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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Matthew 5:46 - 5:46
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46. οἱ τελῶναι, tax-gatherers; not collectors of a regular tax fixed by government, as with us, but men who farmed or contracted for the publicum (state revenue), hence called Publicani. At Rome the equestrian order enjoyed almost exclusively the lucrative privilege of farming the state revenues.
The publicans of the N.T. however are a lower class of tax-gatherers, (exactores), to whom the contractors sublet the collection of taxes. These men repaid themselves by cruel and oppressive exactions. Only the least patriotic and most degraded of the population undertook these functions which naturally rendered them odious to their fellow-citizens.
It is this system pursued in the Turkish Empire that produces much frightful misery and illegal oppression.