Old and New in Religion

DISREPUTABLE COMPANY

Tax collectors are probably never popular, but in Roman Palestine their reputation stood at an all-time low. In Galilee they represented Herod Antipas, the unpopular half-Jewish ruler, who in turn represented Roman occupation. So a tax collector was a collaborator, and his association with the pagan occupying power made him religiously as well as politically suspect. Moreover, he was paid no salary, since it was assumed that he would collect more than the amount he was obliged to pass on to his superiors, and would keep the difference; some tax collectors lived very comfortably as a result. So the linking of ‘tax collectors and sinners’ would come naturally to a Jewish mind. They formed a sort of underclass, ostracized from decent society…