granted; but Jesus taught that the times of forgiveness should be practically unlimited.1 He illustrated that teaching by the beautiful parable of the servant, who, having been forgiven by his king a debt of ten thousand talents, immediately afterwards seized his fellow-servant by the throat, and would not forgive him a miserable little debt of one hundred pence, a sum 1,250,000 times as small as that which he himself had been forgiven. The child whom Jesus had held in His arms might have understood that moral; yet how infinitely more deep must its meaning be to us-who have been trained from childhood in the knowledge of His atoning lovethan it could have been, at the time when it was spoken, to even a Peter or a John.

'The Rabbinic rule only admitted a triple forgiveness, referring to Amos i. 3; Job xxxiii. 29 (marg., "twice" and "thrice").

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

RIEF REST IN CAPERNAUM.

os esse in alio regno reges et filios regis."-LUTHER,

lent, related by St. Matthew only, marked on this occasion in Capernaum.

e immemorial there was a precedent for least occasionally, on the recurrence of a tax of "half a shekel, after the shekel of ." of every Jew who had reached the age rs, as a 'ransom for his soul," unto the money was devoted to the service of the was expended on the purchase of the sacriats, red heifers, incense, shewbread, and es of the Temple service. After the return tivity, this be ah, or half-shekel, became annual tax of a third of a shekel;2 but at uent period it had again returned to its unt. This tax was paid by every Jew in f the world, whether rich or poor; and, as occasion of its payment, to show that the alike are equal before God, "the rich paid

11 16 The English "tribute-money" is vague and

no more, and the poor no less." It produced vast sums of money, which were conveyed to Jerusalem by honourable messengers.1

This tax was only so far compulsory that when first demanded, on the 1st of Adar, the demand was made quietly and civilly; if, however, it had not been paid by the 25th, then it seems that the collectors of the contribution (tobhin shekalim) might take a security for it from the defaulter.

Accordingly, almost immediately upon our Lord's return to Capernaum, these tobhín shekalim came to St. Peter, and asked him, quite civilly, as the Rabbis had directed, "Does not your master pay the didrachmas ? "2

The question suggests two difficulties-viz., Why had our Lord not been asked for this contribution in previous years? and why was it now demanded in autumn, at the approach of the Feast of Tabernacles, instead of in the month Adar, some six months earlier? The answers seem to be that priests and eminent rabbis were regarded as exempt from the tax; that our Lord's

1 Philo (De Monarch. ii. 3) calls them ieporourol. These collections are alluded to in Cic. Pro Flacco, 28; Dio Cass. lxvi. 7; Jos. B. J. vii. 6, § 6; Antt. xviii. 9, §1; and other passages collected by Wetstein, Light foot, &c. Taking the shekel roughly at 1s. 6d., the collection would produce £75,000 for every million contributors.

2 The didrachmum was a Greek coin exactly equivalent to half a shekel; the stater or silver tetradrachmum was a shekel. The stater and the Roman denarius (which was rather more than a fourth of its value) were the two common coins at this time: the actual didrachm had fallen into disuse. It is true that the LXX. translate shekel by díopaxμov and half-shekel by hμiσv тoû didpáxμou, but it is now generally agreed that this is because they adopt the Alexandrian, not the Attic scale. The value of a didrachm was about eighteen-pence. (See Madden, Hist. of Jewish Coinage, p. 235; Leake, Numism. Hellen., Append. 2, 3; Akerman, Numism. Illustr. to the N. Test., p. 14.)

ce from Capernaum had caused some nd that it was permitted to pay arrears wards.1

hat the collectors inquired of St. Peter ng Jesus Himself, is another of the very cations of the awe which He inspired even of His bitterest enemies; as in all probaof the demand being made at all shows a to vex His life, and to ignore His dignity. ch his usual impetuous readiness, without should have done, to consult His Master,

thought a moment longer-if he had more-if he had even recalled his own on so recently given-his answer might e so glibly. This money was, at any rate, al significance, a redemption-money for the man; and how could the Redeemer, who souls by the ransom of His life, pay this m for his own? And it was a tax for the ces. How, then, could it be due from Him mortal body was the new spiritual Temple g God? He was to enter the vail of the

seems to be some evidence (adduced by Greswell, Dissert. that it might be paid at either of the yearly feasts. (Jost, Gesch. des Judenth. i. 218) that there had been a tween the Pharisees and Sadducees as to whether this tax ntary or compulsory, and that, after long debate, the arried the day. Perhaps, therefore, the demand was made way of testing which side he would take, and if so we may words to St. Peter as sanctioning the universal principle o God should be given "not grudgingly or of necessity." resting article by Professor Plumptre, in Smith's Bibl. Dict.,

Holiest with the ransom of His own blood. But He paid what He did not owe, to save us from that which we owed, but could never pay.1

Accordingly, when Peter entered the house, conscious, perhaps, by this time, that his answer had been premature-perhaps also conscious that at that moment there were no means of meeting even this small demand upon their scanty store-Jesus, without waiting for any expression of his embarrassment, at once said to him, "What thinkest thou, Simon? the kings of the earth, from whom do they take tolls and taxes? from their own sons, or from those who are not their children ?"

There could be but one answer-" From those who are not their children."

"Then," said Jesus, "the sons are free." I, the Son of the Great King, and even thou, who art also His son, though in a different way, are not bound to pay this tax. If we pay it, the payment must be a matter, not of positive obligation, as the Pharisees have lately decided, but of free and cheerful giving.

There is something beautiful and even playful in this gentle way of showing to the impetuous Apostle the dilemma in which his hasty answer had placed his Lord. We see in it, as Luther says, the fine, friendly, loving intercourse which must have existed between Christ and His disciples. It seems, at the same time, to establish the eternal principle that religious services should be maintained by spontaneous generosity and an innate sense of duty rather than in consequence of external compulsion. But yet, what is lawful is not always expedient, nor is there anything more thoroughly unchris

tian than the violent maintenance of the strict letter of