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"Then drew near all the publicans and sinners for to hear him, and the Pharisees and Scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." But by what answer doth Christ repel their objections?
They might have said, We are offended, because thou receivest the Publicans, and thou for vindication of thy practice, propoundest a parable of lost sheep; but they are the sinners of the house of Israel, and the Publicans are aliens and Gentiles. I say, How easily might they thus have objected?
It's all very well to eat and drink with publicans and sinners, though, as I told you, it's better no one should know. But they are dangerous company." "Why especially?" demanded Peter. Langton stretched himself. "Oh, I don't know," he said. "Perhaps because society's agin 'em." "Look here, Langton," said Peter. "Do you hear what I say? Damn society!
As already noted, the Virginia regiment was accused in the papers of drunkenness, and under the sting of that accusation Washington declared war on the publicans. He whipped his men when they became drunk, kept them away from the ordinaries, and even closed by force one tavern which was especially culpable.
Lao Tsze, however, went so far as to teach "return good for evil." When one of the pupils of Confucius interrogated his Master concerning this, the sage answered; "What then will you return for good? Recompense injury with justice, and return good for good." But if we do good only to those who do good to us, what thanks have we? Do not the publicans the same?
For in consequence of candidly telling the publicans that, "we had nothing to pay," they as candidly declared, "they had nothing to give," and that "those that had no money had no business to travel."
Matt. iii. 13 TO iv. 11; Mark i. 9-13; Luke iii. 21, 22; iv. 1-13; John i. 30-34 In the circle about John all classes of the people were represented: Pharisees and Sadducees, jealous of innovation and apprehensive of popular excitement; publicans and soldiers, interested in the new preacher or touched in conscience; outcasts who came in penitence, and devout souls in consecration.
It proves that the author of the Epistle to the Corinthians was guided not by books, but by facts; because his statement agrees with the actual custom, even when that custom deviated from the written law, and from what he must have learnt by consulting the Jewish code, as set forth in the Old Testament. "Then came also publicans to be baptized."
They would seem to be bookmakers, exceedingly prosperous publicans, bunco-brokers, militant politicians anything save of the Kingdom of Art. Are their polished Bill Sykes' exteriors but bizarre domiciles for lofty souls? I cannot tell.
Then comes the Christian Church a ludicrous collection of trivial people, very ignorant and very common; fishermen and publicans, as the Gospels show us, "the baker and the fuller," as Celsus said with a sneer. Yes, and every kind of unclean and disreputable person they urged to join them, quite unlike all decent and established religions.
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