- published: 18 Sep 2011
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Saint Matthew (מַתִּתְיָהוּ Mattityahu or מתי Mattay "Gift of YHVH"; Greek: Ματθαῖος, Matthaios) was one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus and one of the four Evangelists.
Among the early followers and apostles of Jesus, Matthew is mentioned in Mt 9:9 and Mt 10:3 as a former tax collector from Capernaum who was called into the circle of the Twelve by Jesus. He is also named among the number of the Twelve, but without identification of his background, in Mk 3:18, Lk 6:15 and Acts 1:13. He is often equated with the figure of Levi, son of Alpheus, also a tax collector, who is mentioned in Mk 2:14 and Lk 5:27. He may have collected taxes from the Hebrew people for Herod Antipas. Matthew was "called" by Jesus of Nazareth to be one of the Twelve Disciples. According to the New Testament he was one of the witnesses of the Resurrection and the Ascension.
Matthew was a first century Galilean (presumably born in Galilee, which was not part of Judea or the Roman Iudaea province) and the son of Alpheus. During the Roman occupation (which began in 63 BC with the conquest of Pompey), Matthew collected taxes from the Hebrew people for Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee. His tax office was located in Capernaum. Jews who became rich in such a fashion were despised and considered outcasts. However, as a tax collector he would have been literate in Aramaic and Greek.
The Apostle is a 1997 American drama film written and directed by Robert Duvall, who stars in the title role. John Beasley, Farrah Fawcett, Billy Bob Thornton, June Carter Cash, Miranda Richardson and Billy Joe Shaver also appear. It was filmed on location in and around Saint Martinville and Des Allemands, Louisiana with some establishing shots done in the Dallas, Texas area by a second unit before principal photography began.
The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. For his performance, Duvall was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Sonny (Duvall) is a charismatic Pentecostal preacher with a wandering eye.His wife Jessie (Fawcett) has begun a relationship with a youth minister named Horace. She refuses Sonny's desire to be reconciled, although she assures him that she will not interfere with his right to see his children. She has also conspired to use their church's bylaws to have him removed from power. Sonny asks God what to do, but receives no answer. Much of the congregation sides with Jessie in this dispute. Sonny, however, refuses to start a new church, insisting that the one which forced him out was "his" church. At his child's Little League game, Sonny, in an emotional fit, attacks Horace with a bat and puts him into a coma. He later dies.
Actors: Keith Collins (actor), Eric Etebari (actor), Jack Mulcahy (actor), Jeff Quinlan (actor), Jeff Quinlan (producer), Carter Roy (actor), Graziano Bruni (producer), Samantha Rivers Cole (actress), Penelope Lagos (actress), Cash Tilton (actor), Oscar Avila (actor), Jeanette Roxborough (actress), Billy Pepitone (actor), Billy Pepitone (producer), Joseph Pepitone (producer),
Plot: A mail room slacker accidentally kills himself in a bizarre experiment and finds himself sentenced to Purgatory...working in the mail room. There, he falls for his beautiful manager and to win her heart he must stop a greedy real estate mogul from selling Purgatory and sending everyone to Hell.
Genres: Comedy,