TAXES of some kind must have been coeval with the origin of civilised society. The idea of the one is involved in that of the other ; since society, as every organisation, implies expense, which must be raised by the abstraction of property from the in. dividuals of which it consists, either by occasional or periodical, by self-imposed or compulsory, exactions.
Accordingly we find a provision of income made at the very comrnencement of the Mosaic polity. Taxes, like all other thing,s in that polity, had a religious origin and import. As a ransom for his soul unto the Lord, every Israelite was to pay half a shekel yearly, from twenty years old and up ward, the rich not giving more, the poor not giving less, for the service of the tabernacle (Exod. xxx. 12, seq. ; 2 Chron. xxiv. 6). From the latter pas sage it appears that the law appointing this pay ment was in force in the days of Joash (H. c. 878). This half-shekel was the tribute which our Lord was asked if he paid (Matt. xvii. 24). It is called in the Greek ra, Sibpaxua, and was in value about fifteen pence. The way in which it is spoken of shows -that it was an established and well-knovvn payment= they that received the didrachm'—in rendering which by tribute' our tmnslators have failed to give the force of the original (comp. Joseph. De Bell. 7td. vii. 6. 6). This offering was obli gatory on Jews who lived in foreign countries no less than on those who lived at home, though fre quently the native princes tried to divert the di drachm from the temple treasury to their own, in which effort they were more than once arrested by the Romans (Joseph. Antiq. xviii. 9. I). From the Talmudical Tract Shekalim (11,14shna, ii. 4), the time of payment appears to have been between the r5th and the 25th of the month Adar, that is in March. After the destruction of the temple, this didrachm was ordered by Vespasian to be paid into the capitol, as, says Josephus, they used to pay the same to the temple at Jerusalem' (De Bell.
vii. 6. 6). A special provision seems to have been made, under peculiar circumstances, of one. third of a shekel yearly, for the service of the house of our God' (Neh. x. 32). The Jews, al times, found the taxes they had to pay very op pressive. The ten tribes complained that they had found David's yoke heavy, and entreated Re hoboam that he would lighten it. And the stoning to death of Adoram, who was over the tribute,' shows to what an extent the question of taxes entered into the causes of the revolt of the ten tribes (i Kings xii. 4, t8). When the Romans
became masters of Palestine, the unhappy Jews had a double yoke to bear ; while it appears from Josephus that the yoke of the native princes was anything but light. The income of Herod the Great seems to have been about 1600 talents, vvhich has been estimated at 468ch000 sterling (Joseph. Antiq. xvii. it. 4, note in Whiston's Translation). Agrippa II. had revenues which amounted to twelve millions of drachmw, which may have equalled nearly half a million of our money. Nor was the recently-removed house-tax an exclusive English imposition ; for Herod Agrippa is recorded to have released the Jews from the tax upon houses, every one of whom paid it before' (Joseph. Antiq. xix. 6. 3 ; 8. 2).
Besides the regular half-shekel, there was a con siderable income derived to the temple from tithes, firstlings, etc. (2 Kings xii. 4). Considering the fertility of the land, we cannot account these re religious imposts as heavy. If we turn to the civil constitution, we find taxes first instituted at the time of the introduction of regal power, whose exactions are forcibly described by Samuel (I Sam. viii. xi, seq.) They consisted partly in personal service, partly in tithe in kind. Occasionally a heavy poll-tax was imposed—' of all the mighty men of wealth, of each man fifty shekels of silver' (2 Kings xv. 2o). On other occasions an assess ment was made, and a tax raised from the people of the land generally (2 Kings xxiii. 35). Both these last cases, however, were provisions for a special need. Presents constituted a source of abundant income, and can hardly be regarded in any other light than as a sort of self-imposed tax (I Sam. x. 27 ; xvi. zo ; Kings x. 25 ; 2 Chron. xvii. 5). Royal dernesnes supplied resources (i Kings iv. 22, seq.) There was also a tmnsit-tax of the merchantmen, and of the traffic of the spice-merchants, and of all the kings of Arabia, and of the governors of the country' (1 Kings x. 15). Ships and other public property belonged to the king (i Kings x. 28 ; ix. 26 ; xxii. 49) : the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year (independently of several sources) was 666 talents (1 Kings x. t4).—J. R. B.