The procurator only commanded auxiliary troops, and nearly all the “Roman soldiers” mentioned in the Gospels must have been of Jewish birth. As soon as it was a province, but not before, Judæa had to pay tribute to Cæsar. Hence the existence of a “chief of the publicans” like Zacchæus. As usual, the Romans preserved what they could of native institutions, and the Sanhedrin continued to act as a national council, so far as could be permitted. Thus it might try Jesus, but it could not pronounce the death sentence. On the other hand, another procurator, Festus, committed Paul to the Sanhedrin for judgment. The fact is that the Jewish law was so peculiarly national that a bewildered and well-intentioned Roman knight like Pilate might often say “take ye Him and judge Him according to your law.” The Roman government was so tolerant of the religion of its subjects that even a Roman citizen who ventured to enter the Holy of Holies was punished with death. The Jewish religion was expressly under Roman protection. Agrippa, as we have seen, had sacrificed to Jehovah, but later on we find Augustus commending his grandson Gaius for not having worshipped Jehovah. As a matter of fact, with the spread of the newer forms of Hellenic philosophy the religious feeling of the world, which had long ago given up its faith in the Olympian mythology, was turning more and more towards monotheism and a mystical system of ethics. The higher Pharisaism, which Paul had learnt at the feet of Gamaliel, was decidedly influenced by Stoicism. Hence the Jewish religion even before its Christian development was extremely fascinating to the Roman mind, and it had to be forbidden in the capital. Even at Jerusalem the Jews were expected to sacrifice, not _to_ but _for_ “Cæsar and the Roman People” every day. Augustus paid for this ritual out of his own pocket. In deference to the feeling of the Jews, the coins struck for Judæa bore no portrait of Cæsar, and even the standards, because they bore portraits, were ordered not to be carried into the Holy City. It is true that the silver denarius of Syria circulated in Judæa to some extent, and it is of such a coin that Christ was speaking when He asked: “Whose image and superscription is this?”