Saint Matthias

Matthias is the apostle who was chosen not by Jesus but by the other eleven, and that’s why his story is different from all the rest. The Acts of the Apostles tell how, in the days after the Ascension, Peter proposed to the assembly — there were a hundred and twenty of them — that they replace Judas Iscariot. The condition was precise: it had to be someone who had been with them the whole time, from John’s baptism to the Ascension. Two were put forward, Joseph called Barsabbas and Matthias. They prayed, drew lots, and the lot fell to Matthias. The name comes from Hebrew and means “gift of God”: the same meaning as Matthew, with whom he shouldn’t be confused. About what he did afterward, the ancient sources say vague and contradictory things. According to Nicephorus he preached in Judea and then in Ethiopia and was crucified. Other traditions take him to Colchis, on the Black Sea, or have him stoned to death in Jerusalem. There is also an apocryphal gospel that bears his name and that has not come down to us. His relics are venerated in Trier, in Germany — the only tomb of an apostle north of the Alps — and in Rome, in Santa Maria Maggiore. If your name is Matthias, today is your name day.