A tanner was one who participated in a “trade which required the use of urine for processing leather, hence an unclean or mean trade” (Malina and Neyrey 1991, 88). While not, strictly speaking, a “chronically unclean” occupation (contra Johnson 1992, 179), later rabbis did despise the occupation as “dirty” and “smelly”; it was a socially ostracized trade (Artemidorus, Onir. 4.56). This particular tanner lived by the seaside (Acts 10:6). Simon’s geographical location may be explained by the fact that