All further information concerning the life and death of Matthias is vague and contradictory. According to Nicephorus (
Church History II.40), he first preached the Gospel in
Judea, then in
Ethiopia (that is to say, Colchis) and was crucified. The Synopsis of Dorotheus contains this tradition: Matthias in interiore Æthiopia, ubi Hyssus maris portus et Phasis fluvius est, hominibus barbaris et carnivoris praedicavit Evangelium. Mortuus est autem in Sebastopoli, ibique prope templum Solis sepultus (Matthias preached theGospel to barbarians and cannibals in the interior of
Ethiopia, at the harbour of the sea of Hyssus, at the mouth of the river Phasis. He died at
Sebastopolis, and was buried there, near the Temple of the Sun). Still another tradition maintains that Matthias was stoned at
Jerusalem by the
Jews, and then beheaded (cf.
Tillemont, “Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire eccl. des six premiers siècles”, I, 406-7). It is said that St. Helena brought the
relics of St. Matthias to
Rome, and that a portion of them was at
Trier. Bollandus* (Acta SS., May, III)
doubts if the
relics that are in
Rome are not rather those of the St. Matthias who was
Bishop of
Jerusalem about the year 120, and whose history would seem to have been confounded with that of the Apostle. The
Latin Church celebrates the feast of St. Matthias on 24 February and the
Greek Church on 9 August.
Note: After this article was written, the
Latin Church moved the feast of St. Matthias to 14 May.]
Clement of Alexandria (
Stromata III.4) records a sentence that the
Nicolaitans ascribe to Matthias: “we must combat our flesh, set no value upon it, and concede to it nothing that can flatter it, but rather increase the growth of our
soul by
faith and
knowledge”. This teaching was probably found in the Gospel of Matthias which was mentioned by
Origen (Hom. i in Lucam); by
Eusebius (
Church History III.25), who attributes it to
heretics; by
St. Jerome (Praef. in Matth.), and in the
Decree of Gelasius (VI, 8) which declares it
apocryphal. It is at the end of the list of the Codex Barrocciamus (206). This Gospel is probably the document whence
Clement of Alexandria quoted several passages, saying that they were borrowed from the traditions of Matthias,
Paradoseis, the testimony of which he claimed to have been invoked by the
heretics Valentinus,
Marcion, and
Basilides (
Stromata VII.17). According to the Philosophoumena, VII, 20,
Basilides quoted
apocryphal discourses, which he attributed to Matthias. These three writings: the gospel, the Traditions, and the Apocryphal Discourses were identified by Zahn (Gesch. des N. T. Kanon, II, 751), but Harnack (Chron. der altchrist. Litteratur, 597) denies this identification. Tischendorf (“Acta apostolorum apocrypha”, Leipzig, 1851) published after Thilo, 1846, “Acta Andreae et Matthiae in urbe anthropophagarum”, which, according to Lipsius, belonged to the middle of the second century. This apocrypha relates that Matthias went among the cannibals and, being cast into
prison, was delivered by Andrew. Needless to say, the entire narrative is without historical value. Moreover, it should be remembered that, in the
apocryphal writings, Matthew and Matthias have sometimes been confounded.
