Mathias was one of the first to follow our Savior; and he was an
eye-witness of all His divine actions up to the very day of the
Ascension. He was one of the seventy-two disciples; but our Lord had not
conferred upon him the dignity of an apostle. And yet, he was to have
this great glory, for it was of him that David spoke, when he prophesied
that another should take the bishopric left vacant by the apostasy of
Judas the traitor. In the interval between Jesus' Ascension and the
descent of the Holy Ghost, the apostolic college had to complete the
mystic number fixed by our Lord Himself, so that there might be the
twelve on that solemn day, when the Church, filled with the Holy Ghost,
was to manifest herself to the Synagogue. The lot fell on Mathias; he
shared with his brother-apostles the persecution in Jerusalem, and, when
the time came for the ambassadors of Christ to separate, he set out for
the countries allotted to him. Tradition tells us that these were
Cappadocia and the provinces bordering on the Caspian Sea.
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