The Poor Taiivs of the Ancient Hebrews. 41 
been^Jbeqiieathed to you in some distant town, take this smrC, 
and re^y me when you can." When the man had accented 
the mont^L R. Jochanan told him that he had intended it as 
a gift. 1 N. ^ j l$l 
Such is a brief outline of the benevolent laws and usages 
. which regulated ^e treatment of the poor among the 
ancient Hebrews. It would be difficult to prove that these 
institutions were simultaneously in force at any one period. 
But we may safely assume that the laws relating to agri- 
cultural produce were observed, while the Jews inhabited 
Palestine, and the cancelling of debts must have been 
practised in the time of Hillel, who lived in the reign of the 
Emperor Augustus. The other usagesxto which I have 
referred are found' in the Tulmud, in passages ^acknowledged 
to date from the second century of the current - era; we are 
therefore fully justified in concluding that the latest of these 
charitable practices were introduced not later thak. the 
secc^m century of the Christian era, while many of them 
^rooubtedly belong to a period of much greater antiquity. 
Shekalim, v, 15. 
