We come now to the capper coins of the NT, and find mention of three different de- nominations. (1) The lowest of these is the lepton (λεπτόν, Mk 12"=Lk 21? the widow’s ‘mite’; Lk 12° ‘thou shalt not depart [out of prison] till thou hast paid the very last ‘“‘mite”’ Γτὸ ἔσχατον λεπτόν---Μῦ 5% τὸν ἔσχατον Kodpdyrny, ‘ the uttermost farthing’]). The coin mentioned in these three passages can only be the périitah (798), so often spoken of in the Mishna as pro- verbially the smallest Jewish coin (so Lk 12°), In at least two places (Kiddush. i. 1, Ediyy. iv. 7) it is expressly declared to have been tariffed as {th of the Italian or Roman as (*p?»x ἫΝ issdr (or assdr) italki), in other words the half of the Roman quadrant: This agrees precisely with the much
iseussed note — whether original or marginal — in Mk 12" λεπτὰ δύο ὃ ἐστιν κοδράντης, ‘two lepta, which makes a quadrans,’ as it accords with ‘the unanimous tradition of the Hellenistic metrolo- gists’ (Hultsch, Metrol.? 605, n. 6). It must be sought for among the minute bronzes of the Has- monzean and Herodian princes, some of which do not weigh more than 15 to 20 grains. Since it is 4th of the as, or ;4,th part of the denarius, its legal value was about 4rd of an English farthing. The two remaining bronzes may best be examined together; they are (2) the kodrantés (κοδράντης, Mt 5%, Mk 12" already cited), and (3) the
* This use of ἀργυρίον is often met with in Josephus. .
+ The OT word pv was in later Hebrew displaced by 29 sela’, stater or tetradrachm, which in the Mishna contains four Ds] zazim, or drachms.
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assarion (ἀσσάριον, Mt 1059 ‘are not two sparrows sold for a farthing ?’ * Lk 12° ‘are not five sparrows sold for two farthings?’ Cf. Vulg. nonne quinque
passeres veneunt dipondio?). The kodrantes is undoubtedly the Roman quadrans (the fourth part of the as, value about ἡ farthing)—from which, of course, the name is derived—since in the one passage (Mk 12") the note is clearly intended for Roman readers, and in the other (Mt δ the popular perutah-lepton of Lk 12 is replaced by St. Matthew, familiar as a tax-gatherer with the Roman system of accounting, by the lowest denomination in the Roman scale. With regard to the assarion (from the Latin assarium, a by-form of as) we are on less firm ground, for, in the existing uncertainty as to how the copper of the Hellenistic system was adjusted to that of the Roman system, we must not hastily identify the Hellenistic assarion with the Roman as. The former passed into the contemporary Hebrew as the igsar (70x, see Mishna, passum ; cf. x7ox of the Palmyra tariff, and the assaraé of the Peshitta and Palestinian Syriac, Lk 12°), and the authori- ties of the Mishna repeatedly refer to the dinar or Ζῇ (the denarius-drachm) as containing 6 maoth (niyp obols), and 24 issarim, from which it is evident that in the 2nd cent. at least the issar- assarion was a different coin from the as. We venture to think that the key to the difficulty is to be found in the distinction between the ‘current’ and ‘tariff’ value of a coin, to adopt expressions employed in the East at the present day. Inordinary transactions the drachm and the denarius were equal in value, the former contain- ing 6 obols, 24 dichalki or 48 chalki, and the latter 8 dupondii, 16 asses or 64 quadrantes. Since 24 issarim-assaria also went to the denarius-drachm, we must infer that the Greco-Roman name assarion was popularly applied to the old di- chalkus. But all government dues and official payments were calculated on the Roman denarius- as system (see the rescript of Germanicus Cvesar, A.D. 17-19, quoted in the Palmyra tariff δεῖ πρὸς ἀσσάριον ira[\ixdv]—elsewhere els δηνάριον---τὰ τέλη λογεύεσθϑαι, Col. 175 41 ff.), with the proviso added that small dues amounting to less than a denarius (τὸ δὲ ἐντὸς δηναρίου τέλος) might be defrayed in the native aL aap (πρὸς xépua=jD7y ; cf. same word in Peshitta Jn 2). Now the Romans, it will be remembered, tariffed the tetradrachm at 3 denarii (i.e. 1 drachm=# denarius) ; accordingly a tax of the latter amount, ἢ denarius, might be paid either in Roman copper, if available, i.e. by 6 dupondii or 12 asses, or 48 quadrantes, or in native copper on the drachm-system, in this case by 6 obols (a drachm), or 12 tetrachalki (half-obols), or 48 chalki. By government tariff, therefore, the dupondius was made equal to the obol, the as to the tetrachalkus, and the quidrans to the chalkus. These equations are confirmed (a) by the ancient gloss: ὀβολός hoc duopundium (Corp. Gloss. ii. 378, cited by Kubitschek, art. ᾿Ασσάριον in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyl. vol. ii.) ; and (δ) by the Peshitta rendering of κοδράντης, viz. shaménd, which is the Talmudic poy shamin, Kiddush. 12c,t i.e. the eighth part (of the obol), in other words the chalkus.§ We assume, then, that just as in Alexandria at the present day we have the ‘piastre tariff’ and the ‘piastre current,’ the former equal to two of the latter; so in NT times
* See above for improved rendering of the American Re-
visers. + For this see Dessan’s cited above (Hermes, xx. p. 820): οἱ. ZDMG 42, Ὁ. 412. ( ee t Where it is added : ‘two perdtahs make a shimin,’ another