calls them "a place for strangers" (Jer 41:17), wrongly rendered "habitation" in our

Authorised Version. In the Talmud their designations are either Greek or Latin, in

Aramaic form--one of them being the same as that used in Luke 10:34--proving that

such places were chiefly provided by and for strangers.14

In later times we also read of the oshpisa--evidently from hospitium, and showing its

Roman origin --as a house of public entertainment, where such food as locusts, pickled,

or fried in flour or in honey, and Median or Babylonian beer, Egyptian drink, and home-

made cider or wine, were sold; such proverbs circulating among the boon companions

as "To eat without drinking is like devouring one's own blood" (Shab. 41 a), and where

wild noise and games of chance were indulged in by those who wasted their substance

by riotous living. In such places the secret police, whom Herod employed, would ferret

out the opinions of the populace while over their cups. That police must have been

largely employed. According to Josephus (Anti. xv, 366) spies beset the people, alike in

town and country, watching their conversations in the unrestrained confidence of

friendly intercourse. Herod himself is said to have acted in that capacity, and to have

lurked about the streets at night-time in disguise to overhear or entrap unwary citizens.

Indeed, at one time the city seems almost to have been under martial law, the citizens

being forbidden "to meet together, to walk or eat together," --presumably to hold public

meetings, demonstrations, or banquets. History sufficiently records what terrible

vengeance followed the slightest suspicion. The New Testament account of the murder

of all the little children at Bethlehem (Matt 2:16), in hope of destroying among them the

royal scion of David, is thoroughly in character with all that we know of Herod and his

reign. There is at last indirect confirmation of this narrative in Talmudical writings, as

there is evidence that all the genealogical registers in the Temple were destroyed by

order of Herod. This is a most remarkable fact. The Jews retaliated by an intensity of

hatred which went so far as to elevate the day of Herod's death (2 Shebet) into an

annual feast-day, on which all mourning was prohibited.

But whether passing through town or country, by quiet side-roads or along the great

highway, there was one sight and scene which must constantly have forced itself upon

the attention of the traveller, and, if he were of Jewish descent, would ever awaken

afresh his indignation and hatred. Whithersoever he went, he encountered in city or

country the well-known foreign tax-gatherer, and was met by his insolence, by his

vexatious intrusion, and by his exactions. The fact that he was the symbol of Israel's

subjection to foreign domination, galling though it was, had probably not so much to do

with the bitter hatred of the Rabbinists towards the class of tax-farmers (Moches) and

tax-collectors (Gabbai), both of whom were placed wholly outside the pale of Jewish

society, as that they were so utterly shameless and regardless in their unconscientious

dealings. For, ever since their return from Babylon, the Jews must, with a brief interval,

have been accustomed to foreign taxation. At the time of Ezra (Ezra 4:13,20, 7:24) they

paid to the Persian monarch "toll, tribute, and custom" --middah, belo, and halach--or

rather "ground-tax" (income and property-tax?), "custom" (levied on all that was for

consumption, or imported), and "toll," or road-money. Under the reign of the Ptolemies

the taxes seem to have been farmed to the highest bidder, the price varying from eight to

sixteen talents --that is, from about 3,140 pounds to about 6,280 pounds--a very small

sum indeed, which enabled the Palestine tax-farmers to acquire immense wealth, and that

although they had continually to purchase arms and court favour (Josephus, Ant. xii,

154-185). During the Syrian rule the taxes seem to have consisted of tribute, duty on salt,

a third of the produce of all that was sown, and one-half of that from fruit -trees, besides

poll-tax, custom duty, and an uncertain kind of tax, called "crown -money" (the aurum

coronarium of the Romans), originally an annual gift of a crown of gold, but afterwards

compounded for in money (Josephus,Ant. xii, 129-137). Under the Herodians the royal

revenue seems to have been derived from crown lands, from a property and income -tax,

from import and export duties, and from a duty on all that was publicly sold and bought,

to which must be added a tax upon houses in Jerusalem.