colchis on the eastern Black Sea (in present-day Georgia) rather than the African kingdom. Georgian tradition in particular claims Matthias among the apostles who evangelized that region. Coptic sources likewise connect him with Ethiopia. Hippolytus is cited as saying that Matthias died at Sebastopolis and was buried there, while other notices claim he died a natural death in Jerusalem. No single itinerary, city of death, or year of death can be verified from independent historical evidence.

In the Latin West, veneration of Matthias became closely associated with the city of Trier. According to a medieval tradition, the empress Helena, mother of Constantine, obtained relics believed to be those of the apostle and deposited them at Trier, where the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Matthias later grew up around the shrine. Other relics have been claimed at Rome, including at Santa Maria Maggiore, and at Padua. The Western Church long kept his feast on 24 February; in the reform of the General Roman Calendar in 1969 the celebration was moved to 14 May so that it would fall outside Lent. The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates him on 9 August. Because so little can be known of his life, later devotion has often emphasized the circumstances of his election—the prayerful casting of lots and the restoration of the Twelve—as a figure of divine choice and of fidelity among the original witnesses of Jesus.