The miracles of Jesus - Classical Christian Literature by Athleo.net

THE COIN IN THE FISH'S MOUTH 343
xxx. 1 1 - 1 6). And though at first this sum was
payable only on the comparatively rare occasions of
the numbering of the people, after the Babylonian
captivity it was made annual. According to the
Rabbis, the usual time for collecting this tax was
between the 15th and 25th Adar, or about the time
of the Jewish Passover. But there would seem to
have been considerable laxity with regard to this,
especially in the case of the
from Palestine.
Jews living at a distance
And indeed the whole tax was so
largely of a patriotic and (therefore partially at
least) a voluntary character, that in the time of our
Lord no very severe methods for enforcing it would
seem to have prevailed. We might almost gather as
much, indeed, from the civil terms of the collectors'
question to Peter on the present occasion, so unlike
the rude and overbearing demands of the Roman
publicani, even if it be not further the case that Jewish
Rabbis or Teachers were, as a rule, exempted from
the tax altogether. If so, all that the collectors might
mean would be, " Is your Master, your Teacher, in
the habit of paying this due or is He not "
On the other hand, and Peter's emphatic answer
in the affirmative rather favours this view, it is by no
means improbable that, during the early period of His
life, Jesus with that marvellous condescension to the
earthly surroundings of His lot which ever distinguished
Him, had paid the tax. But that now, in
view of the new claims He had been putting forth,
and above all of the emphatic assertion of His Messiahship
to which Peter had just given utterance (Matt,
xvi. 16), such condescension was no longer possible,
at any rate without full explanation of its reason.