matterful

[Eng. matter; -ful ( l ).] Full of matter; pregnant. "What a sweet, unpretending, pretty-mannered, mat terful creature."-Lamb: To Words worth , p. 97 (1815). măt-ter-le , *mat-ter-le e, a. [Eng. mat ter ; -le .] 1. Not material; immaterial. "Like shades Wittes Pilgrimage, p. 35. quite matterle e." -Davies: 2. Devoid of matter, substance, or sense. "All fine noise Of verse meere matterle e and tinkling stories." Ben Jonson: Horace; Art of Poetry. măt-ter-, *mat-ter-ie, a. [Eng. matter ; y.] 1. Full of matter; important, weighty. "Away with your matterie sentences, Momus; they are too grave, and wise, for this meeting."-Ben Jonson: Poetaster , iv. 4. 2. Generating pus; purulent. "The putrid vapours colliquate the phlegm a tick humours of the body, which transcending to the lungs, causes their mattery cough."-Harvey: On Consump ion. Matthew Matthew (ew as ū), 8. [Lat. Matthæus ; Gr Matthaios , according to Gesenius, a contr. of Heb. Matt i the ah the gift of God, the name borne by the Maccabee patriot, Matt at hi as.] Scrip. Biog .: An apostle of Jesus, almost certainly the same as Levi, the son of Alpheus. (Cf. Matt. ix. 9-13, Mark ii. 14-16, and Luke v.27.) He was a "publican"-i. e. a tax gatherer-who sat at the receipt of custom at Capernaumon the shore of the Sea of Galilee. ( Ibid . ) Tax gatherers are rarely popular men; and, moreover, the money which Matthew raised was not for the Jewish, but for the Roman government, he was, therefore, regarded as outside the pale of society, and his companions, when he was called to the apostleship, were 'publicans and sinners." After his call he figures in all the lists of apostles (Matt. x. 3; Mark iii. 18; Actsi. 13). Clement of Alexandria represents him as dying a natural death; much later tradition represents him as having been martyred. The Gospel according to St. Matthew: New Test. Canon: The first of the four Gospels in arrangement, and long almost universally held to have been the first in point of publication, though it is more probable that Mark came first and Matthew only second in point of time. The author's name is nowhere given in it, but universal Christian tradition a igns it to Matthew the apostle, called Levi, and there is a fragment of internal evidence in the same direction. In connection with the call of Matthew the first gospel relates that "as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and His disciples" (Matt. ix. 10). Why they presumed to come is not stated; but St. Luke explains that they came because they were invited. He says that "Levi [Matthew] made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them" (Luke v. 29). If the author of the first gospel felt diffident about recording the hospitality of St. Matthew, the only reason can be that he was St. Matthew himself; the sole argument against this view is that St. Mark also withholds the information that invitation to the party was given (Mark ii. 15). The special ob ject of the first gospel was to show that Jesus was the Me iah of ancient prophecy. The author continually quotes the Old Testament prophets, sometimes indicating that the events took place to fulfill the prophecy (i. 22, ii. 15, 23, .), at others simply that they fulfilled the prophecy (ii. 17). The book was addre ed specially to the Jews. The ancient fathers believed that it was published at first in Aramaic, but, on the other hand, no quotations from the Aramean book is extant, and the Greek has every appearance of an original work rather than a translation; of two kinds of quotations from the Old Testament, one is from the Septuagint Greek. Eusebius fixes the date of its publication in the third year of Caligula, A. D. 41, but lived too late really to know; Irenæus is in favor of a later date, apparently A. D. 60. Rationalistic writers, who disbelieve in prophecy, place it after the destruction of Jerusalem. In 1771 Williams attacked the authenticity of the first two chapters. He was followed by Stroth, He , Ammon, Schleiermacher, Norton, . They were defended by Fleming, Griesbach, Hug, Credner, Paulus, Kuinoel, Neander, . All the old manuscripts and versions contain them, and they are quoted by the fathers of the second and third centuries. St. Matthew is the only evangelist who reports at length the Sermon on the Mount. He gives prominence to other discourses of Jesus. Like his fellow synoptists he gives details of the ministry of Jesus in Galilee, not speaking much of Jerusalem till the closing scenes drew nigh.