Mark 12

[Whose is this image? Caesar's.] I. This was a Caesar's penny, denarius Caesareanus. For zuz, among the Jews, was also a penny, as we shewed elsewhere; but we scarce believe it was of the same form and inscription: "A certain heathen sent to R. Judah the prince a Caesarean penny, and that on a certain festival day of the heathens. Resh Lachish sat before him. R. Judah said, What shall I do? If I receive it, I shall consent (to their festival): if I receive it not, enmity will rise against me. Resh Lachish answered, Take the penny, and while he looks upon you cast it into the well," &c.

II. It was a silver penny, not a gold one. Pence, absolutely put, are to be understood silver pence. Where the Gloss is, "Pence, absolutely put, are silver, until it is explained that they are gold."

But now a gold penny was worth five-and-twenty silver pence. "When turtle-doves and young pigeons were sold at Jerusalem sometime for a gold penny, Rabban Simeon Ben Gamaliel said, By this Temple, I will not rest this night, unless they are sold for a silver penny." Where the Gloss, "A gold penny is worth five-and-twenty silver pence."

III. It was a Roman penny, not a Jerusalem: for this distinction they sometimes use. The Gloss being witness, are Jerusalem zuzees. But more frequently money of Tzur, and money of Jerusalem. Money of Tzur one may well render Tyrian money. But hear the Aruch, where he had been treating of money of Tzur; at length he brings in this passage: "R. Eliezer saith, Wheresoever in the Scripture Tzur is written full, the Scripture speaks of the city Tyre: but where it is written defectively [without Vau] it speaks of Rome." Be it Tyrian or Roman money, this held among the masters: "Wheresoever any thing is said of the silver money of Jerusalem, it is the eighth part of the Tyrian money."

Hence I should resolve that riddle at which the Glosser himself sticks, if I may have leave to conjecture in a Jewish affair, after a doubting Jew. In the tract now cited there is a discourse concerning Jerusalem Cozbian moneys. A riddle truly. Ben Cozbi, indeed, coined moneys when he made an insurrection against the Romans. But whence is this called Jerusalem money, when, in the days of Ben Cozbi, Jerusalem lay buried in its own rubbish? If I may be the resolver, it was so called, because it was of the same weight and value with the Jerusalem money, and not with that of Tyre.

"The Jerusalem money (say they) is the eighth part of the Tyrian." Here again some words of the masters entangle me in a riddle. The Aruch saith, "A penny and zuz are the same." And elsewhere, "They call pence, in the Gemaristic language, Zuzim"; which we observed at chapter 6:37. 'Zuz' was Jerusalem money: how, then, was it the same with a penny, which was Tyrian money, when it was the eighth part only? And these words spoken by Rambam do add a scruple over and above; a penny contains six zuzim. If he had said eight zuzim, it had been without scruple. But what shall we say now?

The former knot you may thus untie: that zuz, among the Jews, is called also a penny; a Jewish penny, indeed, but different from the Roman: as the Scots have their shilling, but much different from our English. But the second knot let him try to untie that is at leisure.

IV. This money was signed with the image of Caesar; but of the Jerusalem money, thus the Jews write, whom you may believe when you please: "What is the Jerusalem money? David and Solomon were stamped on one side; and on the reverse, Jerusalem the holy city." But the Glosser inquires whether it were lawful to stamp the image of David and Solomon upon money, which he scarcely thinks. He concludes therefore that their names were only inscribed, not their effigies.

"Upon Abraham's money were stamped, on one side, an old man and an old woman; on the other, a young man and a young maid. On Joshua's money, on one side, an ox; on the other, a monoceros. On David's money, on one side, a staff and a scrip; on the other, a tower. On Mardochai's money, on one side, sackcloth and ashes; on the other, a crown." Let the truth of this be upon the credit of the authors.

28. And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all?

[Which is the first commandment of all?] It is not seldom that this distinction occurs in the Rabbins, between the law, and the precept: by the latter they understand some special or greater rite (themselves being judges); such as circumcision, the repeating of the phylacteries, keeping the sabbath, &c. This question, propounded by the scribe, seems to respect the same: namely, whether those great precepts (as they were esteemed) and other ceremonial precepts of that nature, such as sacrifices, purifications, keeping festivals, were the greatest precepts of the law, or no: and if it were so, which among them was the first?

By his answer he seems to incline to the negative, and to prefer the moral law. Whence Christ saith, "That he was not far from the kingdom of heaven": and while he suits an answer to him from that very passage, which was the first in the reciting of the phylacteries, Hear, O Israel,--he directs the eyes and the minds of those that repeated them to the sense and the marrow of the thing repeated,--and that they rest not in the bare work of repeating them.

41. And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much.

[The people cast money.] They were casting in small money there. According to his pleasure, any one might cast into the chests how little soever he would; namely, in the chest which was for gold, as little gold as a grain of barley would weigh; and in the chest for frankincense, as much frankincense as weighed a grain of barley. But if he should say, Behold, I vow wood; he shall not offer less than two pieces of a cubit long, and breadth proportionable. Behold, I vow frankincense; he shall not offer less than a pugil of frankincense: that is, not less money than that which will buy so much.

42. And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.

[Two mites, which make a farthing.] Two prutahs are a farthing. "A prutah is the eighth part of an Italian assarius. An assarius is the twenty-fourth part of a silver penny." We rendered before, "The people cast money, brass," by they were casting in small money: one would think it should rather be rendered, They were casting in brass. But consider well this passage: "He that changeth the 'selaa' of the second tenth, the school of Shammai saith, Let him change the whole 'selaa' into brass." You would perhaps render it, into moneys, or into meahs, but it is properly to be rendered into brass, as appears by what follows: "The school of Hillel saith, into a shekel of silver, and a shekel of brass." So also the Glossers; and the Aruch moreover, "He that changeth a selaa, and receives for it brass money, that is, prutahs."

None might, by the canon even now mentioned, enter into the Temple, no, nor indeed into the Court of the Gentiles, with his purse, therefore much less into the Court of the Women; and yet scarce any entered who carried no money with him to be offered to the Corban, whether in his hand, or in his bosom, or elsewhere, we do not define: so did this very poor woman, who for two mites purchased herself an eternal fame, our Saviour himself setting a value upon the thing above all the gifts of them that offered.