he is the patron saint of any country, trade, or profession, un- less 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 isso seldom represented alone, or in devotional pictures. 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.”
Matthew wrote, probably in Palestine, and evidently for Jew- ish Christians. There are two views as to the language in which his gospel was originally composed : one that he wrote it in Hebrew or Syro-Chaldaic, the dialect spoken in Palestine by the Jewish Christians; the other that he wroteitinGreek. The former theory is supported by the unanimous testimony of the early church ; and the fathers who assert this, also declare that his work was translated into Greek. In that case the transla- tion was most probably made by Matthew himself, or under his supervision. The drift of modern scholarship, however, is toward the theory of a Greek original. Great uncertainty pre- vails as to the time of composition. According to the testimony of the earliest Christian fathers, Matthew’s gospel is the first in order, though the internal evidence favors the priority of Mark. Evidently it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem (av. 70). ‘Had that event preceded the writing of the sy- noptic gospels and the epistles of St. Paul, nothing is more certain than that it must have been directly mentioned, and that it must have exercised an immense influence on the thoughts and feelings of the apostles and evangelists. No writer deal- ing with the topics and arguments and prophecies with which they are constantly occupied, could possibly have failed to ap- peal to the tremendous sanction which had been given to all their views by God himself, who thus manifested his provi- dence in human history, and showed all things by the quiet light of inevitable circumstances” (Farrar, ‘‘ Messages of the Books ”’).