5942
From Textus Receptus
Tax-collector.
The Roman system of collecting taxes, especially the τελοι, in their provinces, included ordinarily three grades of officials. There was the highest, called in Latin publicanus , who paid a sum of money for the taxes of a certain province, and then exacted that and as much more as he could from the province. This man lived in Rome. Then there were the submagistri , who had charge each of a certain portion of territory, and who lived in the provinces. Then there were the portitores the actual custom-house officers, who did the real work of collecting the taxes. The N.T. word τελωνης is used to describe one of the portitores ; it is the lowest of these three grades. It does not correspond to the Latin publicanus , and the word publican used to translate it in A.V. and R.V. is apt to be misleading; tax-collector would be better.
αρχιτελωνης, only occurring in Luke 19:2, evidently describes a higher official than τελωνης, and is probably one of the submagistri, the next higher grade.
