Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
16| The apostle Matthew did not start out in his earlier life from a respectable occupation, but from among those who spent their time on tax-farming and grasping gain. And none of the other evangelists made this known to us, not John, his fellow apostle, nor Luke, nor Mark, who wrote the other gospels; it was Matthew himself, holding up his own life to public shame and becoming his own accuser. Listen, then, to how in his own book he mentions himself expressly by name and tells the story in this way: "And as Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office, and said to him, Follow me. And he rose and followed him. And it happened, as he was reclining at table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples." And again, going on further, as he enumerates the list of the other disciples, he adds to himself the name of tax collector. He says: "Now these are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector." So Matthew, revealing through his surpassing fairness the love of truth in his own character, both calls himself a tax collector, without concealing his former life, and counts himself among sinners, and lists himself second to his fellow apostle. For, being paired with Thomas, as Peter is with Andrew, James with John, Philip with Bartholomew, he places Thomas ahead of himself, favoring his fellow apostle as the better man, whereas the other evangelists did the opposite.
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