St. Matthew

A tax collector at Capernaum in the pay of Rome — and so a public sinner — who left his table at a single word from Jesus: "Follow me." His Gospel is shaped to show Jesus as the new Moses and the fulfillment of the prophets, and was the most cited of the four in the early Church. Tradition has him preaching and dying in the East, perhaps in Ethiopia.

Matthew's Gospel, written primarily for a Jewish-Christian audience, is organized around five great discourses that mirror the five books of Moses. It contains the Sermon on the Mount, the parables of the kingdom, and the Great Commission — texts that have shaped Christian life and worship more than almost any others. The evangelist's own story of conversion became a symbol of grace: Caravaggio's masterpiece in San Luigi dei Francesi captures the moment when light breaks into the dim counting-house of a sinner's life.

Tradition holds that Matthew preached in Judea before traveling east to Ethiopia, Persia, or Parthia, where he met his death as a martyr. His relics are venerated in the cathedral of Salerno in southern Italy, brought there in the tenth century. He is patron of accountants, bankers, and tax collectors — a reminder that no profession places a soul beyond the reach of Christ's call.