It is a profoundly significant fact that the first of the four Gospels, which is for ever associated with the name of Matthew, is the only one that contains the phrase “Matthew the publican” (Mat_10:3). He did not himself coin the phrase, which must at one time have been on many lips. But he alone has introduced it into the Scriptures, and we may ho sure that he did so with a definite purpose. The Church in all ages might call him “Matthew the Apostle,” or “Matthew the Evangelist,” but he was determined to let every reader of his book know that in his pre-Christian days he was known, and well-known, as “Matthew the publican.” That was his occupation; and more, that was his character; therefore let that still be his name. Neither Mark nor Luke nor John sets that mark of ignominy upon him; he brands himself with it. He might, one would have thought, have preferred to bury his past. He could have been a truthful enough evangelist without that personal reference and that melancholy confession. But evidently he had other thoughts on the matter. He probably felt an overmastering necessity laid upon him. Impelled by the Spirit to which he owed his inspiration, he realized somehow that he could not write the Gospel truly without telling the truth about himself.
And in telling it he inscribes in his book-a monument more enduring than bronze-his own name with a word of dishonour and shame beside it. Not with any desire to attract attention to himself, but in deep humility, and for the encouragement of others as steeped in worldliness and sin as he had been, he gives himself the name he bore before he knew the Lord. Once Matthew the publican, he will always be Matthew the publican. It would have been discourteous and ungenerous had any of his fellow-Apostles continued to use that name, either in their ordinary talk or in their writings; but it is the surest indication of the greatness as well as the lowliness of Matthew's own soul that he published and perpetuated the stigma by inserting it in the Holy Scriptures. For the glory of his Lord, who redeemed him from the service of mammon and received him into the circle of His disciples and friends, he kept up, as a Christian, the old name which other New Testament writers left in oblivion. Matthew the publican, like Paul the persecutor, Augustine the libertine, Bunyan the blasphemer, and many another sinner snatched as a brand from the burning, felt the impulse, when he became a Christian writer, to return to the penitent-form and remain there, uttering his confession in a phrase which will be read with wondering awe and adoring gratitude as long as the world lasts.
His confession is contained in three words. When he had called himself “Matthew the publican,” he needed to say no more. For the Jew who demeaned himself to become a publican-a telōnēs or farmer of the Roman revenues-paid a great price for his lucrative office. He sold his country and his soul for gold. He was in the first place a traitor to his country, trampling his nation's ideals in the dust. In order to enrich himself, and to do so as quickly as possible, he joined hands with the oppressors of his people. And what was still worse, he deliberately chose a calling in which it was impossible to be an honest man. In our country the scale of taxation is fixed by law, and any tax-gatherer who appropriated a part of the revenue would be held guilty of fraud and severely punished for his crime. But in ancient Palestine the business of collecting the revenue was let to the highest bidder, who did his duty if he paid a lump sum into the Roman exchequer, pocketing the surplus of the profits, or who received a certain percentage of whatever he contrived to extort from the long-suffering populace. In either case the system evidently lent itself to all kinds of abuses. The more exacting a farmer of the revenue was-the more he gave the rein to his avarice, grinding the faces of the poor, hardening his heart and stilling his conscience-the more certain was he to become a rich man. But he was equally certain to lose what, in the estimation of all good men, alone makes life worth living-the honour, affection, and friendship which wealth can never buy. He could make no friends among the Romans, by whom he was regarded merely as a useful tool; and he made nothing but enemies among his own people, who despised and scorned him as a traitor while they hated and feared him as an extortioner.
When a wave of religious revival swept over the Holy Land in the days of John the Baptist, the publicans came among the rest to receive the baptism and listen to the counsels of the stern prophet, who laid the axe at the root of their besetting sin by bidding them extort no more than what was appointed them (Luk_3:12-13). The words indicate clearly enough that in his opinion the ordinary publican was an extortioner. When Zacchæus, the chief publican (architelōnēs) of Jericho, was deeply moved by the presence and spirit of Jesus, and called Him for the first time “Lord,” he at once felt a pang of remorse at the thought of all his ill-gotten wealth, and promised to restore it fourfold. And Matthew and Zacchæus were but two of a crowd of Jews who had taken service under the Romans in order to feather their nests at the expense of their own countrymen.
Many taxes had to be collected-a heavy poll-tax, customs duties payable at the frontiers, land taxes, road taxes, and many others. Hence the publicans (telōnai) were very numerous, and each had his office where he sat and collected his own special tax, either alone or in company with others, for associations of telōnai sometimes united to make the contract. And every penny paid to the Romans in this way was, in the eyes of Jewish patriots, a sign and symbol of Israel's shame; for the Jews regarded it as a fundamental principle of their religion that they should pay no money except to the Temple and to the priests.
Along the north end of the Sea of Galilee, there was a road leading from Damascus to Acre on the Mediterranean, and on that road a customs-office marked the boundary between the territories of Philip the tetrarch and Herod Antipas. Matthew's occupation was the examination of goods which passed along the road, and the levying of the toll. The work of a publican excited the scorn so often shown beyond the limits of Israel to fiscal officers; and when he was a Jew, as was Matthew, he was condemned for impurity by the Pharisees. A Jew serving on a great highway was prevented from fulfilling requirements of the Law, and was compelled to violate the Sabbath law, which the Gentiles, who conveyed their goods, did not observe. Schürer makes the statement that the customs raised in Capernaum in the time of Christ went into the treasury of Herod Antipas, while in Judæa they were taken for the Imperial fiscus. Matthew was thus not a collector under one of the companies that farmed the taxes in the Empire, but was in the service of Herod. Yet the fact that he belonged to the publican class, among whom were Jews who outraged patriotism by gathering tribute for Cæsar, subjected him to the scorn of the Pharisees and their party; and his occupation itself associated him with men who, everywhere in the Empire, were despised for extortion and fraud, and were execrated.1 [Note: J. Herkless, in the Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels, ii. 142.]
