The Calling of Matthew is an episode in the life of Jesus that appears in all three Synoptic Gospels, Matthew 9:9-13, Mark 2:13-17 and Luke 5:27-28 and relates the initial encounter between Jesus and St. Matthew.[1]
According to the Gospel of Matthew:
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.[2]
In all three Gospels, this episode takes place shortly after the miracle of Healing the paralytic at Capernaum and is followed by Lord of the Sabbath. In the Gospels of Mark and Luke the person called is called Levi and the son of Alpheus.[3]
In all three Gospel accounts Jesus is then invited to a banquet, with a crowd of tax collectors and others. The Pharisees then complain:
"Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."[4]
The calling of Matthew has also been the subject of works of art by several painters including: