Lexicon :: Strong's G3156 - maththaios

Ματθαῖος (L T Tr WH Μαθθαῖος, cf. Buttmann, 8 (7); (WHs Appendix, 159b; Scrivener, Introduction, chapter viii. § 5, p. 562)), Ματθαιου (Buttmann, 18 (16)), ὁ (commonly regarded as Hebrew מַתִּיָה, gift of God, from מַתָּן and יָהּ; but מַתִּיָּה is in Greek Ματθίας, and the analogy of the names חַגַּי (from חָג a festival) in Greek Αγγαιος, זַכַּי, Ζακχαῖος, and others, as well as the Syriac form of the name before us yTM [] (and its form in the Talmud, viz., מתי or מתאי; Sanhedrin 43{a}; Meuschen, N. T. ex Talm. illustr., p. 8) certainly lead us to adopt the Aramaic form מַתַּי, and to derive that from the unused singular מַת, a man, plural מְתִים; hence, equivalent to manly, cf. Grimm in the Studien und Kritiken for 1870, p. 723ff), Matthew, at first a collector of imposts, afterward an apostle of Jesus: Matthew 9:9ff (cf. Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27ff; see Λευί, 4); Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13. According to Papias (in Eusebius, h. e. 3, 39) he wrote down Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ τά (κυριακα) λόγια, i. e. the sayings of our Lord; this collection of discourses, perhaps already retouched by someone else and translated into Greek, the author of our first canonical Gospel combined with accounts of the acts and sufferings of Christ, and so it came to pass that this Gospel was ascribed by the church to Matthew as its author. (But this theory seems to be rendered unnecessary by the fact that λόγια had already come to denote sacred oracles equivalent to ἱερά γράμματα, Josephus, b. j. 6, 5, 4, or ἱεραι γραφαί, Clement of Rome, 1 Cor. 53, 1 [ET]; see the added references under the word λόγιον. Cf. Fisher, Supernat. Origin of Christianity, pp. 160-167; and references in Schaff, Hist. of the Christ. Church, i., 622f; Bleek, Einl. ins N. T. (edited by Mangold), p. 115f.)

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