The Good News according to Saint Matthew

Not earthly is this text, nor is it a tale we all know. Not mere historians were those Evangelists, for their work is poetry from heaven, a spiritual, life-giving flame and an eternal wind foretelling.

Here is no banal history of a man, but one not to be compared with any other event, one rather an epic divine. An epic divine it is, even though Matthew was once gathering tax for the Romans, with a counting-house run in business fashion (Mark 2; 14), so this gospel reveals an orderly, practical mind.

The Evangelists were aware of receiving a celestial message, and here we see Matthew in ecstasy letting the angels guide his hand. In a first central sphere, cherubim and seraphim abound, like some living and breathing matter. The message is made ready for launching into other spheres, ones of daily life.

Saint Matthew is seated, listening to the sphere of the angels, tending his ear; his hand is in union with heaven and moves as of itself, to transmit to the nations of the future the message of the Lord.

The movement in the composition is circular, extending the currents of the cosmos and turning harmoniously. Further, a rain of spiritual lights falls from above and bathes the canvas in holiness and mysticism.

Joseph MATAR