12-03-2011, 05:56 AM
Quote:Taxes were collected by the emperor's procurator, a prefect, or someone else.IIRC, a Procurator's traditional role was to collect taxes and manage the province's finances. A Prefect, at least traditionally, was purely a military position. I wonder if the tax collecting for Judea was delegated to the Prefects by the Syrian governor. Judea's first procurator was Cuspius Fadus in 44.
Quote:Tax farming was, if I recall correctly, not applied in these parts. That still doesn't exclude the possibility of fraud and corruption of course.Matthew's Gospel describes him as a former tax collector. But I suppose since he lived in Galilee that he would've been a royal tax collector under Antipas.
Quote:It was converted from a tithe into a money tax by Quirinius (JA 18.3). A reduction was asked, says Tacitus, in 17 AD (Annals 2.42). Immediately after, Caiaphas became high priest, and it has been argued that he was a member of the embassy to Rome.So this tax rate was maintained, as you said, even after the breakup of Herod's kingdom into smaller provinces, at least in the province of Judea. It's interesting to think that a request for tax relief was made directly to the emperor and not the prefect. So, I thought maybe going through the prefect was not a proper channel since he was just a military man. I wonder if the other neighboring provinces granted tax relief to the former Temple workers once their task was completed.
~Theo
Jaime
