瑪竇福音 2:1-12

Saint Matthew
Feastday: September 21st
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圖片參考：http://www.catholic.org/images/saints/stmatthew.jpg

Saint Matthew

St. Matthew, one of the twelve Apostles, is the author of the first Gospel. This has been the constant tradition of the Church and is confirmed by the Gospel itself. He was the son of Alpheus and was called to be an Apostle while sitting in the tax collectors place at Capernaum. Before his conversion he was a publican, i.e., a tax collector by profession. He is to be identified with the "Levi" of Mark and Luke.
His apostolic activity was at first restricted to the communities of Palestine. Nothing definite is known about his later life. There is a tradition that points to Ethiopia as his field of labor; other traditions mention of Parthia and Persia. It is uncertain whether he died a natural death or received the crown of martyrdom.
St. Matthew's Gospel was written to fill a sorely-felt want for his fellow countrymen, both believers and unbelievers. For the former, it served as a token of his regard and as an encouragement in the trial to come, especially the danger of falling back to Judaism; for the latter, it was designed to convince them that the Messiah had come in the person of Jesus, our Lord, in Whom all the promises of the Messianic Kingdom embracing all people had been fulfilled in a spiritual rather than in a carnal way: "My Kingdom is not of this world." His Gospel, then, answered the question put by the disciples of St. John the Baptist, "Are You He Who is to come, or shall we look for another?"
Writing for his countrymen of Palestine, St. Matthew composed his Gospel in his native Aramaic, the "Hebrew tongue" mentioned in the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. Soon afterward, about the time of the persecution of Herod Agrippa I in 42 AD, he took his departure for other lands. Another tradition places the composition of his Gospel either between the time of this departure and the Council of Jerusalem, i.e., between 42 AD and 50 AD or even later. Definitely, however, the Gospel, depicting the Holy City with its altar and temple as still existing, and without any reference to the fulfillment of our Lord's prophecy, shows that it was written before the destruction of the city by the Romans in 70 AD, and this internal evidence confirms the early traditions.

瑪竇福音的作者就是瑪竇。
瑪竇本身為猶太人，對舊約十分熟悉，本身為稅務員，又名肋末。他的蒙召就出現在瑪竇福音第九章。
其實福音或宗徒大使錄中也沒有甚麼確切的證據，主要的證據來自其他的文獻。
瑪竇福音的對象明顯是猶太人，因為他在文中沒有對猶太人的習慣詳加解釋，文中是為證明耶穌就是舊約所預許的默西亞。
二章一至十二節是賢士來朝，就是主顯節的福音讀經。內容十分豐富，如果單就主顯節來說，這篇福音是說明了主默西亞的出現不單把天主顯示給猶太人這個特許的民族，耶穌的誕生更把這個得救的喜訊啟示給外邦人。而賢士獻上黃金乳香沒藥是為了表示耶穌是君王、天主、和真人。

2008-01-12 11:20:33 補充：
忘了打出處。有關瑪竇其人和其福音是《思高聖經原著譯釋版系列--福音》。如果樓主有興趣更認識聖經，該《原著譯釋版系列》是很好的參考書。讚。