Matthew, Also Called Levi

Matthew, also called Levi, an apostle and formerly a tax collector, composed a gospel of Christ. It was first published in Judea in Hebrew, for the sake of the believers of the circumcision, and was afterward translated into Greek, though by whom is uncertain. The Hebrew itself has been preserved to this day in the library at Caesarea which Pamphilus gathered so carefully. I have also had the chance to have the volume described to me by the Nazarenes of Beroea, a city of Syria, who use it. In it, one should note, wherever the evangelist quotes the witness of the Old Testament, whether in his own person or in the person of our Lord the Savior, he does not follow the authority of the translators of the Septuagint, but the Hebrew. That is why these two forms are found: “Out of Egypt I have called my son,” and, “For he will be called a Nazarene.” [a]