Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/482

440 exclaims: "Who are his accusers? Barbarians! Men who wear breeches and smocks! Can the most reputable of the Gauls be placed on a par with the least and most wretched of Roman citizens?" The Romans, in fact, regarded their provinces as valuable only to the extent that they could make them available for extorting tribute (taxes), and the most effective instrumentalities they could employ for this purpose were unpatriotic or renegade citizens of the provinces who understood the habits, pursuits, and amount and distribution of the property of their fellow-countrymen. These in the case of Judea were Romanized or apostate Jews, who, in accordance with the Roman custom, were invested with a power, which they undoubtedly exercised, to administer torture in case it was found necessary to enforce payments from unwilling or impoverished subjects.

Again, as there was little industry at the time save agriculture, and markets were limited, there was little opportunity for a Jew to become rich, except by favor of the Romans and plunder of his people; and with these latter the publican or tax-gatherer and the rich man, who must have been often one and the same, became so abhorrent, that they naturally classified and placed them upon the same plane with notorious sinners and the most despised and degraded members of society—the harlots —for whom an entrance into the kingdom of heaven was regarded as an impossibility.

And in this connection it is pertinent to recall that Jesus visited the house of "a man named Zaccheus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich.". . . "And when they" (the people)" saw it they all murmured, saying that he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner. And Zaccheus stood and said unto the Lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold." And evidently in consequence of this declaration, "Jesus said unto him. This day is salvation come to this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham" (and not a foreigner). "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (i, e., the publicans).

In ancient Greece also there was a familiar proverb that used the term "publican" as synonymous with that of "robber"; and Tacitus, the Roman historian, in his description of the German people, regards them as fortunate in having no publicans to impoverish (atterit) them.