The Catalog of Good Deeds

Stained Glass Christmas Stocking Tree Ornament

$7.00

This small Christmas stocking is a colorful and original gift that creates the atmosphere of the feast. This Christmas Stocking pendant will be an ideal decoration for your home or a gift for your relatives and friends. This pendant is made from color stained glass and handpainted with unfired paints. If handled with care, all products made from glass will last almost forever. Decades after they were made, their colors don't fade. Humidity, temperature fluctuations or exposure to sunlight won't damage them. Click here to order this handmade glass gift and support the ministry of St.Elisabeth Convent.

Fused Glass Colorful Star

$4.00

As a rule, stars shine only during the night, and their light is cold and remote. Here is an unusual colorful star made from stained glass. When the rays of sun touch this pendant, the star comes alive, shines, and sparkles. May be painted with unfired paints upon request. It will make an excellent decoration for your home or a nice gift for your loved ones. Order this unique gift here.

Fused and Stained Glass North Star Candleholder

$5.00

An incredibly beautiful candle holder with a pattern that shows the North Star. This item is slightly concave, which is why its edges are raised and bent in an elegant manner. It may also be used for keeping small objects and jewelry. This candle holder is made from transparent and color glass and glass beads. Pieces of glass are fused together in a special kiln to make an amazing gift. Order one here.

The Flower Collection Tea Set

$27.00

This handmade tea set from our ceramic workshop is decorated with images of flowers. Teapot: 430 ml (14.54 oz) capacity. Cup, which is located right under the teapot: 400 ml (13.53 oz) capacity. A wonderful gift for you or your loved ones! Click here to order one today.

Handmade Ceramic Relief Decorated Byzantium Teapot

$25.00

This handmade teapot from our ceramic workshop is decorated with an image of a ""petal"" cross, colorful mosaic ornament, and birds. Order the teapot here. Holds 33.81 oz (1,000 ml). A wonderful gift for you and your loved ones!

Panel Picture "Christmas"

$12.00

Half-round "Christmas" panel picture. Click here to preview various colors and options.

Everyday Saints and Other Stories

$12.00

"It was a warm September evening, as we, the still-young novices of the Pskov Caves Monastery near Pskov, were strolling about the corridors and galleries of the ancient monastery walls, making ourselves comfortable, looking out high above its gardens and fields. As we talked, we began reminiscing about how each of us had come to be at the monastery. And the more we listened to each other, the more amazed we became..." Click here to order one book today.

Handmade Stained Glass Christmas Wall Clock

$54.00

This glass wall clock is made in a workshop of St Elisabeth Convent. High-quality Spectrum glass, notable for its high quality and accurate rendering of colors. A German-made mechanism is used in this clock, which guarantees its accurate, reliable, and lasting performance. Order one here and help support the good works of the sisters.

Handmade Ceramic Candleholder in the Shape of aChristmas Tree

$14.00

This candleholder for one candle from our ceramic workshop is made in the shape of the Christmas tree. Order this wonderful and original gift here.

Handmade Ceramic Christmas Star Candleholder

$16.00

This candleholder for one candle from our ceramic workshop is made in the shape of the Christmas star. Decorated with a colorful floral ornament. A wonderful gift for you and your loved ones! Preview the gift here.

Church Shaped Candleholder

$20.00

Click here to order this one of a kind candleholder for one candle from our ceramic workshop is made in the shape of a church. Decorated with a colorful floral ornament. A wonderful gift for you and your loved ones!

Medium-Size Church-Shaped Music Box

$34.00

Size 25 cm. Handpainted. The music mechanism is hidden in the base of the box. Just turn the souvenir clockwise and the music will play. Click here to order this handmade gift.

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More Christmas gifts from the Catalog of Good Deeds.

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In the lists of the Twelve disciples who are recorded in the New Testament, the name Matthew is mentioned. He calls himself this in the list of disciples he quotes in his Gospel (Matth. 10, 3), and also in the narrative of his call to the role of apostle. In the narrative of his call, he talks about a man who was sitting at his tax booth, which is why he calls himself “Matthew the Tax-Collector [Publican]”. In Mark’s Gospel (2, 4), this tax-collector is called “Levi, the son of Alpheus” and in Luke’s (5, 27) he is called simply “Levi”. We should mention that in the list of disciples, the apostle James is also called “the son of Alpheus”, but he was not Matthew’s brother. Had he been, this would have been mentioned in the Gospels, as is the case with other apostles who were brothers, such as Peter and Andrew, and James and John.

Matthew the tax-collector and Levi are the same person [in this instance]. The name Matthew, which he received after the call from Jesus, means “Gift of God”. It is a contraction of the Hebrew Mattityahu. At Matth. 10, 3, Tatian adds “also the Lebbaeus”. We do not know when or why the Lord gave him the name by which he is now best known in the Church. Out of respect for their fellow apostle, neither Luke nor Mark mentions Matthew’s profession, because tax-collectors were hated. Matthew himself, however, reports that the Lord “saw a man called Matthew, sitting at the tax-booth”, that is a man already known as Matthew. As Saint John Chrysostom notes: “The apostle is deserving of admiration for not concealing his former life, and also giving his name, which the others concealed with another appellation”. The apostle does not deny his former life, but acknowledges his alteration after being called. This demonstrates his humility.

Matthew lived in Capernaum, a city that belonged to the jurisdiction of Herod. As a clerk, he would have been in the service of some larger employer who had paid the tax revenues of the city, or even the region, to the Romans and then had the right to keep whatever monies he had raised. Matthew would certainly have known the Aramaic spoken by the Jews in the area, and Greek as well.

When the Lord said: “Follow me”, he left immediately, abandoning everything without hesitation This indicates that he already knew and respected the Lord. He, too, belonged to the tax-collectors who approached the Lord and concerning whom the Pharisees condemned Him for being “a friend of tax-collectors” (Luke 7, 35; 15, 1). Matthew must have been a rich man. This is apparent from the fact that he had his own house. It was there that, to celebrate his call and the abandonment of his profession, he gave a farewell meal, to which he invited a good many people. It is not clear from the Gospels whether he, too, was a disciple of Saint John the Baptist, as other disciples of Christ seem to have been.

After his call, he was not prominent among the circle of disciples. Not when the Lord was alive, nor after the resurrection. His name is not mentioned anywhere in the New Testament [except as we have indicated above]. This was almost certainly because of his humility. Clement the Alexandrian provides us with details of his strictly ascetic life: “ For the Apostle Matthew ate cereals, nuts and vegetables, without meat”.

Clement, Efsevios [Eusebius] and Irinaios [Irenaeus] report that, after the Lord’s resurrection, Matthew preached Christ for about eight years to the Jews.

It was here that, between 60-66 A.D., he wrote the Gospel, originally in Aramaic, and then either translated it himself or had it translated into Greek [There is also a school of thought that the Gospel was written first in Greek. While it is certainly true that some of the expressions are Hellenized versions of Aramaic equivalents, it is not possible to know whether this is because of the translator or because they had passed into the ordinary Greek of the region and were therefore included in an original text. Rather like using, say, “a blank slate” [tabula rasa] in English. WJL]. It contains narratives of the events in the life of the Lord and also teachings which He used in His catechesis. Irinaios is the first to mention that “the Gospel according to Saint Matthew was written to the Jews”, meaning that the recipients were Jews who had become Christians or, as Origen says: “those who believed from Judaism”.

The purpose behind the writing of the Gospel of Saint Matthew was to make manifest that Christ came “from the seed of Abraham”, which is why the narrative begins with His nativity. As Saint John Chrysostom says: “He wanted nothing more than to show that He was of the seed of Abraham and David… for nothing would soothe a Jew so much as to know that Christ was the descendant of Abraham and David”. This is why he selects important events in the life of Christ, compiles His sayings and presents them in such a way that they demonstrate that Jesus Christ is, indeed, the Messiah Who was foretold for the Jews. By quoting the prophecies of the Old Testament, he makes it clear that they were fulfilled in the person of Christ.

As for his later activities, we cannot regard what has been handed down to us as either accurate or historical. Rufinus, Gregory the Great and the Church historian Socrates, all declare that he went to Ethiopia. Paulinus of Nola mentions that he converted the pagan Parthians to Christ, while Saint Nikodimos the Athonite declares that: “later he was put to death by fire by the infidels”, in Ierapolis, in Syria. It may be that this is confirmed by a verse in his Life: “‘Jesus You also save tax-collectors; grace belongs to You’. This is what Matthew cried, when he was in the midst of the fire”.

By the prayers of Your apostle, God, have mercy upon us. Amen.

Source:http://pemptousia.com/2014/11/a-tax-collector-apostle-and-evangelist-saint-matthew-16-november/

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Who wrote the Synoptic Gospels? Their titles bear the names of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but did those men actually draft them? Modern scholarship has called this previous assumption into question, with some going so far as to say that the men whose names adorn the books were long since dead.

Ground Rules

When writing on a controversial subject such as this, some ground rules are in order for this discussion to show my approach towards an objective conclusion.

First, while false attribution was not unheard of in the early Christian community (the Gospel of Thomas, not part of the canon, is an example of this), it is unfair for biblical critics to simply make the assumption that the canonical Gospels were misattributed and shift the burden of proof to those who hold to traditional authorship.

Second, anti-supernaturalism as a bias must be set aside. An example of this is the assumption that Matthew (or at least the 23rd chapter) had to be written after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, because Jesus simply could not have prophesied the destruction of the Temple. According to an anti-supernaturalist, the author of Matthew had to put that in later.

An even more glaring example of this is the belief among literary scholars that mythic traditions take one or two generations to evolve, thus an assumption is made that the Gospels, which proclaim Jesus’ deity, must have been the byproduct of this evolution. Ergo, the Gospels were written and compiled at least a generation or two after Jesus’ life. Such an assumption is philosophical and prejudicial.

With these concerns in mind, let us then proceed with an objective mind.

The Gospel Sources

The early Christian tradition, articulated by many but most notably by the famed theologian Augustine, is that the Synoptic Gospels were written in the order in which they now appear in the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Post-Enlightenment scholarship challenged this assumption, and today mainline and liberal scholars embrace the view that Mark was the first Gospel written.

In addition, mainstream biblical scholars hold that Mark based his Gospel on a source document known as “Q.” There is absolutely no evidence for any Q document, but literary analysis of the Synoptic similarities along with Jewish rabbinical tradition (namely the practice of keeping records of rabbinical teachings) support the hypothesis. New Testament scholars have since added two additional sources: “L” and “M” – for which, once again, there is no hard evidence. These are assumed to be strains of mainly oral tradition.

The authors of Mark (first) and then Matthew and Luke are assumed to have utilized these various sources in putting together their Gospel accounts.

Matthew

Who wrote the Gospel that first appears in the New Testament canon, the Gospel of Matthew? Doubts about Matthew’s authorship stem largely from the fact that New Testament scholars now widely believe that Mark was written first. Would Matthew, an actual eyewitness of Jesus’ life, rely on the writing of Mark, who was not an eyewitness?

This skepticism, of course, assumes that Matthew primarily utilized Mark, yet this theory of Synoptic Gospel inter-connectivity has never been conclusively established, certainly not to a degree that would have the author of Matthew actually dependent on Mark’s Gospel. Thomas Jefferson utilized George Mason’s Virginia Constitution when writing the Declaration of Independence, but utilization does not equate to absolute reliance. No historian would argue that Jefferson was helpless in his task of authoring America’s independence document absent Mason’s handiwork. Accordingly, even if Matthew had Mark’s Gospel at his disposal, it hardly discredits the notion that the apostle himself wrote the Gospel of Matthew.

The strongest evidence attesting to Matthew’s authorship is the fact that four ancient sources, not counting the title itself, specifically attribute the Gospel to Matthew, the disciple of Jesus. Those sources are Papias of Asia Minor, Irenaeus of Gaul, Pantaenus, and Origen of Alexandria and Caesarea, all significant leaders or writers in the early Christian community. Moreover, the Gospel of Matthew was in wide circulation in the early church, and was circulated as an account written by Matthew, with no apparent question or contestation.

Confronted with this very strong evidence from ancient history, Matthew, the disciple of Jesus Christ, is the author of the first Gospel in the New Testament canon.

Was The Gospel Of Matthew The First Gospel Written, Composed Before 70 A.D., And Originally Written In Hebrew?

Traditionally, the universities of the western world have taught that the Gospel of Matthew was not the first Gospel written, that it was written in Greek, and that it was authored after 70 A.D.

However, as more and more discoveries have been made, those assumptions have been shown to be stone cold wrong.

As researchers are looking into the writings of the early church leaders, they are finding that not only was the Gospel of Matthew most definitely the first Gospel written (almost certainly before 50 A.D.), but that it was originally written in Hebrew!

Just check out what some of the early church writers from the first few centuries of the church have to say on this matter:

Origen (Eusebius, H.E. 6.25.4) "As having learnt by tradition concerning the four Gospels, which alone are unquestionable in the Church of God under heaven, that first was written according to Matthew, who was once a tax collector but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, who published it for those who from Judaism came to believe, composed as it was in the Hebrew language."

Papias (Eusebius, H.E. 3.39.16) "Matthew collected the oracles (ta logia) in the Hebrew language, and each translated (or interpreted) them as best he could."

Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 3.1.1) "Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome and laying the foundations of the church."

Eusebius (H.E. 3.24.6) "Matthew had first preached to Hebrews, and when he was on the point of going to others he transmitted in writing in his native language the Gospel according to himself, and thus supplied by writing the lack of his own presence to those from whom he was sent."

Epiphanius (ca. 315-403), bishop of Salamis, refers to a Gospel used by the Ebionites (Panarion 30. 13.1-30.22.4). He says it is Matthew, called "According to the Hebrews" by them, but says it is corrupt and mutilated. He says Matthew issued his Gospel in Hebrew letters. He quotes from this Ebionite Gospel seven times. These quotations appear to come not from Matthew but from some harmonized account of the canonical Gospels.

There is also early testimony that Bartholomew, one of the twelve apostles, carried a Hebrew copy of the Gospel of Matthew to India. Two of the earliest Church historians, Eusebius and Origen, wrote about this. "It is reported," wrote Eusebius, "that among persons there who knew Christ, (Pantaenus) found the Gospel according to St. Matthew (which had arrived ahead of Pantaenus by more than a century). For Bartholomew, one of the apostles, had preached to them, and left them (in India) the writing of Matthew in the Hebrew language which they had preserved." In his ground-breaking book, A History of Christianity in Asia, Princeton scholar and author Samuel Moffett reveals that Pantaenus, a church historian and missionary who traveled to India in 180 A.D., discovered the copy of the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew that Bartholomew had taken with him.

There is a similar tradition that the Apostle Barnabas, the follower of the Apostle Paul, also carried with him and was buried with an early version of the Gospel of Matthew. According to tradition, it was through Barnabas that Matthew's Gospel was transmitted and maybe even translated into Greek. Barnabas primarily taught the Jews in Cyprus and it is said in his Acts that he used the Gospel he received personally from Matthew not only to teach, but to work miracles as well. The Acts of Barnabas even mention a probability that Matthew wrote his Gospel in at least two documents, a narrative of miracles and one of doctrines. If this is true it may have been Barnabas that compiled the documents of his fellow apostle. At his death the supposed writer of the Acts of Barnabas, John Mark, saved Matthew's Gospel and hid it away in the tomb of Barnabas. In 478, during the reign of the Emperor Zeno, archbishop Anthemios of Cyprus announced that the hidden burial place of Barnabas had been revealed to him in a dream. The saint's body was claimed to have been discovered in a cave with a copy of the canonical Gospel of Matthew on its breast; according to the contemporary account of Theodoros Lector, who reports that both bones and Gospel book were presented by Anthemios to the emperor. Severus of Antioch examined this Gospel around the year 500, seeking to find whether it supported the piercing of the crucifed Jesus by a spear in Matthew 27:49 which some taught (it did not). According to the eleventh century Roman historian Georgios Kedrenos an uncial manuscript of Matthew's Gospel, believed to be that found by Anthemios, was then still preserved in the Chapel of St Stephen in the Imperial Palace. If this uncial version is Barnabas' copy, then we can assume he translated it into Greek. If not, Barnabas may have been buried with the original Hebrew version. Of course, there is a possibility that he had a Greek version written by Matthew.

This information further confirms that Matthew, an eyewitness to the miracles and events of Jesus' ministry, was indeed the author of the first Gospel and verifies both the Jewishness and early date of the first Gospel.

Article written By John Sanidopoulos

Source: http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2009/11/who-wrote-gospel-of-matthew.html

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Holy Apostle Matthew: Tax-Collector, Apostle and Evangelist

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