Matthias Ephlias was an ethnic Jew

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

 living in Jerusalem.

The meaning of Matthias' epithet is obscure. His epithet could mean ‘Handsome’ from the Hebrew language

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 or ‘son of Ephesus

Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era...

’ from the Greek language, as he was sometimes known as ‘Matthias of Ephesus’. For Matthias to obtain his epithet reveals he may have a distinguished Jew.

Matthias was one of the nine children born to Simon Psellus

Simon Psellus

Simon Psellus was an ethnic Jew living in Jerusalem.Simon’s ancestors were contemporary to the rule of the Ptolemaic dynasty and Seleucid dynasty over Judea. He was a wealthy man who served as a priest in the Temple in Jerusalem. Simon belonged to the first of the twenty-four orders of Priests in...

. Matthias came from a wealthy family of priestly descent. His father served as a priest in the Temple in Jerusalem

Temple in Jerusalem

The Temple in Jerusalem or Holy Temple , refers to one of a series of structures which were historically located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, the current site of the Dome of the Rock. Historically, these successive temples stood at this location and functioned as the centre of...

. Through his father, Matthias belonged to the priestly order of the Jehoiarib

Jehoiarib

Jehoiarib was the head of a family of priests, which was made the first of the twenty-four priestly divisions organized by King David.- High Priest :...

, which was the first of the twenty four-orders of Priests in the Temple in Jerusalem.

Matthias became a Priest serving in the Temple in Jerusalem and married the daughter of High Priest Jonathon. There is a possibility that Jonathon may have been Alexander Jannaeus

Alexander Jannaeus

Alexander Jannaeus was king of Judea from 103 BC to 76 BC. The son of John Hyrcanus, he inherited the throne from his brother Aristobulus I, and appears to have married his brother's widow, Shlomtzion or "Shelomit", also known as Salome Alexandra, according to the Biblical law of Yibbum...

, the High Priest and Hasmonean ruler who governed Judea

Judea

Judea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...

 from 103 BC-76 BC who was the second husband of Salome Alexandra

Salome Alexandra

Salome Alexandra or Alexandra of Jerusalem , was the only Jewish regnant queen, with the exception of her own husband's mother whom he had prevented from ruling as his dying father had wished, and of the much earlier usurper Athaliah...

. Alexander Jannaeus was also known as Jonathon.

His unnamed Jewish wife bore him a son, Matthias Curtus

Matthias Curtus

Matthias Curtus was an ethnic Jew living in Jerusalem.Matthias came from a wealthy family who descended from the priestly order of the Jehoiarib, which was the first of the twenty four-orders of Priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. He was the son of Matthias Ephlias and the daughter of the High...

. Through his son, Matthias was an ancestor of the Roman Jewish Historian

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 of the 1st century, Flavius Josephus

Josephus

Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...

.

Sources

• M. Fergus, S. Emil & V. Geza, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C. - A.D. 135), Continuum International Publishing Group, 1973
• Reader’s Digest: Jesus and His Times, The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc. Printed by Fourth Printing USA, July 1990
• F. Josephus & S. Mason, Flavius Josephus: translation and commentary, BRILL, 2001