τελώνης

Forms

τελώνης (telṓnēs) m (genitive τελώνου); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is a compound from Ancient Greek τέλος (télos, “tax, toll”) + ὠνέομαι (ōnéomai, “to buy”): the τελώνης was the man who bought the right to collect a tax.^[2][3][4][5] The first part is the noun in its sense “sum to be paid, tax”, and the second the stem of the verb for buying;^[5][6] BDAG and the New Pauly connect the second part with the related noun ὠνή (ōnḗ, “buying; lease”).^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Aristophanes' Knights, in the 5th century BC, meaning a farmer of taxes or tolls.^[2][9][5]

Semantic evolution

In Athens and elsewhere in the Greek world most taxes and duties were not collected by the state but leased to private contractors: the τελῶναι bought, for a fixed period and area, the right to collect a tax or toll, or undertook a service for a sum paid by the state.^[8][10] The orators Aeschines and Demosthenes use the word of these men, and it was often said with contempt: the comic poet Xeno said of the people of Oropus that they were “all tax-farmers, all robbers”, and Polybius speaks of a “vulgar tax-farmer”.^[2][7]

In Ptolemaic Egypt the papyri use it for the collectors of taxes.^[2] The Gospels use it for the toll and tax collectors of their time, the Latin publicanus; according to BDAG these were not the holders of the tax contracts themselves but the subordinates they hired, and they were despised as a class because the system gave them every chance for greed.^{[2][7][11][12]} Sahidic Coptic borrowed the word.^[13]

In medieval Greek the publican of the Gospel parable became the type of the repentant sinner, a sense the Church still uses.^[14] Modern Greek keeps τελώνης (telónis) as a learned word for the head of a customs office, with τελωνείο (teloneío, “customs house”), from Hellenistic τελωνεῖον (telōneîon).^[14][5]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Aristophanes uses it in the Knights.^[2][3][15]
• 4th century BC – Aeschines, Demosthenes and Aristotle use it of the men who farmed the taxes.^{[2][3][9][15]}
• 3rd century BC – Herodas uses it with contempt, and a papyrus from Egypt records a tax-farmer.^[2][7][15]
• 2nd century BC – Polybius speaks of a “vulgar tax-farmer”.^[2][15]
• 1st century AD – The Gospel of Matthew uses it for the publicans, the tax collectors.^[2][7]
• 800s AD – A Sahidic Coptic manuscript has the borrowed word.^[13]
• Modern Greek – The learned τελώνης (telónis) means a customs officer.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tax farmer: one who bought from the state the right to collect tolls, customs or taxes.^[2][3][8]
2. A tax collector or toll collector, (New Testament) a publican.^[2][7][16]

Word family

• τελωνέω (telōnéō)
• τελώνιον (telṓnion)
• τελωνία (telōnía)
• ἀρχιτελώνης (arkhitelṓnēs)

Related words

• τέλος (télos)
• ὠνέομαι (ōnéomai)

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ Bailly, Anatole (2020), Dictionnaire grec-français, Bailly 2020 Hugo Chávez ed., ed. Gérard Gréco et al.
5. ^ a b c d Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
6. ^ Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
7. ^ a b c d e f Bauer, Walter; Danker, Frederick W., et al. (2000), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press
8. ^ a b c Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth, eds. (2002–2010), Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
10. ^ Smith, William; Wayte, William; Marindin, G. E., eds. (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 3rd ed., London: John Murray
11. ^ Abbott-Smith, G. (1922), A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark
12. ^ Thayer, Joseph Henry (1889), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, New York: American Book Company
13. ^ a b Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC), Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Leipzig
14. ^ a b c Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
15. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
16. ^ United Bible Societies (2023), UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (revised Louw–Nida semantic domains), open-licence ed.