Publican

Publican, (τελώνης). The word thus translated belongs only, in the New Test., to the three Synoptic Gospels. The class designated by the Greek word were employed as collectors of the Roman revenue. The Latin word from which the English of the A.V. has been taken was applied to a higher order of men. It will be necessary to glance at the financial administration of the Roman provinces in order to nnderstand the relation of the two classes to each other, and the grounds of the hatred and scorn which appear in the New Test. to have fallen on the former.

The Roman senate had found it convenient, at a period as early as, if not earlier than. the second Punic war, to farm out at public auction the vectigalia (direct taxes) and the portoria (customs, including the octroi on goods carried into or out of cities) to capitalists who undertook to pay a given sum into the treasury (in publicumn), and so received the name of publicani (Livy, 32:7). Contracts of this kind fell naturally into the hands of the equites, as the richest class of Romans. These knights were an order instituted as early as the time of Romulus, and composedt of men of great consideration with the government — “the principal men of dignity in their several countries,” who occupied a kind of middle rank between the senators and the people (Josephus, Ant. 12:4). Although these officers were, according to Cicero, the ornament of the city and the strength of the commonwealth, they did not attain to great offices, nor enter the senate, so long as they continued in the order of knights. They were thus more capable of devoting their attention to the collection of the public revenue.

Not unfrequently the sum bidden 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; Cicero, Ad Div. 13:9). Under this officer, who commonly resided 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 custom-house officers (douaniers), 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, as being brought daily into contact with all classes of the population. The word τελῶναι, which etymologically might have been used of the publicani properly so called (τέλη, ὠνέομαι), was used popularly, and in the New Test. exclusively, of the portitores. The same practice prevailed in the East, from which an illustration of it has been preserved to us by Josephus. He tells us that on the marriage of Cleopatra to Ptolemy. the latter received from Antiochus as his daughters dowry Coele-Syria, Samaria, Judaea. and Phoenicia; that “upon the division of the taxes between the two kings, the principal men farmed the taxes of their several countries,” paying to the kings the stipulated sum; and that “when the day came on which the king was to let the taxes of the cities to farm, and those that were the principal men of dignity in their several countries were to bid for them, the sum of the taxes together of CceleSyria, and Phoenicia, and Judea, and Samaria, as they were bidden for, came to eight thousand talents” (Ant. 12:4, 1, 4). Those thus spoken of by the Jewish historian as “principal men of dignity” were the real publicani of antiquity. In the Roman empire especially they were persons of no small consequence; in times of trouble they advanced large sums of money to the State, and towards the close of the republic they were so generally members of the equestrian order that the words equites and publicani were sometimes used as synonymous (Smith, Dict. Gr. and Rom. Antiq. s.v.).

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Author: McClintock and Strong Cyclopedia

Keywords: Publican

Bible reference(s): 1 Kings 10:15, Acts 5:37, Judges 5:11, Luke 18:13, Luke 19:8, Luke 3:13, Matthew 11:19, Matthew 18:17, Matthew 21:31, Matthew 22:15, Matthew 5:46, Matthew 9:11

Source: John McClintock and James Strong, Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature.

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