440 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



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 citi- 

 zens ? " The Romans, in fact, regarded their provinces as valuable 

 only to the extent that they could make them available for extort- 

 ing tribiite (taxes), and the most effective instrumentalities they 

 could employ for this purpose were unpatriotic or renegade citi- 

 zens of the provinces who understood the habits, pursuits, and 

 amount and distribution of the property of their fellow-country- 

 men. 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, be- 

 came 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 impos- 

 sibility. 



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 im- 

 poverish (atterit) them. 



* " Verily, I say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of 

 God before you." S. Marihew, xxi, 31. 



" For John came unto you and ye believed him not ; but the publicans and the harlots 

 believed him." 8. Matthew, xxi, 82. 



