And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus Who He was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him: for He was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must abide at thy house. And he made haste, and came down, and received Him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying that He was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood and said unto the Lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken away anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come unto this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke 19:1-10)
Who Was Zacchaeus? He was a leader of publicans, "the chief among the publicans." The common comparison between the humble publican and the proud Pharisee often obscures a correct characterization of these two images in our minds. In order to understand the Gospel correctly, one must have a clear picture of just who they were.
The Pharisees were actually righteous men. If our calling someone a "pharisee" sounds like a condemnation, in the days of Christ and during the first decades of Christianity this was not so. On the contrary, the Apostle Paul emphatically confesses before the Jews, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee… (Acts 23:6) And later on, to the Christians, to his spiritual children, he writes, I am of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee (Phil. 3:5). Beside the holy Apostle Paul, many other Pharisees became Christians: Joseph, Nicodemus, Gamaliel. Pharisees (in ancient Hebrew perusim; in Aramaic, pherisim, which means "other" — those who were separate, different) were zealots of the law of God. They "rested upon the law"; in other words, they meditated upon it continually, they loved it and strove to fulfill it exactly, they preached and interpreted it. The reason for the Lord's denunciations against the Pharisees is to warn them that all their struggle, all their really good efforts, they render worthless in the eyes of God, they turn them to naught, and acquire for themselves not a blessing from the Lord, but condemnation, by pridefully exalting themselves on account of their righteous deeds and, mainly, by judging their neighbors. A striking example of this is given by the Pharisee of the parable, who says, God, 1 thank Thee, that I am not as other men (Luke 18:11).
By contrast, publicans were unmistakable sinners, who broke the most fundamental laws of the Lord. Publicans were collectors of taxes from the Jews on behalf of the Romans. One must remember that the Jews, conscious of their exclusive position of being divinely chosen, gloried in the fact that they were Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man (John 8:33). But now, as a result of well-known historical circumstances, they found themselves in subjection, in bondage to a proud, coarse, "iron" people, the pagan Romans. And the yoke of this bondage was being pulled tighter and tighter and was becoming increasingly painful.
The most tangible and obvious sign of this bondage and subjection of the Jews to the Romans was the payment of all kinds of taxes — tributes — by the Jews to their enslavers. For the Jews, as for all ancient peoples, bringing tribute was for the most part a symbol of subjection. And the Romans, not in the least inhibited before a subjugated people, roughly and imperiously exacted of them both customary and supplementary taxes.
Naturally, the Jews paid back with hatred and disgust. Not without reason did the Scribes, desiring to compromise the Lord in the eyes of His people, ask Him, Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar? (Matt. 22:17). They knew that if Christ were to say that one should not give tribute to Caesar, it would be easy to accuse Him before the Romans, while if He said it is necessary to pay tribute, He would be hopelessly compromised in the eyes of the people.
While the Romans ruled Judea by means of local kings, such as Herod, Archelaus, Agrippa, and others, this bondage to Rome — and especially the necessity of paying taxes — was mitigated somewhat for the Jews in that they were only indirectly subject and paid tribute to their kings, who in turn were subject to and paid Rome. But just before Christ began His preaching ministry, there was a change in the system of governing Judea. The universal census connected with the Nativity of Christ was the first step towards the establishment of a head tax upon all Roman subjects in that locale.
In A.D. 6 or 7, after the removal of Archelaus, when a personal tax upon all inhabitants of Palestine was introduced, the Jews retaliated with revolts led by the Pharisee, Sadduc, and Judas the Galilean (cf. Acts 5:37). It was only with great difficulty that the High Priest Joazar was able to calm the people. Instead of local kings, Roman procurators were appointed as rulers of Judea and neighboring provinces. For a more successful levying of taxes by the Romans, the institution of publicans was then introduced. This had existed in Rome from ancient times, but while in Rome and throughout Italy publicans were recruited from a respected class of knights [equites], in Judea the Romans had to engage publicans from among moral outcasts, from among Jews who agreed to go over to work for them and force their brothers to pay tribute.
The acceptance of such a position was bound up with a most profound moral fall. It was bound up not only with a national but, above all, a religious betrayal; in order to become a tool for the enslavement of the divinely-chosen people by coarse pagans, one had to renounce the hopes of Israel, everything holy to it, its expectations. What is more, a publican, upon accepting a position, had to swear a pagan oath of fidelity to the emperor, and perform a pagan sacrificial offering to his spirit, the "genius" of the emperor. (The Romans did not take into account the religious sensibilities of their agents.) Not only did the publicans serve Rome's interests by levying taxes upon their own countrymen, but, by pursuing their own mercenary goals and enriching themselves at the expense of their enslaved brothers, they made the yoke of Roman oppression still more onerous. This is what the publicans were. This is why they were surrounded by well-founded hatred and scorn: they were betrayers of their people, betraying not only their own but a divinely-chosen people, God's instrument in the world, the only people through which rebirth and salvation could come to mankind.
Everything said here applies to Zacchaeus to the highest degree, because he was not an ordinary publican but a chief among publicans — an architelonis. Without doubt he had done everything: offered pagan sacrifices and sworn a pagan oath, ruthlessly extracted taxes from his brothers, increasing them to his own advantage. And he became, as the Gospel testifies, a rich man. Of course, Zacchaeus understood clearly that the hopes of Israel were lost for him. Everything proclaimed by the prophets and beloved from childhood, that which caused every believing Old Testament soul "that knoweth jubilation," to tremble joyfully, was not for him. He was a traitor, a betrayer, an outcast. He had no part in Israel. And now rumors reached him that the Holy One of Israel, the Messiah announced by the prophets, had appeared in the world and, together with a small group of disciples, was walking the fields of Galilee and Judea, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom and performing great miracles. In believing hearts, joyous hopes were ignited. How will
Zacchaeus react to this? For him personally, the coming of the Messiah is a catastrophe. The rule of the Romans must come to an end, and triumphant Israel will undoubtedly take revenge for the damage suffered because of him, for the offences and oppressions caused by him. But even if this is not so — for the Messiah, as the prophet testified, comes as a righteous one, bringing salvation, as a meek one (cf. Zech. 9:9) — the triumph of the Messiah must bring to him, to Zacchaeus, only the greatest disgrace and the loss of all the wealth and of the position he acquired at the terrible price of his treachery before God, his own people, and all the hopes of Israel.
But perhaps this is not so, not yet. Perhaps the new preacher is not really the Messiah. Not everyone believes in Him. The Pharisees and Sadducees — the greatest foes of the publicans and of him, Zacchaeus., in particular — do not believe in Him. Perhaps all this is just the idle talk of the populace. In that case, one can calmly continue living as one has until now. But Zacchaeus does not want to be confirmed in such thoughts. He wants to see Jesus, in order to know, to really know: Who is He? Zacchaeus wants the preacher passing by to truly be Christ the Messiah. He wants to say with the prophets, Oh, that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, that Thou wouldst come down! (Is. 64:1). Let this be so, even if it entails a ruinous catastrophe for him, Zacchaeus. In his soul, it seems, there are such depths that he himself has not sensed up to now; there is in him a burning, flaming, consuming, completely unselfish love for the "Expectation of the Nations," for the image of the meek Messiah described by the prophets. Who hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows (Is. 53:4). And when an opportunity comes to see Him, Zacchaeus does not think of himself. In the triumph of the Messiah, for him personally, for Zacchaeus, there lies catastrophe and ruin. But he does not think of this. He wants to glimpse, at least from the comer of his eye. Him Whom Moses and the prophets had foretold.
And now Christ is passing by. He is surrounded by a crowd. Zacchaeus, being short of stature, cannot see Him. But the thirst, the utterly unselfish thirst of Zacchaeus to see Christ, at least from afar, is so boundless, so overwhelming, that he — a wealthy man, invested in status, an official of the Roman Empire, in the midst of a hostile crowd that hates and scorns him — pays no attention to anything and, consumed by the burning desire to see Christ, disregards all convention and outward decorum, and climbs up a tree, a sycamore growing along the way. And the eyes of this great sinner — leader of traitors and betrayers — meet the eyes of the Holy One of Israel, Christ the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus sees that which is inaccessible to an indifferent or hostile glance. Selflessly loving the image of the Messiah, Zacchaeus is immediately able to recognize Christ the Lord in the passing Galilean Teacher; and the Lord, filled with Divine and human love, sees this in Zacchaeus, who is peering at Him from the branches of the sycamore; He sees those spiritual depths of soul hitherto unknown even to Zacchaeus himself. The Lord sees that the burning love for the Holy One of Israel in this heart of a traitor, a love not in the least blemished by any sort of self-interest, could regenerate and renew him. The Divine voice sounds: Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must abide at thy house. And moral regeneration, salvation, and renewal came to Zacchaeus and his entire house. The Son of Man truly came to seek and to save the lost.
O Lord, O Lord, we too have betrayed Thee and Thy work, as once did Zacchaeus; we have deprived ourselves of a portion in Israel; we have betrayed our hope! But even if it is to our shame and the shame of those like us, let Thy kingdom come! and Thy victory and Thy triumph! Even if, deservedly according to our sins. Thy coming will bring us ruin and condemnation, come, O Lord, come quickly! But grant us, at least from afar, to see the triumph of Thy righteousness, even if we cannot be participants in it. And have mercy on us beyond hope, as once Thou hadst mercy on Zacchaeus!
(Saint Clement of Rome testifies that Zacchaeus subsequently became a companion of the holy Apostle Peter, and, together with the holy Pre-eminent Apostle, preached in Rome, where under Nero he accepted a martyr's death for Christ. In a Christian manner, he repaid the Romans with the greatest good for the greatest evil that was all but perpetrated upon him by them. To the proud capital of the Romans who had once tempted and enslaved him, forcing him to renounce all that was holy to his soul, he came, liberated and regenerated by the grace of our Lord, the Lover of man, and he brought Rome not curses, but the Good News, for which he gave his very own life.)