Who Wrote the Book of Matthew: The Tax Collector's Account
Short answer: The Gospel of Matthew does not name its author anywhere in its text. The uniform testimony of the early church, however, is that it was written by Matthew, the tax collector whom Jesus called to follow him in Matthew 9:9-13. Every surviving ancient source that addresses the question assigns the book to him, and no rival author is proposed until modern critical scholarship. That does not mean the question is settled for everyone. The Gospel is anonymous on its face, it depends in some way on earlier traditions about Jesus, and its Greek is polished enough that some readers wonder whether a Galilean tax collector wrote it unaided. This article lays out the external evidence, the internal clues, the leading objections, and what the answer actually changes for the person reading it.
What the early church actually said
The earliest and most important witness is Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, writing in the early second century. As quoted by Eusebius, Papias says that Matthew compiled the sayings of Jesus in the Hebrew language, and that others translated them as best they could. This testimony is early enough to reach back near the apostolic age, though it is preserved at second hand and Papias is not always precise.
Irenaeus, writing around the end of the second century, is more direct: Matthew published a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect. Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and Eusebius repeat the same basic attribution. By the time the four Gospels were circulating as a fixed collection, the heading attached to the first was consistently Matthew.
What matters here is not that these writers were inspired, but that they represent a tradition with no visible dissent. If the first Gospel had circulated anonymously and someone later guessed at an author, we would expect competing guesses. Instead we find one name, repeated across regions, languages, and generations, from Gaul to Egypt to North Africa.
The call of Matthew and why it fits the book
The passage at the center of this question is brief and unadorned. Matthew 9:9 says, "As Jesus passed by from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax collection office. He said to him, “Follow me.” He got up and followed him." That is the whole call narrative. No persuasion, no explanation, no recorded hesitation.
Two things stand out. First, the man is identified by name and by trade, which is the kind of detail a community preserves about someone it knew. Second, a tax collector in first-century Galilee was a collaborator with Rome and a social outcast among his own people. It is an odd biography to invent for the author of a Gospel, especially a Gospel that so often emphasizes the inclusion of outsiders.
The Gospel that bears his name is also the most Jewish of the four. It quotes the Hebrew Scriptures constantly, uses phrases like kingdom of heaven rather than kingdom of God, and assumes readers who know Jewish custom without explanation. A Jewish tax collector, literate in Greek because of his trade and steeped in the Scriptures because of his upbringing, is a plausible author for exactly this kind of book.
Does the Gospel itself claim Matthew wrote it?
No. The text never says so. There is no line like the one in John 21:20-24, where the beloved disciple is linked to the testimony behind the book. Matthew begins with a genealogy and moves straight into narrative, with no authorial signature at all. This is the strongest point in favor of the skeptics, and honest readers should concede it.
But anonymity in the text is not the same as anonymity in the church. Ancient books were often identified by their opening line or by the community that preserved them. The Gospels were copied, collected, and read aloud in congregations that had reason to know where each one came from. The titles attached to the four Gospels were in place very early, before the middle of the second century, and they are specific, not generic.
The broader scriptural principle is that God works through human authors without erasing them. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, "Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness." The text is God-breathed and it is also written by someone. The question of authorship is worth asking precisely because the human side is real.
Mark and Luke tell the same story about a man named Levi
Mark 2:13-17 and Luke 5:27-32 narrate the calling of a tax collector, and both call him Levi. Matthew calls him Matthew. This has generated a great deal of discussion. The most natural reading is that Levi was his birth name and Matthew his other name, or vice versa, a common situation in a culture where Jewish families also used Greek or Roman names.
Luke 5:27-32 says, "After these things he went out, and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax office, and said to him, “Follow me!”" The setting, the tax office, the call, the banquet that follows, and the controversy with the Pharisees are the same in all three accounts. These are not two different converts. They are one man with two names.
The objection that Matthew changed Levi to Matthew to claim apostolic authority for his book assumes a motive the text does not display. The Gospel of Matthew also uses the name Matthew in its list of the twelve, while Mark and Luke use Matthew there as well. The name is not a Matthean invention; it appears in all three Synoptics in the apostolic list.
The dependence on Mark and the language problem
The two strongest modern objections to Matthean authorship are literary and linguistic. On the literary side, the vast majority of Matthew's narrative material appears in Mark, often in the same order and sometimes in nearly the same words. Most scholars conclude that Matthew used Mark as a source. If so, why would an eyewitness rely so heavily on a non-eyewitness?
On the linguistic side, Matthew's Greek is smooth, idiomatic, and carefully structured. Papias says Matthew wrote in Hebrew, but the Gospel we have shows no obvious signs of being a translation. This tension is real and has never been fully resolved.
Several responses are worth weighing. A tax collector in Galilee would have needed Greek for his work, and a Gospel written for Greek-speaking Jewish believers would naturally be composed in Greek. As for Mark, an eyewitness who has been preaching for decades may gladly use a written account already circulating, adding his own material and arranging it for his readers. Dependence on a source is not the same as lacking firsthand knowledge.
What the internal evidence suggests
The Gospel shows a particular interest in money, debt, and accounting. It is the only Gospel that includes the parable of the unforgiving servant who is forgiven a massive debt and then chokes a fellow servant over a small one. It alone records the coin in the fish's mouth for the temple tax. It alone tells of the laborers hired at different hours and paid the same wage. These are not proofs, but they are the kind of interests a former tax collector might carry into his writing.
The book also uses the phrase that Matthew the tax collector heard at his own calling more than the other Gospels: follow me. It emphasizes mercy over sacrifice in the very passage where his call is recorded. Matthew 9:13 records Jesus saying, "But you go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." A man who was called out of a despised trade has reason to remember that sentence.
None of this rises to demonstration. Cumulative evidence is not proof. It is, however, consistent with the traditional attribution rather than in tension with it.
Who disagrees, and why
Many careful Christian scholars today hold that the Gospel was written by an anonymous Jewish-Christian author, possibly in Antioch or Galilee, sometime after AD 70, using Mark and other traditions. They do not deny that the book is Scripture. They simply judge that the external tradition is too thin and the internal evidence too indirect to settle the question. Some suggest the Gospel came from a school or community founded by Matthew rather than from his own hand.
Others, equally careful, hold to Matthean authorship and argue that the external tradition is stronger than critics allow. They point out that attributing a book to an apostle was not a neutral act in the early church, and that falsely assigning one would have been both easy to challenge and costly to defend. They also note that no ancient source names anyone else.
This is a place where faithful Christians differ. The doctrine of inspiration does not depend on resolving it. What the church has always confessed is that this Gospel is true, apostolic in substance, and authoritative for faith and life, whoever held the pen.
Biblical fidelity check
What Matthew 9:9-13 establishes is clear: Jesus saw a man named Matthew at a tax office, called him, and Matthew followed. Jesus then ate with tax collectors and sinners, and when the Pharisees objected, he answered that he came to call sinners, not the righteous. That is the theological center of the passage, and it is not in dispute.
What the passage does not establish is that Matthew wrote the Gospel bearing his name. It does not mention writing at all. The connection between this call narrative and the authorship of the first Gospel rests on external church tradition, not on this text. Anyone who claims Matthew 9:9 proves Matthean authorship has gone beyond what the verse says.
A common misreading runs the other direction as well, treating the anonymity of the Gospel as evidence against Matthew. An unnamed book is not a falsely attributed book. Anonymous and pseudonymous are different categories, and the early, unanimous, geographically widespread attribution to Matthew is precisely what we would not expect if the name had been invented late. The honest position is that the text is silent and the tradition is early, clear, and not infallible.
Other passages that speak to Matthew 9:9-13
The calling of Matthew sits inside a wider biblical theme of God's mercy toward sinners, and several related studies help flesh that out. Consider What Does 1 John 1:1 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application for the apostolic testimony behind the Gospels, What Does 1 John 1:8 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application on honesty about sin, 1 John 1:9 Meaning: Confession, Forgiveness, and Cleansing on the forgiveness Jesus extends to sinners, and What Does 1 John 2:15 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application on the loyalties that compete with following Christ.
Frequently asked questions
Does the Gospel of Matthew say who wrote it?
No. The text is anonymous. It never names its author, and it contains no signature, dedication, or first-person claim of eyewitness status. The attribution to Matthew comes from the early church, not from the book itself. This is true of all four Gospels, none of which names its author internally. The titles were attached early and consistently, but the reader should know that the identification rests on tradition and historical evidence rather than on an explicit claim inside the text.
Was Matthew the same person as Levi?
Most likely, yes. Mark 2:13-17 and Luke 5:27-32 call the tax collector Levi, while Matthew 9:9-13 calls him Matthew. The setting, the call, the banquet, and the controversy are identical in all three accounts, and all three Gospels list Matthew among the twelve. The simplest explanation is that he had two names, a common practice for Jewish men who also used a Greek or Roman name in business and civic life.
Does it matter for my faith whether Matthew wrote it?
It matters less than many people assume, and more than some admit. The church has always treated the four Gospels as apostolic and authoritative, and no essential doctrine depends on settling this question. At the same time, knowing that a real tax collector named Matthew was called by Jesus and that his community preserved this account grounds the book in history rather than myth. You can read it with confidence either way, and you should read it with your eyes open.
