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Matthias the Apostle

Matthias the Apostle

b. c. 1 CE · Jerusalem

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Matthias was chosen to take the place of Judas Iscariot among the Twelve Apostles. The Gospels do not mention him. According to Acts, after Jesus's ascension Peter told the roughly 120 believers in Jerusalem that the replacement must be someone who had been with them from John's baptism to the ascension, a witness of the resurrection. Two men were put forward, Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. After prayer they cast lots, and the lot fell on Matthias, who was counted with the eleven (Acts 1:15-26). Nothing more about him appears in the New Testament. Eusebius, writing in the 4th century, reports a tradition that Matthias had been one of the Seventy disciples whom Jesus sent out. Later traditions disagree about his mission and death. Some place his death in Jerusalem, either by stoning or from old age. Others send him to an 'Ethiopia' that one late text places at the mouth of the Phasis in Colchis, on the Black Sea. Relics said to be his are venerated at Trier in Germany.

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Stop 1 of 130Chosen as apostle

JerusalemירושליםJudea

What they did here

Acts sets Matthias's selection by lot in Jerusalem, among about 120 believers, shortly after the ascension (Acts 1:15-26). Some later traditions also place his death in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem in this era

Under Roman rule Jerusalem was, according to the Gospels, where Jesus was crucified and, in Christian belief, rose from the dead; Acts places Pentecost and the first Christian community, led by the apostles and later by James, there. The Romans destroyed the city in 70 CE.

About Jerusalem

Jerusalem, in the Judean hills, is a sacred city for Jews, Christians and Muslims. In the Hebrew Bible it is King David's capital and the site of Solomon's Temple; the First Temple was destroyed by Babylon in 586 BCE and the Second Temple, rebuilt from about 516 BCE, by Rome in 70 CE. Christians revere it as the place of Jesus's crucifixion and, in their faith, his resurrection; in Islamic tradition it is the destination of the Prophet Muhammad's Night Journey and the first direction of prayer, marked by the Dome of the Rock (691-92) and al-Aqsa Mosque. It was ruled in turn by Rome and Byzantium, by Muslim dynasties from 638, by Crusaders (1099-1187), Ayyubids, Mamluks and Ottomans (1517-1917), and by Britain. Divided between Israel and Jordan from 1948 to 1967, it has since been under Israeli control. Israel regards the city as its capital; Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state; most countries do not recognize sovereignty over the whole city.

In Jerusalem at the same time

Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, Mary, mother of Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, Philip the Apostle, Bartholomew the Apostle

Across the traditions, in Jerusalem at the same time

See other sages who lived in Jerusalem→

In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Matthias the Apostle’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Matthias the Apostle’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn from recorded birth and death years (reign years for rulers whose lives are undated); where only one end of a life is known, a span of about 70 years is assumed.

Works

No works attributed in the corpus yet.