TITHE-GIVING AMONGST ANCIENT PAGAN NATIONS. 127 



collectively; so that, from the foregoing facts, it seemed to 

 him that the eshnt partook more of the iiature of a freewill 

 offering than of a literal tenth part, the payment of which 

 was obligatory. 



I am indebted iurther to Mr. Theopliilus G. Pinches, also 

 of the Assyrian Department in the British ^liiseiim, who tells 

 me that tlie mention of " tenth parts " (esretu), with allusion 

 to paying a tenth, occurs on tablets which are undoubtedly 

 copies of Akkadian and Assyrian bi-lingual phrase tablets 

 drawn up 2200 B.C. or earlier, and representing the legal 

 expressions current among the scribes at that time. 



I am further informed that when more of the tablets, now 

 in the British Museum, are transcribed and published, it will 

 be clear that tithes Avere given in Babylonia to the temples 

 of the gods 2100 years B.C., and probably earlier. 



Meanwhile Professor Maspero also tells of religious endow- 

 ments in ancient Chaldea; and, he says, of spoils of war: 



" As soon as he [the king] had triumphed by their [the gods'] 

 command, he sought before all else to reward them amply 

 for their assistance. He paid a tithe of the spoil into the 

 coffers of their treasury, he made over a part of the conquered 

 country to their domain, he granted them a tale of the 

 prisoners to cultivate their lands and to work at their build- 

 ings."* In his later volume ]\Iaspero furnishes some interest- 

 ing items upon tithe-giving by Tiglath-Pileser, saying that 

 Tig'lath-Pileser, after fighting in the country north of the 

 Tigris, consecrated the tenth of the spoil thus received to 

 the use of his god As&ur and also to Ramman.t Further 

 examples might be quoted from Maspero, and others of a 

 similar character from that eminent Assyriologist, the late 

 George Smith ; but I hasten to quote agam from the letter 

 written to me iDy Professor Sayce. 



"The esrd, or" tithe," he says, "was a Babylonian institu- 

 tion. The temple and priests were supported by the contri- 

 l)utions of the people, partly obhgatory and partly voluntary. 

 The most important among them were the tithes paid upon 

 all produce. The tithes were contributed by all classes ot 

 population, from the king to the peasant; and lists exist 

 which record the amounts severally due from the tenants ot 

 an estate. The tithes were paid for the most part in corn : 

 thns we find a Babylonian paying about eleven bushels of 



■* Dauii of Ciiiillzation, p. 706. 

 t jStrugyle of the jVatio7if, p. 044. 



