understanding of the meaning of this passage,-thus, "Tertullian tells them, that, although they refused to pay the taxes rated on them for the maintenance of the heathen temples, yet for all other tributes they had cause to give the Christians thanks, for so faithfully paying what was due; it being their principle to abstain from defrauding of others, inasmuch, that should they examine their accounts, how much of the assessments were lost by the fraud and cozenage of them of their own party, they would easily find that the Christians' denial to pay that one tax was abundantly compensated, and made up in their honest payment of all the rest.”—Cave's Primitive Christianity, Part III. chap. 4. 66 REEVES, in his translation, thus renders it : Certainly, say you, the rates for the temple now come to nothing, and who can brag of any collections for the gods? and really we cannot help it; for, in good truth, we are not able to relieve such a parcel of beggars both of gods and men; we think it very well if we can give to them that ask; and I will pass my word, that if Jupiter will but hold out his hand, he shall fare as well as any other beggar. For we bestow more in the streets than you, with all your religion, do in your temples. However, if your temple-wardens have reason to complain against the Christians, the public, I am sure, has not; but, on the contrary, very great reason to thank us for the customs we pay with the same conscience as we abstain from stealing. So that was the account fairly stated, how much the public is cheated in its revenues by the tricks and lies of those of your religion who bring in an inventory of their goods to be taxed accordingly, you would soon find, I say, at the foot of the account, that what the temple may lose in her offerings by the Christian religion, the state sufficiently gets in her taxes by the Christian's fidelity in their public payments."-Reeves' Apologies of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Minutius Felix, vol. i. pp. 323, 324. Lond. 1716. An anonymous translator gives a looser version of the passage :— "But say you the revenues of our temples lessen every day, and nobody gives any thing to them who minister in the holy offices? We own the charge; for we are not able to relieve both your priests and your gods. However, if Jupiter will come in person and ask our alms, he shall see how generous we will be. But, in truth, we give more charity in one street than you spend in all the sacrifices offered to your gods. Now, though you can find time to complain how the revenues of your temples lessen, yet you take no notice how your other taxes increase upon our account. For many who, before they became Christians, cheated and cozened you, now pay their respective sums with great care and fidelity; so that, if you consider the loss the public sustained by those acts and evasions by which many of us before cheated you, it will be found far to outbalance all the disadvantages you receive by our religion."-These two excellent monuments of ancient learning and piety-Minutius Felix's Octavius, and Tertullian's Apology rendered into English, pp. 240, 241. Lond. 1708. Dr CAVE has been censured by a note-writer in the Edinburgh Advertiser, of 24th November, 1837, for having "wholly misapprehended" the meaning of the passage. But although there are no words in the original answering exactly to the phrase, "refused to pay the taxes rated upon them for maintenance of the heathen temples," which Dr Cave uses, there are not a few reasons which controvert so strong a censure, and seem to prove that the Doctor-perhaps, from knowing more than his censurer-retained the sentiment, while departing somewhat from the strict letter of his author. 1. Observe that the term vectigalia is employed twice by Tertullian in the paragraph, and as it is plain that, on the second occasion, it denotes properly taxes, or, at least, revenues derived from taxes or imposts, it is but reasonable to give it the same meaning on its first occurrence, and not to impute to Tertullian the blunder (with which otherwise we should charge him) of employing a word in two different senses in the same sentence, to the disguise of his own meaning and the embarrassment of his reader.* * It also deserves notice, that Reeves renders "vectigalia templorum" rates for the temple; and the anonymous translator contrasts the "vectigalia templorum," which he renders REVENUES, with the other TAXES. It seems a strong presumption, that there is a reference to dues rated and exigible by law, that these different translators have, with great variety of expression, kept to this general idea; and it may be doubted, if any thing but a very strong bias could have induced any scholar to interpret "vectigalia templorum" in the manner the learned note-writer has done. "Any version of the passage," as Mr Marshall remarks, "if just, must contain enough for our purpose." The following passages from the work of one of the soundest of scholars, Peter Burmann, " De vectigalibus Populi Romani," cast some light on the nature of the "vectigalia templorum."—" VECTIGAL dictum est a vehendo: quia proprie illud vectigalis genus notat, quod pro vectura mercium exigitur, quod postea sub portorii nomine explicabitur; latius vero postea hujus vocis significatio prolata est, ut omnes omnino reditus et emolumenta comprehendat, quæ ex re aliqua publico obligata ad ærarium perveniunt, et sic ad Decumas," &c. Cap. I. p. 3.-" Ut civitatibus, sic etiam vestalibus virgi 2. Such a change in the import of the term is improbable, for this farther reason, that it evidently divests his argument of relevancy and force. After enumerating and refuting various charges which were then made against the Christians, of being, by their principles and their peculiar manners, useless and even hurtful as citizens, he introduces the magistrate, to whom his Apology was addressed, and who had the guardianship of the public religion, as complaining that "the revenues of the temples were daily falling off,”—meaning thereby that the Christians were withholding their contributions, and so injuring the public interest: to which complaint, Tertullian's answer is in substance-That it was "true the Christians did not pay to such revenues, but to all other revenues they paid so honestly, that the gain on these compensated the loss on those." When the term vectigalia is held to mean revenues derived from taxes, or otherwise exigible by law, in both branches of the sentence, in the accusation as well as in the defence, Tertullian's vindication of his fellow-Christians is consistent, pointed, and vigorous. But these qualities disappear, and are succeeded by extreme flatness and inconclusiveness, when, with the note-writer, we hold vectigalia, on its first occurrence, to be equivalent to "voluntary contributions," or to "alms" (as he renders stipes); for in that case we make Tertullian to speak as stupidly as a man of these times would do, who, when blamed for not renting a pew in church, or not subscribing to the Bible Society, should plead that "he compensated for that defect, by faithfully paying his assessed taxes." 3. If the payments to the temples, which the Christians are, by implication, blamed for withholding, were not exigible from them by law, but were mere gifts thrown to the gods by those who frequented nibus vectigalia quædam data sunt; præcipue agri vectigales ; unde ab Hygin. et aliis rerum agrariarum auctoribus, virginum vestalium agri vectigales memorantur. Hæc beneficia liberalitate Principum postea aucta fuere: de Augusto prodit Sueton. cap. 31, eum commoda sacerdotum, sed præcipue vestalium auxisse; quo respexit Ovid. • Nunc bene lucetis sacræ sub Cæsare flammæ.'-FAST. vi. 455. Templa etiam Romanorum opimis reditibus et vectigalibus erant instructa, quibus sacrificia et sacerdotes tuebantur ; aperte de templorum vectigalibus," Tertullian, Apolog. c. 42. "Certe templorum vectigalia.. jac tat," &c.-Burmanni Vectigalia. Cap. VII. p. 100. 4to. Leida, 1734. The most satisfactory account we have met with of the revenues of the Pagan Roman priesthood, is that by the acute and learned Moyle, "Imprimis acutus et eruditus," as Mosheim justly terms him, in his essay on the Roman Government.-Posthumous Works, vol. i. pp. 37–50. the temples, to object against the Christians that they withheld them, was plainly absurd; and the natural answer of Tertullian to the charge would have been, that the payments being either quite voluntary, or at least required from those alone who used the temples, which the Christians had ceased to do, no reasonable man could expect that they would continue them. This answer could not have escaped one, who is styled by Eusebius, τους Ρωμαίων νομους ηκριβωκοτα ανδρα,* a man accurately learned in the laws of the Romans;-of whom Heineccius declares, “Quo nullus ecclesiæ doctorum divini humanique juris peritior fuit," + than whom no doctor of the church was more skilled in divine and human laws, and who, by many jurists, has been identified with an eminent Roman jurisconsult of the same name and age, who wrote several treatises on legal topics; while by those who doubt the identity of the lawyer and the presbyter, it is confessed, that in legal learning the latter was as accomplished as his namesake. Instead, however, of giving this most natural and most conclusive answer, our author introduces the mention of other revenues which, confessedly, were the produce of taxes and imposts, and by marking no distinction, except that of application, between the two sorts thus brought into comparison, leaves it to be inferred that they were like, in all other respects, and consequently that those of the temples were also the produce of legal exactions. 66 4. It may be said, however, that if by vectigalia templorum, Tertullian intended any tax or tribute whatever, it was a tribute paid by those who used the temples; for he immediately subjoins the words, Stipes quotusquisque jam jactat? Who now throws tribute" into the treasury of the gods ?—in allusion, probably, to the act or gesture by which it was done; that, if this tribute was not voluntary, but legally due, it was happily described by the term vectigal, which, according to etymology, means a tax levied on things carried into, or out from any place;‡ and that taking it therefore in this sense, the sentence intimates, not that the Christians refused to pay a tax due by them, but merely that they refrained from coming within the operation of one. If this interpretation were proposed, it might be urged against it, in the first place, that inasmuch as the other expression, cetera vecti • Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. c. 2. + Hein. Opera, tom. vi. 34. Edit. 1772. Vectigalia, according to the learned Petit, were collected by publicans, while the tributum was not; and he quotes a passage from Tacitus, Annal. xiii. 50, which seems clearly to prove this. Crit. Sac, tom. ix. col. 1166. gulia, clearly means taxes of a very different kind from a mere optional tribute, there would still be a want of congruity between the first and the second use of the term, and consequently a want of rele vancy and force in the sentiment: In the second place, that no inference in favour of this limited sense of vectigalia can justly be drawn from the subsequent specification of stipes; for the reference to that particular species of tribute appears plainly to have been made, not with the view of explaining what the vectigalia were, but by way of example of the fact, that the vectigalia were decaying,-which example, Tertullian was evidently led to select, chiefly by the opportunity which it gave him of flinging out a taunt about Jupiter's impotency as a beggar-as appears from this, among other considerations, that the sober import of the passage remains whole and entire, and even improved by condensation, when the gibe, thus rhetorically interjected between the beginning and the end of it, is altogether left out: In the last place, that so restricted a meaning of vectigalia is contrary to that which, when not qualified by accompanying wordsas when it is opposed to tributum-or by the nature of the subject spoken of, it commonly bears, namely, taxes generally, whether on persons, on lands (whence agri vectigales and aedes vectigales), or on any other thing.* 5. Claiming, therefore, for vectigalia as broad a sense in the beginning as it bears in the latter part of the sentence, we come to inquire, whether there were, in point of fact, any taxes or revenues for the use of the temples, over which the Christians could exercise such a control as to diminish their amount? And here it is granted to the note-writer, that the heathen worship of the empire does not appear to have been maintained " by a direct impost upon individuals,”—that infamy having been reserved for a purer faith. Neither does it appear that any of the common taxes upon lands, &c., were imposed expressly for its support. It seems certain, at the same time, that it was not upheld by voluntary contribution, but at the public expense. The temples, &c., had legal revenues, which were derived from possessions in the city and in the country (loca, praedia, possessiones, fundi, ædificia, juga seu capita), which were said to be in jure TEMPLORUM, and from the possessors of which were levied certain annual payments or prestations. These, along perhaps with the stipes, seem to have constituted the vectigalia templorum. From one passage in Tertullian, which will be subsequently quoted, it may be inferred that they were under the * Voet ad Pandectas, lib. xxxix. tit. 4. §§ 11 and 12. Ꮓ |