Luke 5:27-39

The Call and Feast of Levi. On Fasting. The New and the Old

27. and saw Rather, He observed.

named Levi It may be regarded as certain that Levi is the same person as the Evangelist St Matthew. The name Matthew (probably a corruption of Mattihijah) means, like Nathanael, Theodore, Doritheus, Adeodatus, &c., -the gift of God," and it seems to have been the name which he himself adopted after his call (see Matthew 9:9; Matthew 10:3; Mark 2:14).

at the receipt of custom Matthew may have been a tax-gatherer for Herod Antipas who seems to have been allowed to manage his own taxes and not for the Romans; but even in that case he would share almost equally with a man like Zacchaeus the odium with which his class was regarded. For the Herods were mere creatures of the Caesars (Jos. Antt.xvii. 11 § 6). Probably the -custom" was connected with the traffic of the Lake, and in the Hebrew Gospel of St Matthew -publican" is rendered - Baal abarah" -lord of the passage."