hall be
humbled, and that the kingdom of heaven will be possessed by the
lowly. This created some disturbance in the community; there was great
discontent against James and John.[3] The same rivalry appears to show
itself in the Gospel of John, where the narrator unceasingly declares
himself to be "the disciple whom Jesus loved," to whom the master in
dying confided his mother, and seeks systematically to place himself
near Simon Peter, and at times to put himself before him, in important
circumstances where the older evangelists had omitted mentioning
him.[4]

[Footnote 1: Matt. xviii. 1, and following; Mark ix. 33; Luke ix. 46,
xxii. 30.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. xx. 20, and following; Mark x. 35, and following.]

[Footnote 3: Mark x. 41.]

[Footnote 4: John xviii. 15, and following, xix. 26, 27, xx. 2, and
following, xxi. 7, 21. Comp. i. 35, and following, in which the
disciple referred to is probably John.]

Among the preceding personages, all those of whom we know anything had
begun by being fishermen. At all events, none of them belonged to a
socially elevated class. Only Matthew or Levi, son of Alpheus,[1] had
been a publican. But those to whom they gave this name in Judea were
not the farmers-general of taxes, men of elevated rank (always Roman
patricians), who were called at Rome _publicani_.[2] They were the
agents of these contractors, employes of low rank, simply officers of
the customs. The great route from Acre to Damascus, one of the most
ancient routes of the world, which crossed Galilee, skirting the
lake,[3] made this class of employe very numerous there. Capernaum,
which was perhaps on the road, possessed a numerous staff of them.[4]
This profession is never popular, but with the Jews it was considered
quite criminal. Taxation, new to them, was the sign of their
subjection; one school, that of Judas the Gaulonite, maintained that
to pay it was an act of paganism. The customs-officers, also, were
abhorred by the zealots of the law. They were only named in company
with assassins, highway robbers, and men of infamous life.[5] The Jews
who accepted such offices were excommunicated, and became incapable of
making a will; their money was accursed, and the casuists forbade the
changing of money with them.[6] These poor men, placed under the ban
of society, visited amongst themselves. Jesus accepted a dinner
offered him by Levi, at which there were, according to the language of
the time, "many publicans and