A tax collector called from his customs booth at Capernaum (Matthew 9:9) — and the only one of the Gospels to call him that. Mark 2:14 and Luke 5:27 both name this same man LEVI (Mark adds ‘son of Alphaeus’); only this Gospel uses ‘Matthew,’ and only this Gospel’s own list of the Twelve adds a label the other two both omit: ‘Matthew THE TAX COLLECTOR’ (10:3, not yet on these pages). Tradition has long read the extra, self-incriminating word as the author quietly signing his own book — naming the job the other Gospels leave off his name, and identifying himself by it rather than hiding it. ⚠ The identification of the tax collector, the apostle, and the Gospel's traditional author as one person is ancient (Papias, early 2nd century, already credits a ‘Matthew’ with compiling the sayings) but not something the text itself asserts outright; this library states the tradition and its age rather than treating it as settled. As a tax collector he would have been literate, numerate, and a record-keeper by trade — qualifications that make the attribution, whatever its date, at least a plausible one for a book this carefully structured.