MATTHEW, or Gospel of St. MATTHEW, a canonical book of the New Testament.
St. Matthew wrote his gospel in Judea, at the request of those he had converted; and it is thought he began it in the year 41, eight years after Christ's resurrection. It was written, according to the testimony of all the ancients, in the Hebrew or Syriac language, which was then common in Judea; but the Greek version of it, which now passes for the original, is as old as the apostolical times.