Holy Apostle Matthias
Numbered with the Eleven
From the Acts of the Apostles
Chosen by lot
Editor's note
In the ten days between the Ascension and Pentecost the disciples were gathered together in the upper room at Jerusalem, about a hundred and twenty in all. Peter stood up to address them. The traitor had fallen from his place, the prophecy of the psalm required that his bishopric be given to another, and one was needed who could stand with the rest as a witness of the Resurrection. Two men were put forward, and the company prayed and cast lots, and the lot fell on Matthias.
Acts 1:21-26 (KJV)
ScriptureVerbatim Scripture.
Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,
Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection.
And they appointed two, Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias.
And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen,
That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.
And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.
The mission and the martyrdom
Editor's note
Of Matthias the Acts say nothing after the choosing; he labors with the rest, but no later scene singles him out. The tradition, however, knows him as one of the most courageous of the missionary apostles. He preached, the synaxaria say, in Judaea first, and then in Cappadocia, on the coasts of the Black Sea among a fierce pagan people who imprisoned and abused him, and at last in Ethiopia and Macedonia.
He suffered much for the Gospel, the older accounts record: he was stoned, blinded for a time, and miraculously restored. He was at last condemned for confessing Christ, and was stoned and beheaded around the middle of the first century.
His memory is kept on the ninth of August in the Orthodox calendar, and his relics, brought from the East to Trier in the early centuries, rest in part there to this day.