“PORPHYRY and the Emperor Julian (the Apostate) will have it that the account of this call of Matthew is either a stupid blunder on the part of a lying writer, or else that it showeth what fools they were who followed the Saviour, to go senselessly after any one who called them. But there can be no doubt that before the Apostles believed they had considered the great signs and works of power which had gone before. Moreover, the glory and majesty of the hidden God, which shone somewhat through the Face of the Man Christ Jesus, were enough to draw them which gazed thereon, even at first sight. For if there be in a stone a magnetic power which can make rings and straws and rods come and cleave thereunto, how much more must not the Lord of all creatures have been able to draw unto Himself them whom He called?
“And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with Him. They saw how that a publican who had turned to better things had found a place of repentance, and therefore they also hoped for salvation. It was not, as the Scribes and Pharisees complained, sinners clinging to their sinfulness who came to Jesus, but sinners repenting, as indeed appeareth from the next words of the Lord, where He saith: I will have mercy and not sacrifice; for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. The Lord went to eat with sinners to the end that He might have occasion to teach, and to break spiritual bread unto them which bade Him.” [bold added]
— Homily by St. Jerome, Bk. i. Comment, on Matth. ix.
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