was
particularly odious to the Jews. We see that already, under David, a
numbering of the people provoked violent recriminations, and the
menaces of the prophets.[2] The census, in fact, was the basis of
taxation; now taxation, to a pure theocracy, was almost an impiety.
God being the sole Master whom man ought to recognize, to pay tithe to
a secular sovereign was, in a manner, to put him in the place of God.
Completely ignorant of the idea of the State, the Jewish theocracy
only acted up to its logical induction--the negation of civil society
and of all government. The money of the public treasury was accounted
stolen money.[3] The census ordered by Quirinus (in the year 6 of the
Christian era) powerfully reawakened these ideas, and caused a great
fermentation. An insurrection broke out in the northern provinces. One
Judas, of the town of Gamala, upon the eastern shore of the Lake of
Tiberias, and a Pharisee named Sadoc, by denying the lawfulness of the
tax, created a numerous party, which soon broke out in open revolt.[4]
The fundamental maxims of this party were--that they ought to call no
man "master," this title belonging to God alone; and that liberty was
better than life. Judas had, doubtless, many other principles, which
Josephus, always careful not to compromise his co-religionists,
designedly suppresses; for it is impossible to understand how, for so
simple an idea, the Jewish historian should give him a place among the
philosophers of his nation, and should regard him as the founder of a
fourth school, equal to those of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the
Essenes. Judas was evidently the chief of a Galilean sect, deeply
imbued with the Messianic idea, and which became a political movement.
The procurator, Coponius, crushed the sedition of the Gaulonite; but
the school remained, and preserved its chiefs. Under the leadership of
Menahem, son of the founder, and of a certain Eleazar, his relative,
we find them again very active in the last contests of the Jews
against the Romans.[5] Perhaps Jesus saw this Judas, whose idea of the
Jewish revolution was so different from his own; at all events, he
knew his school, and it was probably to avoid his error that he
pronounced the axiom upon the penny of Caesar. Jesus, more wise, and
far removed from all sedition, profited by the fault of his
predecessor, and dreamed of another kingdom and another deliverance.

[Footnote 1: Discourse of Claudius at Lyons, Tab. ii. sub