How unclean were tax-collectors?

Abstract

The ideas that tax-collectors were unusually unclean and were regarded as incapable of repentance derive from misreadings of passages in the Mishnah and Talmud. These ideas sometimes form part of a general mistaken thesis that first-century Jewish society was riven by purity-based divisions. In fact, Jewish purity laws did not lead to social demarcation, since impurity was permitted except when entering the Temple, and purification when required was available to all, including tax-collectors. Disapproval of tax-collectors was on moral, not ritual-purity grounds, since they acted corruptly and oppressively. The case of the repentant tax-collector Zachaeus and his offer of reparation can be fully understood through rabbinic parallels.

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The Gospels say that Jesus was criticized by the Pharisees and others for associating with tax collectors and sinners and in particular for sharing meals with them. Commentators have often said that this criticism arose from considerations of ritual purity, which was especially important in the sharing of meals. This explanation arises from misunderstanding of the place of ritual purity in Judaism. It also involves importing ritual purity considerations into texts which do not mention them.

A prominent example is the misinterpretation often given of a passage in the Mishnah:

   If taxgatherers entered a house all that is within it becomes unclean; even
   if a gentile was with them, they may be believed if they say `We did not
   enter,' but (if a gentile was with them) they may not be believed if they
   say `We entered but we touched naught.' If thieves entered a house only
   that part is unclean that was trodden by the feet of the thieves [M.
   Tohoroth 7:6].

This has been interpreted to mean that tax collectors suffered from an extraordinary degree of ritual impurity, since they affected everything in the house with impurity merely by entering it. That this cannot be the meaning of the passage is indicated by another Mishnah passage:

   If tax collectors entered a house (so too if thieves restored stolen
   vessels) they may be deemed trustworthy if they say `We have not touched'
   [M. Hagigah 3:6].

The meaning of these two passages is as follows. If (Jewish) tax collectors entered a house, all within it becomes unclean, whereas thieves do not render all the contents of the house unclean. This is not because tax collectors are uniquely unclean, but because tax collectors are assumed to touch everything in the house (in order to assess the value of its contents), while thieves touch only items they are interested in stealing. On the other hand, if the tax collector returns and declares to the house owner that he did not touch anything (i.e., he entered but only looked at the objects he was assessing), he is believed, since as a Jew he is assumed to have some regard for truth and fellowship, especially as he has taken the trouble to return to explain matters. But if the tax collector was accompanied by a Gentile supervisor at the time of his first entry, even if he later returns and declares that he did not touch anything he is not believed, since it is assumed that his fear of his supervisor (who would have regarded mere looking as negligent) would have been stronger than his regard for his fellow-Jew. His present declaration, therefore, is regarded as motivated only by a desire for self-exculpation and ingratiation, and is not believed. A thief, on the other hand, who returns what he stole and declares that he did not touch anything else, is believed without qualification. He has demonstrated his trustworthiness by his repentance, and did not have any special reason to touch other items in the house.

A number of conclusions follow from the above explanation of the two Mishnah passages. First, the idea that the mere entry of the tax collector into a house caused all within it to become unclean may be dismissed. Uncleanness can be transferred by the tax collector to an object only by his touching it: if he entered the house but did not touch anything, everything remains clean. The only question mooted is whether he can be believed when he says he did not touch anything.

In the ritual purity system of Judaism, there are only three instances of an impurity-source causing all contents of an enclosed space to become unclean even without physical contact with actual objects. Two are biblical--the corpse in the tent (Num 19:14-16), and the dead `creeping thing' that falls into the space of an earthenware vessel (Lev. 11:33), and the other probably rabbinic: the `leper' who enters a `habitation' (M. Neg. 13:7). Apart from these, impurity is imparted only by contact or pressure or (in the case of corpse-impurity) by `overshadowing' (i.e. presence directly above or below the source of impurity). Thus for a tax collector to cause impurity to the contents of a house merely by entering it would be contrary to all principles of the system, whether biblical or rabbinic.