The Olcott Collection of
Ancient Coins

COLEMAN H. BENEDICT

'HEN the opponents of Jesus asked him to take a
stand on the issue of the "tribute-money," they hoped
that he would discredit himself either with his fol¬
lowers or with the Roman authorities. His shrewd answer, "Render
unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the
things that are God's,"' reminds man not only of his higher duty
to God but also of his duty to be a law-abiding citizen for, accord¬
ing to a Hebrew proverb, "where a king's coin is current, his
sovereignty is acknowledged."-

Ever since the invention of coinage in the seventh century B.C.
in Asia Minor—an invention that replaced the cumbersome prac¬
tice of making payments in kind or by weighing out precious
metal—the rssuing of money has been recognized as perhaps the
chief indication of a state's sovereignty. A coin bears an official
emblem or legend, testifying that the government which issues it
guarantees it as being worth a certain amount. So long as a state
is sovereign, its money passes as a medium of exchange; when a
government is overthrown, the money issued in its name is no
longer valued by the people and they revert to the older principle
of barter or the use of precious metal.

The collection and study of coins, technically called numis¬
matics, is, therefore, of importance to the student of economics

1 Matthew 22:17-21; similar account in Mark 12:14-17, I^ut^e 20:21-25. The
"penny" was the denarius (to this day, the British penny is abbreviated "d," for
denarius), worth about Si-oo in purchasing-power and levied as a poll-tax on the
inhabitants of Judaea by the Roman government.

- Quoted in C. H. Irwin, International Bible Connnentary, Philadclpliia and
Toronto, 1928, page 374, paragraph 21.