The Life of Jesus in Harmony | Index

tax collector

TAX-GATHERER (Gk. telones; KJV "publican").

A collector of the Roman revenue. The Roman Senate had found it convenient, at a period as early as-early as the second Punic war, to farm the vectigalia (direct taxes) and the portoria (customs) to capitalists, who undertook to pay a given sum into the treasury (in publicum) and so received the name of publicani.

Contracts of this kind fell naturally into the hands of the equites, who were the commercial and financial class of Romans. Not infrequently they went beyond the means of any individual capitalist, and a joint-stock company (societas) was formed, with one of the partners, or an agent appointed by them, acting as managing director (magister).

Under this officer, who resided commonly at Rome, transacting the business of the company, paying profits to the partners and the like, were the submagistri, living in the provinces.

Under them, in like manner, were the portitores, the actual customhouse officers, who examined each bale of goods exported or imported, assessed its value more or less arbitrarily, wrote out the ticket, and enforced payment. The latter were commonly natives of the province in which they were stationed, being brought daily into contact with all classes of the population.

It is this class (portitores) to which the term tax-gatherer refers exclusively in the NT. These tax-gatherers were encouraged by their superior in vexatious and even fraudulent exactions, and remedy was almost impossible. They overcharged (Lk 3:13) and brought false charges of smuggling in the hope of extorting hush money (19:8). The strong feeling of many Jews as to the unlawfulness of paying tribute made matters worse.

The scribes for the most part were not against it and thus were considered traitors. The publicans were also regarded as traitors and apostates, defiled by their frequent contacts with the heathen and being willing tools of the oppressor.

Practically excommunicated, this class furnished some of the earliest disciples of John the Baptist and Jesus. The position of Zaccheus as a "chief tax-gatherer" (Luke 19:2, Gk. architelones) implies a gradation of some kind among the publicans; perhaps he was one of the submagistri. In Augustus's day (27 B.C.-A.D. 14) the practice of selling tax-collection contracts to joint-stock companies ceased, and tax collectors were put on the public payroll. Thus a kind of Internal Revenue Service was established and continued through the rest of the NT period.

"The Talmud distinguishes two classes of publicans-- the tax-gatherer in general (Gabbai) and the Mokhes or Mokhsa, who was specially the douanier, or customhouse official. Although both classes fell under the rabbinic ban, the douanier-- such as Matthew was-- was the object of chief execration. And this because his exactions were more vexatious and gave more scope to rapacity. The Gabbai, or tax-gatherer, collected the regular dues, which consisted of ground, income, and poll tax. . . . If this offered many opportunities for vexatious exactions and rapacious injustice, the Mokhes might inflict much greater hardship upon the poor people. There was a tax and duty upon all imports and exports; on all that was bought and sold; bridge money, road money, harbor dues, town dues, etc. The classical reader knows the ingenuity which could invent a tax and find a name for every kind of exaction, such as on axles, wheels, pack animals, pedestrians, roads, highways; on admission to markets; on carriers, bridges, ships, and quays; on crossing rivers, on dams, on licenses-- in short, on such a variety of objects that even the research of modern scholars has not been able to identify all the names. But even this was as nothing compared to the vexation of being constantly stopped on the journey, having to unload all one's pack animals, when every bale and package was opened, and the contents tumbled about, private letters opened, and the Mokhes ruled supreme in his insolence and rapacity" (Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus).