To oppose the levying of this tribute, Judas the Gau- lonite raised an insurrection of the Jews, asserting that it was not lawful to pay tribute to a foreigner, that it was a token of servitude, and that the Jews were not allowed to acknowledge any for their master who did not worship the Lord. They boasted of being a free nation, and of never having been in bondage to any man (John viii,33). These sentiments were extensive- ly promulgated, but all their efforts were of no avail in restraining or mitigating the exactions of their con- querors. See Judas.
The Pharisees, who sought to entangle Jesus in his talk, sent unto him demanding whether it was lawful to give tribute unto Cicsar or not; but, knowing their wicked designs, he replied, " Why tempt ye me, ye hyp- ocrites?" " Kender unto Ciesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." See Pkxxv.
The apostles Peter and Paul severally recommended submission to the ruling powers, and incidcated the <luty of paying tribute, "tribute to whom tribute isdue"(Kon]. xiii. 1-8; 1 Pet. ii, 13).— Kitto.
III. The Tf'iiiple Tax. — The payment of the half- shekel { = \\3.\i stater —two drachmre) was (as has been said above), though resting on an ancient precedent ("Exod. XXX, 13), yet, in its character as a fixed annual rate, of late origin. It was proclaimed, according to Rabbinic rules, on the 1st of Atlar, began to be collected on the 15th,an<l was due, at latest, on the 1st of Nisan (:\risbna, Shekdliiiu i, 7; Surenhusius. p. 260, 260. It was applied to defray the general expenses of the Tem- ple, the morning and evening sacrifice, the incense, wood, showbread. the red heifers, the scape-goat, etc. (Mislina, Shekid. loc. cit. ; in Light foot, Hor, Ucb. on Matt.
The A-.viiaii 7W,f((//, or Chiefof Tribute. See RAiiSAUie.
xvii, 24). After the destruction of the Temple it was sequestrated by Yesjiasian and his successors, and trans- ferred to the Temple of the Capitoline Jupiter (Jose- phus, War, vii,6, G). See Temple.
The explanation thus given of the " tribute" of Matt, xvii, 24 is, beyond all doubt, the true one. To suppose, with C'hrysostom, Augustine, Maldonatus, and others, that it was the same as the tribute {Krfvao^') paid to the Roman emperor (Matt, xxii, 17) is at variance with the distinct statements of Josephus and the Mishna, and takes away the whole significance of our Lord's words. It may be questioned, however, whether the fidl signif- icance of those words is adequately brought out in the popular interpretation of them. As explained by most commentators, they are simply an assertion by our Lord of his divine Sonship, an implied rebuke of Peter for for- getting the truth which he had so recently confessed (comp. Wordsworth, Alford, and others) : " Then are the children (kioi) free;" Thou hast owned me as the Son of the Living God, the Son of the (Jreat King, of the Lord of the Temple, in whose honor men pay the Tem- ple-tribute; why, forgetting this, dost thou so hastily make answer as if I were an alien and a stranger? — Smith. This ex|)lanation, however, hardly does justice to the tenor of the language. Our Lord had not been present at the ))receding Passover, and had therefore failed to pay the tax at the regular time and ]ilace. Hence he was waited upon in Galilee for that purpose, with some apprehension, perhaps, on the part of the collectors, that he might excuse himself for some reason, or at least neglect to pay. In his reply he asserts his just claim to exemption, not as an alien, but precisely because lie was a member of the theocratic family in the highest sense. He was exempt on the broad con- stitutional ground that a king's son lielongs to the royal household fur whom tribute is collected, and not ly whom it is rendered. Inasmuch as the tax was for the Temple service, Jesus, who was the son of the Lord of the Temple, could not be required to contribute to that expense. Peter is coupled in the payment, but not in the exemption ; at least, not on the same ground pre- cisely, but, if at all, on the general ]irinciple of associa- tion with the royal family. See TninuTE-jioxEY.
Tribute-money {CiCpnx^iov'), the Temple-tax lev- ied upon all Jews ( Matt, xvii, 24), and likewise {Kfjv- aoc) the money collected by the Romans in payment of the taxes imposed upon the Jews (xxii, 19). The piece shown to our Saviour at his own request (in the latter passage) was a Roman coin, bearing the image of one of the Caisars, and must have been at that time cur- rent in Judaja, and received in payment of the tribute, in common with other descriptions of money. There is no reason to suppose that the tribute was collected ex- clusively in Roman coins, or that the tribute-money was a description of coin different from that which was iu general circulation. See Penny.
As regards the half-shekel of silver paid to the Lord by every male of the children of Israel as a ransom for his soul (Exod. xxx, 13, 15), colonel Leake says "that it had notiiing in common with the tribute paid by the Jews to the Roman emperor. The tribute was a dena- rius, in the English version a penny (Matt, xxii, 17; Ltdve XX, 24) ; the duty to the Temple was a didrach- mon, two of which made a stater. It ajipears, then, that the half-shekel of ransom had in the time of our Sav- iour been converted into the payment of a didrachmon to the Temi)lc, and two of their didrachma formed a stater of the Jewisli currency." He then suggests that the stater was evidenth' the extant "Shekel Israel," which was a tetradraehm of the Ptolemaic scale, though generally below the standard weight, like most of the extant specimens of the Ptolemies; and that the di- drachmon paid to the Temple was therefore of the same monetary scale. "Thus," says he, "the duty to the Temple was converted from the half of an Attic to the whole of a Ptolemaic didrachmon, and the tax was nominally raised in the proportion of about 105 to 65;