Endnote 16 – Where the Temple Tax Was Buried

Salo W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2nd ed., 2 vols. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society; 1952), vol, 2, p. 106: “Vespasian established the so called ‘fiscus judaicus’ … This ‘fiscal tax’ of a half shekel annually was to be paid in lieu of the previous Temple tax. Nerva abrogated it as one of the first acts of his administration. He even commemorated this fact in a special memorial coin with the legend ‘Fisci judaici calumnia sublata,’ (On the Removal of the Shameful Extortion of the Jewish Fiscal Tax).” The 1972 edition of Roman Imperial Coinage (London, Spink), vol. 2, p. 221, however, but is not so sure anymore that the coin commemorated the abolishment of the discriminatory tax: “Nerva’s coin suggests that the tax was abolished, but since we find records of the tax being paid in later years, it seems that Nerva abolished nor the tax itself but the system of false accusations employed in its collection. Exemption from the tax was henceforth secured to all who did not admit themselves to be Jews.”