mission · 60
Eusebius is unusually precise here and unusually modest about it: Matthew, having first preached to the Hebrews, wrote his gospel in his native tongue when he was on the point of going to others, 'to supply by his writing the loss of his presence to those whom he was leaving' (HE 3.24). Where he went, the early record does not say. Ethiopia is the Western tradition and Parthia the Eastern, both later, and neither is followed here into a place row — the honest shape of this event is a departure with an unnamed destination.
To preach beyond the Hebrews, having first preached to them.
A written gospel, made to stand in for a teacher who was leaving.