St. Matthew.
Lat. S. Mattheus. Ital. San Matteo. Fr. Saint Matthieu. Ger. St. Matthäus. (Sept. 21.)
St. Matthew among the Apostles takes the seventh or eighth place, but as an Evangelist he always stands first, because his gospel was the earliest written. Very little is certainly known concerning him, his name occurring but once in his own gospel, and in the other gospels only incidentally with reference to two events.
He was a Hebrew by birth; by profession a publican, or tax-gatherer, in the service of the Romans—an office very lucrative, but particularly odious in the sight of his countrymen. His original name was Levi. It is recorded in few words, that as he sat at the receipt of custom by the lake of Gennesareth, Jesus in passing by saw him, and said unto him, ‘Follow me,’ and he left all and followed him; and farther, that he made a feast in his house, at which many publicans and sinners sat down with the Lord and his disciples, to the great astonishment and scandal of the Jews. So far the sacred record: the traditional and legendary history of St. Matthew is equally scanty. It is related in the Perfetto Legendario that after the dispersion of the apostles he travelled into Egypt and Ethiopia, preaching the Gospel; and having arrived in the capital of Ethiopia, he lodged in the house of the eunuch who had been baptized by Philip, and who entertained him with great honour. There were two terrible magicians at that time in Ethiopia, who by their diabolical spells and incantations kept all the people in subjection, afflicting them at the same time with strange and terrible diseases; but St. Matthew overcame them, and having baptized the people, they were delivered for ever from the malignant influence of these enchanters. And further, it is related that St. Matthew raised the son of the King of Egypt from the dead, and healed his daughter of the leprosy. The princess, whose name was Iphigenia, he placed at the head of a community of virgins dedicated to the service of God; and a certain wicked heathen king, having threatened to tear her from her asylum, was struck by leprosy, and his palace destroyed by fire. St. Matthew remained twenty-three years in Egypt and Ethiopia, and it is said that he perished in the ninetieth year of our era, under Domitian: but the manner of his death is uncertain; according to the Greek legend, he died in peace, but according to the tradition of the Western Church, he suffered martyrdom either by the sword or the spear.
Few churches are dedicated to St. Matthew. I am not aware that he is the patron saint of any country, trade, or profession, unless it be that of tax-gatherer or exciseman; and this is perhaps the reason that, except where he figures as one of the series of evangelists or apostles, he is so seldom represented alone, or in devotional pictures. In a large altar-piece, the ‘San Matteo’ of Annibal Caracci,[105] he is standing before the throne of the Madonna, as a pendant to John the Baptist, and gives his name to the picture: but such examples are uncommon. When he is portrayed as an evangelist, he holds a book or a pen; and the angel, his proper attribute and attendant, stands by, pointing up to heaven, or dictating; or he holds the inkhorn, or he supports the book. In his character of apostle, St. Matthew frequently holds a purse or money-bag, as significant of his former vocation (56).
Neither are pictures from his life of frequent occurrence. The principal incident, entitled the ‘Calling of Matthew,’ has been occasionally, but not often, treated in painting. The motif is simple and not easily mistaken. St. Matthew is seated at a kind of desk with money before him; various personages bring tribute; on one side is seen Christ, with one or two of his disciples, generally Peter and Andrew; St. Matthew is either looking towards him with an expression of awe-struck attention, or he is rising from his seat, as in the act to follow: the mere accessories and number of the personages vary with the period of the composition and the taste of the painter.
1. The earliest instance I can cite, probably the oldest which has come down to us, is in a Greek MS. of the ninth century.[106] St. Matthew sits with both hands on a heap of gold, lying on a table before him: he looks round at Christ, who is a little behind.
2. St. Matthew is about to rise to follow the Saviour; by Matte di Ser Cambio of Perugia, who has represented his patron saint in a small composition.[107]
3. In the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace, there is a very curious and interesting picture of this subject, by Mabuse, which once belonged to King Charles I., and is quaintly described in the old catalogue of his pictures ‘as a very old, defaced, curious altar-piece, upon a thick board, where Christ is calling St. Matthew out of the custom-house; which picture was got in Queen Elizabeth’s days, in the taking of Calus Malus (Cadiz), in Spain. Painted upon a board in a gilded arched frame, like an altar-piece; containing ten big figures, less than half so big as the life, and some twenty-two afar off less figures. Given to the King.’ In the foreground there is a rich architectural porch, from which St. Matthew is issuing in haste, leaving his money-bags behind; and in the background is seen the lake of Gennesareth and shipping. This picture was among the booty taken in Essex’s expedition against Cadiz in 1596, and probably stolen from some church.
4. In the Vienna Gallery I found three pictures of the same subject, all by Hemessen, very quaint and curious.
5. At Dresden the same subject in the Venetian style by Pordenone.
6. By Ludovico Caracci, a grand scenic picture, painted for the Mendicanti in Bologna.
7. In a chapel of the church of San Luigi de’ Francesi, at Rome, there are three pictures by Caravaggio from the life of St. Matthew. Over the altar is the saint writing his gospel; he looks up at the attendant angel, who is behind with outspread wings, and in the act of dictating. On the left is the calling of St. Matthew; the saint, who has been counting money, rises with one hand on his breast, and turns to follow the Saviour: an old man, with spectacles on his nose, examines with curiosity the personage whose summons has had such a miraculous effect: a boy is slyly appropriating the money which the apostle has thrown down. The third picture is the martyrdom of the saint, who, in the sacerdotal habit, lies extended on a block, while a half-naked executioner raises the sword, and several spectators shrink back with horror. There is nothing dignified or poetical in these representations; and though painted with all that power of effect which characterised Caravaggio, then at the height of his reputation, they have also his coarseness of feeling and execution: the priests were (not without reason) dissatisfied; and it required all the influence of his patron, Cardinal Giustiniani, to induce them to retain the pictures in the church where we now see them;—here we sympathise with the priests, rather than with the artist and his patron.
The Feast which St. Matthew made for our Saviour and his disciples is the subject of one of Paul Veronese’s gorgeous banquet scenes; that which he painted for the refectory of the Convent of St. John and St. Paul at Venice. It is now in the Academy, filling up the end wall of one of the great rooms from side to side, and seeming to let in light and air through the lofty marble porticoes, which give us such a magnificent idea of the splendour which surrounded Levi before he left all to follow Jesus.
In all the representations of the death of St. Matthew, except those of the Greek or Byzantine school, he dies by the sword. The Greek artists uniformly exhibit him as dying in peace, while an angel swings the censer beside his bed: as on the ancient doors of San Paolo at Rome.
Pictures from the legendary life of St. Matthew are very rare. The most remarkable are the frescoes in the chapel of San Matteo at Ravenna, attributed to Giotto. They are so much ruined, that, of the eight subjects represented, only three—his vocation, his preaching and healing the sick in Ethiopia, and the baptism of the king and queen—can be made out. In the Bedford missal at Paris I found a miniature, representing St. Matthew ‘healing the son and daughter of King Egyptus of the leprosy;’ but, as a subject of art, he is not popular.