bates, the Persian eunuch, first flayed alive and then crucified,) from whom they might easily borrow this piece of barbarous and inhuman cruelty. As for the several stages to which his body removed after his death, first to Daras, a city in the borders of Persia, then to Liparis, one of the Eolian islands, thence to Beneventum in Italy, and last of all to Rome, they that are fond of those things, and have better leisure, may inquire. Heretics persecuted his memory after his death, no less than heathens did his person while alive, by forging and fathering a fabulous gospel upon his name; which, together with others of like stamp, Gelasius, bishop of Rome, justly branded as apocryphal, altogether unworthy the name and patronage of an apostle. And, perhaps, of no better authority is the sentence which Dionysius," the pretended Areopagite, records of our apostle : κaì èπOXXǹV TÝV θεολογίαν εἶναι, καὶ ἐλαχίστην. Καὶ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον πλατὺ καὶ μέγα, καὶ αὖθις συντετμημένον: “ that theology is both copious, and yet very small; and the gospel diffuse and large, and yet withal concise and short;" which he, according to his vein, expounds concerning the boundless benignity, but withal incomprehensibleness, of the divine nature, which is ẞpaxúλEKTOS аμа, kai aλoyos, "quickly despatched, because ineffable," and is not καὶ without the vail discoverable to any, but those that have got above not only all sense and matter, but above all sense and understanding, that is, to the very height of mystical and intelligible religion.

9 Decret. par. i. distinct. 15. c. 3. sect. Cæterum.

r De Mystic. Theol. c. 1. s. 3.

THE LIFE OF SAINT MATTHEW.

His birthplace and kindred. His trade the office of a publican. The great dignity of this office among the Romans. The honours done to Vespasian's father for the faithful discharge of it. This office infamous among the Greeks, but especially the Jews. What things concurred to render it odious and grievous to them. Their bitter abhorrency of this sort of men. St. Matthew's employment, wherein it particularly consisted. The publican's ticket, what. St. Matthew's call, and his ready obedience. His inviting our Lord to dinner. The Pharisees' cavil, and our Saviour's answer. His preaching in Judea. His travels into Parthia, Ethiopia, &c. to propagate Christianity. The success of his ministry. His death. His singular contempt of the world. Censured herein by Julian and Porphyry. His exemplary temperance and sobriety. His humility and modesty. Unreasonable to reproach penitents with the vices of their former life. His gospel, when and why written. Composed by him in Hebrew. The general consent of antiquity herein. Its translation into Greek, when and by whom. The Hebrew copy, by whom owned and interpolated. Those now extant not the same with those mentioned in antiquity.

a

ST. MATTHEW, called also Levi, was, though a Roman officer, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, (both his names speaking him purely of Jewish extract and original,) and probably a Galilean, and whom I should have concluded born at or near Capernaum, but that the Arabic writer of his Life tells us, he was born at Nazareth, a city in the tribe of Zebulun, famous for the habitation of Joseph and Mary, but especially the education and residence of our blessed Saviour; who, though born at Bethlehem, was both conceived and bred up here, where he lived the whole time of his private life, whence he derived the title of Jesus of Nazareth. St. Matthew was the son of Alpheus and Mary, sister or kinswoman to the blessed Virgin; in the same Arabic author his father is called Ducu, and his mother Karutias, both originally descended of the tribe of Issachar, nothing being more common among the Jews than for the same person to have several names, Apud Kirsten. Vit. 4. Evangel. p. 22.

these latter probably expressed in Arabic according to their Jewish signification. His trade, or way of life, was that of a publican, or toll-gatherer to the Romans, (which probably had been his father's trade, his name denoting a broker or moneychanger,) an office of bad report among the Jews. Indeed, among the Romans it was accounted a place of power and credit, and honourable reputation, not ordinarily conferred upon any but Roman knights; insomuch that T. Fl. Sabinus, father to the emperor Vespasian, was the publican of the Asian provinces, an office which he discharged so much to the content and satisfaction of the people, that they erected statues to him, with this inscription, ΚΑΛΩΣ ΤΕΛΩΝΗΣΑΝΤΙ, “Το him that has well managed the publican-office." These officers being sent into the provinces to gather the tributes, were wont to employ the natives under them, as persons best skilled in the affairs and customs of their own country. Two things especially concurred to render this office odious to the Jews. First, that the persons that managed it were usually covetous, and great exactors; for having themselves farmed the customs of the Romans, they must gripe and scrape, by all methods of extortion, that they might be able both to pay their rent, and to raise gain and advantage to themselves: which, doubtless, Zacchæus, the chief of these farmers, was sensible of, when, after his conversion, he offered fourfold restitution to any man, from whom he had taken any thing by fraud and evil arts. And upon this account they became infamous, even among the Gentiles themselves, who commonly speak of them as cheats, and thieves, and ́public robbers, and worse members of a community, more voracious and destructive in a city, than wild beasts in the forest. The other thing that made the Jews so much detest them was, that this tribute was not only a grievance to their purses, but an affront to the liberty and freedom of their nation; for they looked upon themselves as a free-born people, and that they had been immediately invested in this privilege by God himself, and accordingly beheld this as a daily and standing instance of their slavery, which of all other things they could least endure, and which therefore betrayed them into so many unfortunate rebel

d

b Sueton, in vit. Vespas. c. 1.

с

c Luke xix. 8.

d Xeno Comic. apud Dicæarch. de vit. Græciæ, c. 4. Muson. apud Stob. Serm. ii. de Malit. p. 31. et Suid. in voc. Teλwvns.

lions against the Romans. Add to this, that these publicans were not only obliged, by the necessity of their trade, to have frequent dealing and converse with the Gentiles, (which the Jews held unlawful and abominable,) but that being Jews themselves they rigorously exacted these things of their brethren, and thereby seemed to conspire with the Romans to entail perpetual slavery upon their own nation. For though Tertullian thought that none but Gentiles were employed in this sordid office, yet the contrary is too evident to need any argument to prove it.

II. By these means, publicans became universally abhorred by the Jewish nation, that it was accounted unlawful to do them any office of common kindness and courtesy; nay, they held it no sin to cozen and overreach a publican, and that with the solemnity of an oath; they might not eat or drink, walk or travel with them; they were looked upon as common thieves and robbers, and money received of them might not be put to the rest of a man's estate, it being presumed to have been gained by rapine and violence; they were not admitted as persons fit to give testimony and evidence in any cause: so infamous were they, as not only to be banished all communion in the matters of divine worship, but to be shunned in all affairs of civil society and commerce, as the pests of their country, persons of an infectious converse, of as vile a class as heathens themselves: hence the common proverb among them, "Take not a wife out of that family wherein there is a publican, for they are all publicans;" that is, thieves, robbers, and wicked sinners. To this proverbial usage our Lord alludes, when speaking of a contumacious sinner, whom neither private reproofs, nor the public censures and admonitions of the church can prevail upon; "Let him be unto thee (says he) as an heathen and a publican;" as elsewhere publicans and sinners are yoked together, as persons of equal esteem and reputation. Of this trade and office was our St. Matthew, and it seems more particularly to have consisted in gathering the customs of commodities that came by the sea of Galilee, and the tribute which passengers were to pay that went by water; a thing frequently mentioned in the Jewish writings, where we are also told of the wp, or "ticket," consisting of two greater letters written in paper, or some such matter, called e De pudicit. c. 7. f Matt, xviii. 17.

g

wp, “the ticket or signature of the publicans,” which the passenger had with him to certify them on the other side of the water, that he had already paid the toll or custom: upon which account the Hebrew gospel of St. Matthew, published by Munster, renders “publican" by ay by "the lord of the passage." For this purpose they kept their office or custom-house by the sea side, that they might be always near at hand; and here it was (as St. Mark intimates) that Matthew had his tollbooth, where he sat at the receipt of custom."

66

III. Our Lord having lately cured a famous paralytic, retired out of Capernaum to walk by the sea-side, where he taught the people that flocked after him." Here he espied Matthew, sitting in his custom-office, whom he called to come and follow him. The man was rich, had a wealthy and a gainful trade, a wise and prudent person, (no fools being put into that office,) and understood, no doubt, what it would cost him to comply with this new employment; that he must exchange wealth for poverty, a custom-house for a prison, gainful masters for a naked and despised Saviour. But he overlooked all these considerations, left all his interests and relations, to become our Lord's disciple, and to embrace πραγματείαν πνευματικὴν, (as Chrysostom observes,i) “ a more spiritual way of commerce and traffic." We cannot suppose that he was before wholly unacquainted with our Saviour's person or doctrine, especially living at Capernaum, the place of Christ's usual residence, where his sermons and miracles were so frequent, by which he could not but, in some measure, be prepared to receive the impressions, which our Saviour's call now made upon him. And to shew that he was not discontented at his change, nor apprehended himself to be a loser by this bargain, he entertained our Lord and his disciples at a great dinner in his house, whither he invited his friends, especially those of his own profession, piously hoping that they also might be caught by our Saviour's converse and company. The Pharisees, whose eye was constantly evil where another man's was good, and who would either find or make occasions to snarl at him, began to suggest to his disciples, that it was unbecoming so pure and holy a person, as their Master represented himself to be, thus familiarly to