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April 14th, 2003
Received by H.R.
Cuenca, Ecuador.
Monday of the Passover, my dear brother: I will deal with a subject
that has only remotely to do with Passover. I will answer the question
that you have thought about so much lately.
[H.R.: You are referring to the coin in the
fish’s mouth?]
Exactly. Insert here the text as it is found in
the Bible.
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Then when they arrived at Capernaum the Temple tax-collectors
came up and said to Peter, "Your master doesn't pay Temple-tax,
we presume?"
"Oh, yes, he does!" replied Peter.
Later when he went into the house Jesus anticipated what
he was going to say. "What do you think, Simon?"
he said. "Whom do the kings of this world get their rates
and taxes from - their own people or from others?"
"From others," replied Peter.
"Then the family is exempt," Jesus told him. "Yet
we don't want to give offence to these people, so go down
to the lake and throw in your hook. Take the first fish that
bites, open his mouth and you'll find a coin. Take that and
give it to them, for both of us."
Mt 17:24-27
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As you know very well, every Jew, every Israelite male, when they
had reached the age of twenty, had the obligation of paying an annual
tribute of half a silver shekel to the Temple in Jerusalem. Samaritans
and Gentiles were exempted from this contribution, but they could
give voluntary donations.
[H.R.: Which never happened, I suppose.]
Be careful with your judgment, my dear friend. I know that it sounds
absurd that someone would pay a tax voluntarily. But you should
perhaps consider it simply as a religious contribution. You have
read that there was an enormous mass of people, all over the Roman
Empire, who followed the religious practices of the Jews without
being Jewish. They refused to accept circumcision, and so they were,
for this very reason, excluded from the Jewish community properly
spoken. But they participated in the synagogues. These Gentiles
who did not take this last step to their integration into the Jewish
religion, that is to say, those who were not circumcised, were called
"God-fearers." Those who underwent all rites of integration,
including circumcision, were called proselytes. They really became
Jews, according to the law, and they had access to all parts of
the Temple held in reserve exclusively for Jews. The God-fearers,
on the other hand, continued to be Gentiles according to the law.
But returning to the subject of my discourse: When I say the obligation
of the tribute payment, I mean that there was a law in this respect.
This was not so during all of Israel’s history; but many years
before Jesus was born, and when the Pharisees exercised great influence
over Jewish politics — more so than the Sadducees did —
this formalistic and legalistic sect managed to persuade the authorities
to issue a law that made this tax payment compulsory. They based
this demand on the Hebrew Sacred Scriptures. Actually, there was
hardly any pertinent legal base in those writings, but the Pharisees
skillfully came up with a convenient interpretation.
Tax collection did not create a problem in Jerusalem itself. But
you know that a large part of the Jews, even the majority of them,
lived outside of Palestine, in places like Alexandria, Antioch,
Rome, and in the remote Babylon. This last region did not even belong
to the Roman Empire during Jesus' earthly life, but was rather under
Parthian control, the sworn enemies of the Romans.
But the Pharisees had also come up with an ingenious system to
collect the money: Every year, at the beginning of the month that
preceded to the Passover feast, special emissaries of the Temple
announced to all Jewish communities inside and outside of the Roman
Empire that the time for paying the tax was approaching. They traveled
through all the Jewish villages and neighborhoods of the big cities.
They spoke before the congregations in the synagogues, and doing
so, they were able to reach all Jews and they exhorted them to meet
their obligation.
Then, by the middle of that same month, they put up their tables
right in the Jewish centers, in the markets, in front of the synagogues,
in the ports, in every place they considered to be a good location
for cashing in the money. Of course, this work was so huge that
the emissaries could not carry it out alone. Therefore, each community
helped with people recognized for their honesty and who volunteered
as tax collectors during ten days. After this period, it was no
longer possible to pay the tax outside of the Temple district.
In Jerusalem and in adjacent regions the collected money was delivered
daily to the Temple. In distant areas this was not possible, of
course. There the Jews installed centers for depositing the money
— habitually in the home of a community dignitary— and
when the tax campaign had concluded, the tax money was shipped to
Palestine. During the final days of the month of Adar and the first
days of the month of Nissan, in late winter and early spring, caravans
and vessels carried the revenues to Jerusalem. Of course, heavily
armed soldiers or guards secured all these transports. Highwaymen
and pirates abounded.
[H.R.: How much money did these Temple revenues
amount to?]
I cannot tell you the exact amount.
[H.R.: But approximately.]
Well, they will have added up to some 30 metric
tons of silver per year in my time.
[H.R.: Wow! Sounds like an enormous sum!]
Indeed. The value of silver then was much higher than it is today.
As a matter of fact, it was the sum I have just mentioned and somewhat
more. I will explain this shortly.
Every Jewish male of twenty years of age or older had to pay half
a shekel. This amount is equal to two Roman denarii or two Greek
drachmas. In other words, it was equal to two-days’ salary
of a peasant worker. This was not much, of course, but you must
consider that people, the Jews, had to pay this tax in addition
to the other imperial taxes. However, generally they did so without
offering resistance. But if one or other individual refused to obey,
the Jewish authorities had the legal mechanism — thanks to
the Pharisees — to obtain the payment by force. But it was
rarely necessary to apply coercion. If a Jew did not pay voluntarily,
it meant his marginalization in society, that is to say, he became
a pariah in the community where he lived: Undoubtedly, this was
not a pleasant prospect.
Now, the story in Matthew does contain a grain of truth. During
all his adult life, Jesus likewise had paid the tribute for the
Temple as all other Jews did. But when he had been already preaching
a couple of years, it became very obvious that there were strong
tensions between Jesus and the Jewish religious authorities. This
is the reason why the collectors, when they put up their small folding
table and their scales...
[H.R.: Scales?]
Yes. Nowadays, many central banks keep gold in their vaults to
sustain and back the value of circulating money, which in bulk is
just paper. But then, coins carried their own value in form of metal
— gold and silver, and even copper. Their weight and their
alloy determined their commercial value. A Roman denarius weighed
a little less than 4 grams, the Tyrean shekel weighed four times
more. Therefore, it was calculated that half a shekel was equivalent
to approximately two denarii. Unfortunately, the bankers, merchants,
and tax collectors used to cheat on people.
[H.R.: Well, they still do...]
It was not my intention to allude to anything. In those times,
they often chipped off parts of the coins’ rim, reducing their
weight. Then, they used the denarii they had damaged in this fashion
to pay their employees or for commercial transactions. But when
people came to pay their taxes, the collectors determined scrupulously
the weight of the coins and they recharged any missing weight. This
is why they carried scales with them.
Besides — and now I am going to answer the above question
with respect to this "somewhat more" that was collected
— the Temple only accepted those Tyrean coins, the silver shekels.
If somebody wished to pay with other coins — and the vast majority
did so — the tax collectors changed them, but they charged
for the service: a quarter of denarius for half a silver shekel.
Now calculate: Half a silver shekel was worth 2 denarii. They charged
a quarter of denarius (or 4 copper ases) for the change.
In other words, they collected one eighth in addition to the tax.
Some did pay in the appropriate currency, therefore, the surplus
that they charged amounted to more or less 10 percent of the total
tax revenues. If the collected sum was about 30 tons of silver,
the moneychangers charged 3 tons of silver per year in addition.
These moneychangers were employees of Annas and his henchmen, and
these revenues of 3 tons of silver were theirs — this money
did not flow into the Temple funds. This was not a bad business.
But now, let’s return to Kpar Nahum. In the port of the village,
where they had set up their stand, the tax collectors cast the mocking
question to Peter: “Hey, Peter, are you sure that your master
will pay the tax?" They alluded to the tension between Jesus
and the House of Annas. And poor Peter was no longer so sure, however,
he replied: “Of course. What a silly question is this?"
And then Jesus explained to us that he paid the tax simply because
he did not want to scandalize people. He knew that God did not need
that money. However, the Temple formed a central institution for
Hebrew religion and society. The money was used for many purposes:
Apart from the obvious, that is to say, apart from being used to
pay the wages of those many people that worked in the Temple, to
provide funds for the Temple’s maintenance and repair and for
other obligations, including all those things necessary for a regular
religious operation, the taxes were spent for public works, such
as the repair of streets and roads, and for the maintenance of public
buildings, for example. It was used for social ends. Jesus said
that the common good justified the sacrifice. There was deviation
of funds and shameless enrichment of some officials, we all knew
that. But the alternative of not paying was not the way to solve
that problem.
And so, we all went out to the street and headed to the table of
the collectors to turn in our tribute.
Later, this episode was included in the gospel to justify the collection
of tributes for the newborn church, which also needed funds for
its operation. And even later, a Greek editor would add the miraculous
story of the fish holding a silver coin in its mouth. Of course,
this is a symbolic message: The fish represents Christ, or Christ's
body, that is to say, his church. In its mouth, or in its teachings,
there is the coin, that treasure that miraculously comes from God
and is for God.
I conclude this long message on a not very transcendent topic.
I hope it may have satisfied your curiosity. Take a break now.
May God bless you always.
Your brother,
Judas
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