The twelfth apostle, chosen by lot in Acts 1 to take the place Judas left. The qualification Peter states is strict — he must have been with the group from John's baptism through to the ascension, and he must be a witness of the resurrection — so Matthias had been present all along and simply never named. He is never mentioned again in the New Testament, which has fed a persistent reading that the election was premature and that the real twelfth apostle was Paul; against that stands Luke's own silence about any fault, his calling the group 'the twelve' five chapters later, and the fact that nine of the other eleven vanish from the record too. Later tradition sends him to preach in Ethiopia or Cappadocia and gives him a martyr's death; none of it is early. He is the last person in the Bible chosen by casting lots.