The Gospels present us with some instances of this
PUBLICAN
feeling. To eat and drink "with publicans" seems to the Pharisaic mind incompatible with the character of a recognised rabbi Matt, ix, 11). They spoke in their
.-corn oi our Lord as the friend of publicans (xi, 19). Rabbinic writings furnish some curious illustrations i.i the same feeling. The Chaldee Targum and I.'. Sol- omon find in "the archers who sit by the waters" of Judg. v. 11, a description of the nkwvai sitting on the banks of rivers or sons ill ambush for the wayfarer. uistry of (be Talmud enumerates three classes ol men with whom promises need not be kept, and the three are murderers, thieves, and publicans (Nedar. iii. ; I. \" money known to come from them was received into the alms-box of the synagogue or the corban of the Temple i Baba Kama, x. l >. To write a publican's ticket, or even to carry the ink lor it on the Sabbath- day, was a distinct breach of the commandment {Shabb. \in. •_' i. They were not iii io sit in judgment, or even
to give testii ly I Sanhedr. fol. 25, 2). Sometime-, there
is an exceptional notice in their favor, h was recorded as a special excellence iii the father of a rabbi thai. having been a publican for thirteen years, he had les- sened instead of increasing the pressure of taxation (il)iil.). The early Christian fathers take up the same complaint. "Publicanus ex officio peccator," exclaims Tertullian : and from the exhaustless vocabulary of Chrysostom they have heaped upon them every epithet of abuse. See the pas-ages bearing upon ibis point in Wetstein's rtbte on Matt, v, 16; also Suicer's Tkesaurus, s. v. 'IVXioi ■//(■; Grotius, Ad Matf. xviii; Lightfoot, //"/. //«//. ml Mult, xviii.
The class thus practically excommunicated furnished some of the earliest disciples boih of the Baptist and of our Lord. Like the outlying, so-called "dangerous classes" of other limes, they were at least free from hy- pocrisy. Whatever morality they bad was real, and not conventional. We may think of the Baptist's preach- ing a- having been to them what Wesley's was to the colliers ofKillgSWOOd or the Cornish miners. The pub- lican who cried in the bitterness of his spirit. " Cod be merciful i" me a sinner" (Luke xviii, 13), may be taken as the representative of those who had come under this influence 'Man. xxi, 32). The Galilsean fishermen had probably learned, even before their Master taught them, to overcome their repugnance to the publicans who with them had been sharers in the same baptism. The pub- licans (Matthew perhaps among them) had probably
g back to their work learning to exact no more than
what was appointed them (Luke iii, 13). However startling the choice of Matthew, the publican, to lie of the number ol the twelve may have seemed to the Pharisees, we have no trace of any perplexity or offence on the part of the disciples.
The position of Zacchseus as an ap\iTiKwvnQ (Luke xix. 2) implies a position of some importance among the persons I bus employed. Possibly ihe balsam trade, of which Jericho was the centre, may have brought larger profits; possibly he was one of the svbmogistri in immediate communication with the bureau at Rome. That it was possible for even a Jewish publican to at- tain considerable wealth we rind from the history of John the teXwvtjq (Josephns, War, ii. II, 4), who acts with the leading dews and offers a bribe of< ight talents to the procurator, Geasius Florus. The fact that Jericho was at ibis time a city of the priests 1 2,000 are said to bave lived there gives, it need hardly be said, a special significance to our Lord's preference of the bouse of Zacchseus. When Jesus \ isited the house of Zaccbaeus, who appears to have been eminently honest and up- right, he was assured by him that be was ready to give one ball ol his goods to the poor, and if he had taken anything from any man by false accusation, to "restore him fourfold" i Luke xix, * i. This was in reference to
the Roman law, which required thai when any farmer
was convicted of extortion be should return four rimes the value of what he had fraudulently obtained. There is no reason to suppose thai eitht r Zacchseus or Matthew
70
PUCCI
bad been guilty of unjust practices, or that there was any exception to their characters beyond that of being en-aged in an odious employment. Some other exam- ples of this occur. Suetonius (Vesp. I) mentions the case of Sabiiuis. a collector of the fortieth penny in Asia, who had several statues er< cted to him by the cities of the province, with this inscription, " To the honest tax- farmer."- Kino; Smith: Fairbairn. See BtbU Educa- tor, iii. r.':;. For monographs on the publicans, si e V..1- beding, Index Programtnatum, p. 52, 67. See Tax-Gath-
1 1:1 R.
Publicani, English Waldenses (q. v. . of whom Rapin, in relating the transactions of the councils of Henry II. gives tin- following account, in the authority of archbishop Usher: •■ lb nry ordered a council to meet at ( txford in 1 166, to examine the tend- of certain lit re- in-, called Publicani. Very probably they were disci- ples of the Waldenses. who began then In appear. When they u, re asked in I lie council who they were,