CONCERNING S. MATTHIAS, EIGHTH BISHOP OF JERUSALEM.
Beginning of the second century.
CommentaryMatthias, Bishop of Jerusalem (S.)
From various sources.
[1] The eighth Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem after James the brother of the Lord was Matthias, whose birthday is recorded on the third day before the Kalends of February in nearly all the Martyrologies of the Latins. On which day Usuard writes: At Jerusalem, of the most holy Bishop Matthias, The birthday of S. Matthias, Bp. of Jerusalem, of whom wonderful and fully credible deeds are related, because, having suffered many things for Christ, he finally ended his life in peace. Nearly the same things are said of him in the Roman Martyrology, Ado, the Vulgate Bede, Notker, Bellinus, Maurolycus, Canisius, Galesinius, and many manuscripts, in several of which, as also in Peter de Natali, book 3, chapter 58, he is called Matthew. The manuscript Florarium records him on 17 February. In the Greek Menaea his name is not found.
[2] Those wonderful and fully credible deeds of his which Usuard and others cite, neither we have seen, nor had Eusebius seen them in his day, as will shortly be evident from his own words. his deeds, Theodoric Pauli of Gorkum in his Universal Chronicle, in the catalogue of Bishops of Jerusalem, writes these things about Matthias: Matthias the holy, following in the eighth succession and presiding over the patriarchate of the Church of Jerusalem, was a man vigorous in the work of the word of God. At length, after he had presided most happily for some time, he fell asleep in the Lord. Of this S. Matthias wonderful and fully credible deeds are related: who, having endured many things for Christ, finally ended his life in peace. His feast is celebrated on the third day before the Kalends of February. He is said to have ended his life in peace, not because any quiet or tranquility had then been obtained for the Church; but because he was not slain by the sword, but died by his own fate, though otherwise broken by many hardships and labors.
[3] That the Church of Jerusalem was then vexed by a dire persecution, Baronius excellently infers by this conjecture, volume 2, year 113, number 1: that many Bishops are recorded to have been consumed in a short time. For, as Eusebius writes in his Chronicle, in the tenth year of Trajan, which was the year of Christ 107, when Trajan was stirring up persecution against the Christians, Simon (or Simeon), son of Cleophas, who held the episcopate in Jerusalem, is crucified; he is succeeded by Justus. Then in the fourteenth year, of Christ 111, after Justus, the fourth to receive the episcopate of the Church of Jerusalem is Zachaeus; after him, the fifth, Tobias, whom the sixth, Benjamin, succeeds, and then the seventh, John, the eighth, Matthias; in whose place the ninth, Philip, is appointed. Then in the eighth year of Hadrian, of Christ 124, his era, the tenth Bishop of Jerusalem after Philip is appointed: Seneca, after whom the eleventh, Justus; whom the twelfth, Levi, succeeds, after him the thirteenth, Ephres, the fourteenth, Joses, the fifteenth, Judas. All these, down to the destruction which Jerusalem suffered from Hadrian, presided as Bishops from the circumcision. From these passages Baronius infers in his Notes on the Martyrology that Matthias sat in the times of the Emperor Hadrian, and not of Trajan, as some have held. The matter is not clear to us.
[4] The same Bishops are listed by the same Eusebius, book 4, Ecclesiastical History, chapter 5, where he writes the following about them: The dates of the Bishops who governed the Church of Jerusalem, since, as is reported, they prolonged their lives to a very brief span of time, I nowhere find preserved in the monuments of writers. Only from the writings of certain authors do I observe that fifteen Bishops, by gradual succession, were there up to the siege conducted against the Jews in the reign of Hadrian: all of whom are recorded to have sprung from the ancient Hebrew stock (for the whole Church there is known to have been composed of faithful Hebrews), his lineage, and so truly and genuinely to have embraced the knowledge of Christ, that they were judged by those who were already able at that time to form a correct judgment about such matters to be truly worthy of the episcopal office and ministry: who indeed, from the time of the Apostles to that siege, in which the Jews, again revolting from the Roman Empire, were afflicted in no small battles, governed that Church in an unbroken chain of succession.