St Zacchaeus
Now a man there [Jericho] named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, was seeking to see who Jesus was; but he could not see him because of the crowd, for he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way. When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.” And he came down quickly and received him with joy. When they all saw this, they began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.” – Luke 19:2-10
In the absence of a large and honest civil service, many pre-modern states found that a cheap way of raising revenue was “tax-farming”. Under this system, private contractors, called publicani, would pay to the government a sum equivalent to the amount of tax money desired from a particular area and would, in return, be granted the right to extort from the population enough money to recoup their outlay and make a healthy profit. Men like Zacchaeus were highly unpopular with their neighbours and little wonder that the invitation of Jesus would cause grumbling.
After this brief appearance in the Gospels, Zacchaeus fades from the official record but not from Christian legend where several competing stories continue to follow his career. In one of these accounts he is surnamed Matthias and becomes the apostle chosen by lot to replace Judas and ends up as the first bishop of Caesarea. In another he marries Veronica, the woman who wiped the face of Jesus on his way to the Crucifixion. They are said to travel to France where he founds a monastery.
Zacchaeus has become the patron saint of inn-keepers, because of the similarity in names between publican and publicani.