Acts 1:23

‘And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias.'

The two finally seen as fulfilling all the requirements adequately, and approved of by all, were Barsabbas and Matthias. Barsabbas means ‘son of the Sabbath', and Justus would be his Roman name. Matthias was probably short for Mattathias. They were not necessarily the only two who fulfilled the qualifications, but they were seen as the most suitable. They would almost certainly have been of the seventy (Luke 10:1) as Eusebius later suggests. They chose a final two so that in the end the choice might be in God's hands. Such a decision was seen as not finally open to man.

That Matthias became influential, which there is no good reason for doubting was true for all the Apostles, comes out in that later apocryphal literature and traditions were attached to his name, as both Hippolytus and Clement of Alexandria make clear. A later apocryphal Gospel of Matthias was also known (although not preserved). Tradition would later see him as ministering in Ethiopia and Damascus and dying as a martyr in Judaea, but how reliable such traditions are we have no means of measuring. They do, however, demonstrate that he was not totally ‘the forgotten man'.