Apostle Matthias

Matthias was selected to take the place of Judas Iscariot among the Twelve Apostles of Jesus, according to the account in the Acts of the Apostles. After the Ascension, the remaining eleven apostles and the wider company of disciples, numbering about one hundred and twenty persons, gathered in Jerusalem. Peter proposed that they choose a replacement for Judas from among those who had accompanied Jesus throughout his public ministry, from the baptism of John until the day Jesus was taken up, so that the new apostle might become a witness with them of the Resurrection. Two men were nominated: Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias. The assembly prayed that the Lord would show which of the two he had chosen, and they cast lots. The lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles. This episode, recorded in Acts 1:15–26, is the only New Testament passage that mentions Matthias by name.

Beyond this brief notice, the canonical scriptures are silent about Matthias. He does not appear in the subsequent narrative of Acts, nor is he named in the Pauline or Catholic epistles. Early Christian writers offered various remarks about his identity and teaching, but these cannot be confirmed from contemporary evidence. Clement of Alexandria, writing in the late second or early third century, associated Matthias with a tradition of rigorous ascetic instruction and, in one passage, linked him with those who had followed the Lord from the beginning; some later readers identified Matthias with the tax collector Zacchaeus, though this identification is not widely accepted. Apocryphal works circulated under his name, including a Gospel of Matthias mentioned by Origen and a set of Traditions of Matthias cited by Clement, but these texts survive only in fragments or notices and are not regarded as historically reliable accounts of his life.

Later ecclesiastical traditions concerning Matthias’s missionary activity and death diverge sharply and belong to a much later period. One strand, reflected in Hippolytus, holds that he remained in Jerusalem and died there. Another, found in Byzantine chroniclers such as Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulos and in the so-called Synopsis of Dorotheus, states that after preaching in Judaea he went to Ethiopia—sometimes understood as the African kingdom, sometimes as the Caucasian region of Colchis corresponding to parts of modern Georgia—and that he was crucified there. A further tradition reports that he was stoned and then beheaded by Jewish opponents in Jerusalem. Coptic sources likewise connect him with Ethiopia. Because these narratives conflict with one another and appear centuries after the apostolic age, historians treat the details of his later career and the manner and place of his death as unknown.

Veneration of Matthias as a saint is ancient and universal among the historic churches. Relics attributed to him have been claimed by several sites. Medieval tradition associated a translation of relics with Saint Helena; the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Matthias in Trier has long maintained that it possesses his remains and became an important pilgrimage center in the Holy Roman Empire. Other relics have been linked with the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. In the Roman Catholic Church his feast is kept on 14 May (it was observed on 24 February before the calendar reform of 1969). The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates him on 9 August. He is invoked as a patron of carpenters and tailors, of those struggling with alcoholism, of those afflicted with smallpox, and of the virtues of hope and perseverance. As the apostle chosen by lot to restore the Twelve, Matthias occupies a distinctive place in Christian memory as a witness chosen to preserve the continuity of testimony to the risen Christ.