330 TJie First Jewish Slielcels. 



taking of Tyre, and tlien of Gaza, Alexander advanced to the 

 attack of Jerusalem, the local authorities determined to make 

 no resistance, and the chief inhabitants went out to meet him, 

 headed by the high priest, wearing the sacerdotal robes of 

 ceremony. As Josephus* states, Alexander was so much 

 impressed by the venerable aspect of Yaddous, then high 

 priest, that he not only refrained from his intended vengeance, 

 but made a solemn sacrifice on the altar of the temple ; and 

 before marching into Egypt, granted to the Jews many privi- 

 leges and immunities. Among many others may have been 

 that of coming money. This is the more likely, as, previous to 

 the Macedonian invasion, the system of coined money was 

 not generally prevalent in Asia beyond the frontiers of the 

 Greek provinces. The absence of any Asiatic coinage, upon 

 a similar principle to that established by the Greeks, was 

 an inconvenience which Alexander, on penetrating into Asia, 

 at once set about correcting, by causing the treasure acquired 

 in his Asiatic conquests to be coined into money of the 

 Greek form. A vast amount of gold and silver was thus 

 coined; and the staters and tetradrachms then struck were, 

 indeed, so abundant, that they still exist in great numbers, being 

 among the commonest of all ancient coins, and are from their 

 abundance worth little more than the intrinsic value of the 

 metal, except when in very fine preservation. It is, therefore, 

 extremely probable that the Jews were not only permitted, but 

 encouraged, or perhaps commanded, to coin money, which 

 they had never yet done, as they still made use of a metallic 

 medium of exchange, in the inconvenient form of a currency 

 passing by iveight, and not by tale; the pieces of silver, in every 

 money transaction of any importance, being weighed, just as 

 they were in the time of Abraham, when that patriarch 

 "weighed to Ephron four hundred shekels of silver, current 

 money with the merchant," as the price of the field of Machpelah. 

 The shekel weight of silver had no doubt, originally, a reference 

 to simple barter; and represented very probably the weight of 

 silver which was exchangeable for a lamb, as the. denomination 

 for money, used in Job, is not shekel but he sit ah (a lamb). This 

 weight long remained among the Jews that upon which larger 

 amounts were calculated, and therefore became the standard 

 unit which was determined upon when a positive coinage was 

 issued. If the first issue took place, as now supposed, at the 

 time of the conquests of Alexander, there would be an additional 

 reason for adopting the weight of the ancient shekel as that 



* Some have doubted this statement of Josephus, in consequence of the event 

 not being mentioned by Arrian. But it may have been omitted by Arrian as 

 not essential to the general history; while to Josephus, as a Jew, it had an 

 especial interest. 



