two he would appoint to take that part of the apostolic charge, from which Judas was SO lately fallen. The lots being put into the urn, Matthias's name was drawn out, and thereby the apostolate devolved upon him.

4. Not long after, the promised powers of the Holy Ghost were conferred upon the apostles, to fit them for that great and difficult employment, upon which they were sent; and among the rest St. Matthias betook himself to his charge and province. The first-fruits of his ministry he spent in Judæa, where having reaped a considerable harvest, he betook himself to other provinces. An author, I confess of no great credit in these matters, tells us, that he preached the gospel in Macedonia, where the Gentiles, to make an experiment of his faith and integrity, gave him a poisonous and intoxicating potion, which he cheerfully drank off, in the name of Christ, without the least prejudice to himself; and that when the same potion had deprived above two hundred and fifty of their sight, he laying his hands upon them, restored them to their sight;' with a great deal more of the same stamp, which I have neither faith enough to believe, nor leisure enough to relate. The Greeks, with more probability, report him to have travelled eastward; he came (says Nicephorus) into the first, (says Sophronius) into the second Ethiopia; and in both, I believe, it is a mistake, either of the authors or transcribers, for Cappadocia; his residence being principally near the eruption of the river Apsarus, and the haven Hyssus, both places in

1 Petr. de Natal. Histor. Sanct. lib. iii. c. 149.

2 H. Eccl. lib. ii. c. 30, p. 203.

3 Ap. Hieron. de Script. Eccl. in Matthia.

Cappadocia. Nor is there any Æthiopia nearer those places than that conterminous to Chaldæa, whereof before. And as for those that tell us, that he might well enough preach both in the Asian and African Ethiopia; and that both might be comprehended under that general name, as the eastern and western parts of the world were heretofore contained under the general title of the Indias; it is a fancy without any other ground to stand on than their own bare conjecture. The place whither he came was very barbarous, and his usage was accordingly. For here meeting with a people of a fierce and untractable temper, he was treated by them with great rudeness and inhumanity, from whom, after all his labours and sufferings, and a numerous conversion of men to Christianity, he obtained at last the crown of martyrdom, ann. Chr. 61; or as others, 64. Little certainty can be retrieved concerning the manner of his death. Dorotheus will have him to die at Sebastople, and to be buried there, near the Temple of the Sun.' An ancient Martyrology reports him to have been seized by the Jews, and as a blasphemer to have been stoned, and then beheaded 2 But the Greek offices, seconded herein by several ancient breviaries, tell us that he was crucified; and that as Judas was hanged upon a tree, so Matthias suffered upon a cross. His body is said to have been

Synops. de vit. App. in Bibl. Pp. tom. iii. p. 148. 2 Colon. Impress. 1490, ad Febr. 24.

3 Εξῆλθεν ἀρθεις Ιέδας ἐπὶ βροχες. Εἰσῆλθεν ἀρθεὶς Ματθίας ἐπὶ ξύλο.

Ηρθη ἀμφ' ἑνάτῃ ξύλῳ ἰύθεος Ματθίας.

Menæon Græco. ad diem 9 August. apud Bolland. de vit SS. ad Febr. 24, tom. iii. p. 433.

2

kept a long time at Jerusalem, thence thought to have been translated by Helen, the mother of the great Constantine, to Rome, where some parts of it are shown with great veneration at this day. Though others, with as great eagerness, and probably as much truth, contend that his relics were brought to, and are still preserved at Triers in Germany,' a controversy wherein I shall not concern myself. His memory is celebrated in the Greek church, August 9, as appears not only from their menologies, but from a novel constitution of Manuel Comnenus, appointing what holy days should be kept in the church; while the western churches kept February 24, sacred to his memory. Among many other apocryphal writings attributed to the apostles, there was a gospel published under his name, mentioned by Eusebius3 and the ancients, and condemned with the rest by Gelasius, bishop of Rome, as it had been rejected by others before him. Under his name also there were extant traditions, cited by Clemens of Alexdria, from whence, no question, it was that the Nicolaitans borrowed that saying of his, which they abused to vile and beastly purposes; as under the pretended patronage of his name and doctrines, the Marcionites and Valentinians defended some of their most absurd and impious opinions.

6

1 Vid. Chr. Brower Annal. Treverens. lib. ii. p. 658, et scriptores ex utraque parte contendentes ap. Boll. loc. cit. p. 435.

2 Extat in Jur. Gr. Rom. lib. ii. p. 161.

3 H. Eccl. lib. iii. c. 25, p. 97; Orig. in Luc. Hom. 10. Amb. præf. in Luc. tom. v. p. 7.

4 Decr. Part i. Dist. 15, cap. Sanct. Rom. Sect. Cæterum. 5 Strom. lib. ii. p. 380; ibid. lib. iii. p. 436.

6 Ibid. lib. vii. p. 765.

terest.

There are many circumstances respecting St. Matthias which the Christian inquirer naturally regards with considerable inThe holiness of a man chosen to fill up the number in the company of the peculiarly elected apostles must have been great and singular; while the manner in which he was elected and consecrated, affords, in the first place, a valuable instance of the mode in which these founders of the Christian church proceeded in the earliest exercise of their episcopal functions, if we may so speak; and in the next, an instance of divine interference well worthy of attention, and of comparison with the anointing of St. Paul to the apostolic office by the Redeemer: now exercising on his throne in heaven the same care for the propagating of his religion, as he did while visible on earth.-ED.

201

ST. MARK

THE EVANGELIST.

ST. MARK, though carrying something of Roman in his name, probably assumed by him upon some great change or accident of his life, or, which was not unusual among the Jews, when visiting the European provinces of the Roman empire, taken up at his going for Italy and Rome, was doubtless born of Jewish parents, originally descended of the tribe of Levi, and the line of the priesthood,' and (if Nicephorus says true,') sister's son to Peter, though by others, against all reason, confounded with John, sirnamed Mark, the son of Mary and Mark, sister's son to Barnabas. By the ancients he is generally thought to have been one of the seventy disciples; and Epiphanius expressly tells us, that he was one of those who taking exception at our Lord's discourse of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, went back and walked no more with him ;' but was seasonably reduced and reclaimed by Peter. But no foundation appears either for the