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Bible Terms and Customs: Roman

Publicans were native Jews who farmed the taxes from the Roman knights; who in turn farmed them from the Imperial Treasury. They were annually let to the highest bidder.

Purification was not so much a cleansing from dirt as a ceremonial washing from the typical pollution imparted to a sanctified people by contact with heathens or sinners or their symbols.

Quaternion. A Roman guard of four soldiers who acted as sentries over a prisoner.

Salutations. These were in common use between one wayfarer and another, and to laborers in the field, such as, "Peace be to you," ," "The Lord prosper you," etc.

Scrip. A small bag so called because made of a "scrap" of stuff. Shoe. Shoes were only soles strapped under the foot. Staff was the long walking-stick like an alpen-stick, quite necessary to the pedestrian in a mountainous country.