Publicans
In the gospels, "publicans" are the local agents who collected toll and tax revenue under the Roman system — sitting at toll-booths on trade routes, levying duties, and answerable up a chain to a chief publican over a district. The UPDV picks them up most consistently in Luke and Mark, where they appear less as a fiscal class than as a recognizable social one: a group named alongside "sinners," watched closely by Pharisees and scribes, and repeatedly drawn into proximity with Jesus and with John the Baptist. The pattern across these passages is a single arc — publicans come to be baptized, sit with Jesus at table, are held up in a parable as the surprising worshipper, and produce in Zacchaeus a chief publican who restores fourfold and is told salvation has come to his house.
A class set apart
The publicans appear as an identifiable group, distinct enough to be named in a list with other groups. When Jesus speaks of his own reception, he repeats the charge laid against him: "The Son of Man has come eating and drinking; and you⁺ say, Look, a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!" (Lu 7:34). The pairing — "publicans and sinners" — runs through the rest of the material. It is the standing tag the gospel narrators and Jesus' opponents use for the company that gathers around him.
The same paired language reappears at Levi's feast in Mark, where the disciples' meal becomes the occasion for the scribes' question: "And it comes to pass, that he was sitting at meat in his house, and many publicans and sinners sat down with Jesus and his disciples: for there were many, and they followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with the sinners and publicans, said to his disciples, [How is it] that he eats with publicans and sinners?" (Mark 2:15-16). Luke gives the same scene the same shape: "the Pharisees and their scribes murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do you⁺ eat and drink with the publicans and sinners?" (Lu 5:30).
Coming to the Baptist
Before Jesus' table fellowship with publicans becomes a controversy, John the Baptist is already drawing them out. Luke 3:12 records the first move: "And there came also publicans to be baptized, and they said to him, Teacher, what must we do?" The class takes the initiative toward the rite and addresses John as "Teacher." His answer, in the next verse, is shaped to the trade itself: "And he said to them, Collect no more than that which is appointed you⁺" (Lu 3:13). The instruction does not require publicans to leave their work; it requires them to stop using it as a cover for over-exaction.
Luke later looks back on the Baptist's preaching and registers who responded: "And all the people when they heard, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected for themselves the counsel of God, not being baptized of him" (Lu 7:29-30). Publicans are placed on the side that "justified God"; the religious authorities are placed on the side that rejected the counsel of God. The line of division does not run where the surrounding social labels would predict.
The call of Levi
The toll-booth itself becomes the scene of a calling. Mark's narrative is brief and direct: "And as he passed by, he saw Levi the [son] of Alphaeus sitting at the place of toll, and he says to him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him" (Mark 2:14). Luke tells the same call in his own register: "And after these things he went forth, and noticed a publican, named Levi, sitting at the place of toll, and said to him, Follow me. And he forsook all, and rose up and followed him" (Lu 5:27-28). Both gospels stop the action at the toll station and use it as the occasion of discipleship — the publican leaves his place of work to follow.
The feast that follows is "a great feast" with a "great multitude of publicans and of others who were sitting at meat with them" (Lu 5:29). What Levi's house provides is a ready social circle, drawn from his own class, gathered around Jesus at table. That gathering is what triggers the murmuring of the Pharisees and their scribes (Lu 5:30) and the Marcan scribes' question (Mark 2:16). Jesus' answer is the same in both gospels and stands as the explanation of why he is in this house at all: "Those who are whole have no need of a physician, but those who are sick: I didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mark 2:17); "Those who are in health have no need of a physician; but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance" (Lu 5:31-32). The publican-class, in this answer, is precisely the kind of company the call is shaped for.
In the temple — the parable
Luke 18 lifts a single publican out of the crowd and sets him in the temple beside a single Pharisee. Luke 18:10 supplies the frame: "Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican." The parable is introduced and resolved around them: "And he spoke also this parable to certain ones, who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and set all others at nothing" (Lu 18:9). The Pharisee's prayer takes its shape from contrast: "God, I thank you, that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I get" (Lu 18:11-12). The publican prays differently: "But the publican, standing far off, would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven, but struck his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me a sinner" (Lu 18:13). The verdict is given on the second man: "I say to you⁺, This man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled; but he who humbles himself will be exalted" (Lu 18:14).
The publican here is not described as having left the trade. He is in the temple, he is named by his class, and it is his class identity that gives the parable its sting — the figure on whom the Pharisee builds his contrast is the figure who goes home justified.
Zacchaeus, chief publican
The publican thread comes to a head in Jericho. The Lukan setting is unusually deliberate: "And he entered and was passing through Jericho. And look, a man called by name Zacchaeus; and he was a chief publican, and he was rich" (Lu 19:1-2). Zacchaeus is not a small operator but a chief publican (the head of the local tax-collecting structure), and the gospel notes both his office and his wealth in the same breath. The narrative gives him the attempt to see — running ahead, climbing the sycamore (Lu 19:3-4) — and gives Jesus the initiative back: "Zacchaeus, hurry, and come down; for today I must stay at your house" (Lu 19:5). The crowd's response repeats the standing complaint: "He has gone in to lodge with a man who is a sinner" (Lu 19:7).
Zacchaeus' reply is the place in the publican material where the trade is addressed in restitution language: "Look, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have wrongfully exacted anything of any man, I restore fourfold" (Lu 19:8). The Baptist's instruction to publicans had said no more than "Collect no more than that which is appointed you⁺" (Lu 3:13); Zacchaeus goes further than that, both in voluntary giving and in fourfold restoration of past wrongful exactions. Jesus' verdict reads back across the whole publican thread of the gospel: "Today has salvation come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost" (Lu 19:9-10).
The shape of the material
Across the passages, a few features hold steady. Publicans are named as a class, repeatedly paired with "sinners," and watched suspiciously by Pharisees and scribes (Mark 2:16; Lu 5:30; Lu 7:34). They are nevertheless the ones who come to John for baptism (Lu 3:12) and who, in Luke's retrospective, "justified God" by accepting that baptism while the religious authorities refused it (Lu 7:29-30). One of them is called from the toll-booth into the apostolic following (Mark 2:14; Lu 5:27-28). Another is the parable's surprise — the man who goes home justified (Lu 18:13-14). A chief one in Jericho restores fourfold and hears that salvation has come to his house (Lu 19:8-9). The trade itself is not sanctified in these passages; it is regulated (Lu 3:13), restituted (Lu 19:8), and, in Levi's case, left behind (Lu 5:28). What the gospels do with the publicans is take a recognizable disreputable class and make it, repeatedly, the place where the "Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost" (Lu 19:10) becomes visible.