1883 Haydock Douay Rheims Bible

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Matthew 17:23 And when they were come to Capharnaum, they that received the didrachmas, came to Peter, and said to him: Doth not your master pay the didrachma?

They that received the didrachmas, (ta didrachma) in value about fifteen-pence of our money. (Witham) --- A tax, according to some, laid on every person who was twenty years of age, for the service of the temple. See Exodus xxx. St. Chrysostom thinks it was paid for the first-born only, whom the Lord would have redeemed for the first-born of the Egyptians, whom he slew. Others think it was a tribute paid to the Romans, as Christ, in ver. 24, seems to insinuate, by mentioning the kings of the earth; and the Jews were tributary to them at this time. In ver. 24, the evangelist uses the word Kensos, taken from the Latin census, or tax.