The Calling of Levi

Continuing with Fouard's Life of Christ:

The Calling of Levi

Luke v. 27, 28; Mark ii. 13, 14; Matt. ix. 9.

Of the six disciples Jesus had chosen on the banks of the Jordan, only four were now with Him constantly; and all of these were equally poor and of a like simplicity of mind and soul.  But now it was to be from a class which the Jews looked upon as the vilest and the hatefulest in society, that the Lord would select His fifth companion, in the person of Levi the publican.1

We know in what esteem that title was held in Latin literature of this age.  It was the name employed to designate those knights who were engaged in farming out the tax revenue of the provinces.  These opulent citizens should not be confounded with the publicans of the Gospel.  The latter were merely agents, of the lowest class, who collected taxes in the name of the great Roman companies; for in the course of time these enterprises had become too considerable for one knight to undertake the responsibility of discharging the duties.  And so an administrator, residing at Rome, represented his associates, and directed the subalterns whom he employed to supervise the incoming and outgoing of merchandise, and to computer more or less justly the value of the same.  Naturally they preferred to appoint to this latter office native residents of the conquered provinces, whose familiarity with the language, manners, and resources of their native land, would make them much fitter for such difficult functions than any foreigners could be.

The disrepute attached to this career was enough to prevent men who were held in any esteem in the community from embracing it; and the Roman collectors were compelled to take their agents from among the lower classes of the populace.  Delivered into such hands, the power delegated to these men by the great syndicates degenerated naturally into abuses and exactions, which finally rendered the name publican synonymous with that of a robber.  Cicero does not hesitate to call them the vilist of men; Stobaeus looks upon them as the wolves and bears of the human race.

Beside the general aversion felt for such a trade, there was, in Judaea, an additional reason for holding it in abhorrence.  Every payment of tribute to foreign masters was, in the eyes of the Israelites, a forbidden act, a transgression of the Law of Jehovah; the publicans, by helping to consummate the sacrilege, were therefore regarded not only as traitors to their country, but as infidels and apostates, and for this reason quite as despicable as any criminals, courtesans, or pagans.  It was, then, from among the outcasts of society that Jesus picked out this new disciple.

The calling of Matthew. J-J Tissot.

Capharnaum, situated just where the great highways of Damascus, Tyre, Sephoris and Jerusalem meet, and through which caravans were continually passing, had grown to be one of the central points best adapted for the handling of custom-duties; hence there were to be found here greater numbers of publicans.  Jesus, as He was threading his way down towards the shore of the lake, saw one of them named Levi, the son of Alpheus, sitting at his toll-office.

"Follow Me!" He said to him.

The publican arose, left all, and followed the Lord.

We are amazed at this prompt obedience; but Levi knew Who He was Who called him.  He could not have been all this time an indifferent spectator, since every day he must have listened to the travellers repeating, or even heard himself, the noble utterances of the new Prophet, who was now stirring up all Galilee to higher thought; surely his heart must have been already touched, and all his thoughts are attracted to Jesus.  So when the divine Master, far from drawing away His garments in fear of any contact with the publican, as was generally done among the Israelites, addressed to him that quiet appeal: "Follow Me!" Levi, who until now had never met with anything but contempt, yielded to the grace which had been long time moving within him, and joined the little band of followers around the Saviour, never afterwards to be separated from Him.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam