CHAPTER IX
THE `DEMAI' OR DOUBTFUL TITHE

The demai, or doubtful tithe -- Its exemptions, differences, and minute
requirements -- Its bearing on the uneducated, on buying and selling,
exchange of corn, payment of rent, and acceptance of hospitality -- Four
tithes recognized in the Talmud, and their application to all classes --
Antiquity of Talmudic by-laws, and their influence when Christianity
appeared. 
     
     THERE is a book in the Mishna called Demai, which in point of order
comes before the books on the first and second tithes, but which for our
present purpose has been reserved till now.  [Demai, according to
Maimonides (Surenhusius, vol. i. p. 76, col. 2) is a word signifying that
about which there is a doubt whether from it should be offered gifts to
God; and he adds that it was an obligation to render 1 percent, or a tenth
of a tenth, to the priest, after which they separated the second tithe,
which the owner consumed at Jerusalem.]

     Chapter I begins by naming certain things, which by reason of their
trifling value are exempted from the Demai tithe, such as inferior figs,
artichokes, service-berries, shriveled dates, late grapes, wild grapes,
and buds of capers, coriander, etc. 

     After this it is pointed out that the demai tithe differs from the
other tithes, because among other things, when redeeming it, a fifth need
not be added, nor need it be brought out of the house as prescribed in
Deuteronomy 26:13.  Again, persons in mourning might eat thereof,
Deuteronomy 26:13, it might not only be brought to Jerusalem, but carried
away again; a small quantity left on the road was treated as lost; it
might be given to a non-tithe payer or "a man of the land" (that is an
ignorant or uninstructed person); and, once more, the money received
therefore might be used for profane purposes. 

     Chapter II (section 2) says, that he who undertakes (before
witnesses) to deserve universal confidence with regard to tithes ought to
be careful not only to pay the tithe upon what he eats, but also on what
he sells, or buys to sell again to others; and he ought not to accept
hospitality at the house of a person uninstructed in rabbinical
tithe-paying (lest he should eat of anything not tithed). 

     Again, he who engages to adopt the pure and scrupulous manner of life
of a companion of wise men, ought not to sell to an uninstructed person
either soft fruit, or dry; he does not purchase of him green products; he
does not accept hospitality of an uninstructed person, neither does he
invite such an one to his own house (because of his communicating
uncleanness even by his dress). 

     Retail shopkeepers (section 4) are not authorized to sell products
subject to demai, but wholesale dealers may do so (it being taken for
granted that owing to the larger quantity, the purchaser will have paid
the proper dues). 

     Chapter III (sections 2-3, 6) directs that he who wishes to cut the
green leaves from bundles of vegetables, to lighten what he has to carry,
ought not to throw the leaves away before levying the tithe thereon (so
that no one, finding them, may eat unlawfully).  Again, he who buys green
vegetables, and then, changing his mind, wishes to return them, must tithe
them before so doing.  Also, fruit found on the road may be eaten at once,
but not put aside to be kept, before paying the tithe.  Even he who
delivers to his mother-in-law fruits to cook or prepare, ought to levy the
(demai) tithe on what he gives to and receives from her. 

     In Chapter IV (sections 2, 7-8) we read that if an "uninstructed"
person adjure his companion by vow to eat with him, the companion, though
not sure about his host paying tithe, may eat with him for one week,
provided the host assures his guest that the demai tithe has been paid;
but that in the second week he must not eat with him unless the guest has
paid the tithe. 

     Again, if a man commissions a person untrustworthy in the matter of
tithes to buy fruits from some one worthy of confidence, he must not, for
all that, rely on his messenger; but if the employer orders him to go
definitely to such and such a person, he may then believe the messenger. 
Nevertheless, if after going to the person mentioned he says on his
return, "Not having met the individual to whom I was sent, I went to
another equally worthy of confidence," the messenger's opinion is not to
be regarded as sufficient. 

     So also, if a traveler enter a town wherein he knows no one, and
inquires, "Who is trustworthy? Who pays tithes?"  and if a man reply, "I
am not considered trustworthy, but such and such a one is," the stranger
may believe him. 

     Section 7 states:  If two donkey-drivers enter a town and one of them
says, "My fruits have not been tithed, but my companion's have," one ought
not take his word (because his testimony may be given by collusion). 

     Chapter V (sections 4, 5, 8) says that he who buys bread from a
retail bread-seller ought to tithe each loaf.  Again, he who buys from a
poor man, or even a poor man himself who shall have received pieces of
bread or fragments of fig-cake, ought to tithe each piece separately; but
in the case of dates or figs the portion due may be taken collectively. 

     He who buys from two places different products which have been
declared untithed may levy from one purchase so much as will suffice for
the other; but notwithstanding this, it is well understood that a man
ought not to sell untithed products, except in case of urgent necessity. 

     A man (section 9) may use corn bought from an Israelite to redeem
corn purchased from a Gentile; or even corn from an Ethiopian to redeem
that of an Israelite; or corn of an Israelite to redeem that of a
Samaritan; and similarly that of one Samaritan, though Rabbi Eliezer
condemns this last case. 

     Chapter VI (sections 1, 4, 8, 11) lays down, that he who farms a
field for a percentage of the crop, be it from an Israelite, Samaritan, or
Gentile, should divide the harvest in the presence of the landlord
(without tithing); but the tenant who farms under an Israelite ought to
levy, before everything, the priestly portion.  Again, if any one sell
fruits in Syria, saying that they come from Palestine, the buyer pays
tithe. 

     It would be easy to continue these curious and interesting extracts
from others of the fifty-three sections into which the seven chapters of
the book on the demai tithe is divided, and the inquiry might be extended
(with a view to considering rabbinic beneficence generally) to such books
as that on peah, or the corners of the field to be left for the poor; on
terumoth, or tribute from the crop due to the priests; and on bikkurim, or
first fruits; but enough, perhaps, has now been presented from the Talmud
to illustrate the character of its by-laws, and to afford us various items
of information concerning tithe-paying as practiced during the period we
are considering. 

     The Talmud clearly recognizes the first or Levitical tithe; the
second or festival tithe; the third or poor's tithe; and also appears to
add a fourth or supplementary tithe of a tithe -- that is, a levy of 1 per
cent, for the priests in certain cases which the Pentateuch left open to
doubt. 

     The minuteness with which these by-laws are elaborated, indicates the
standard set before religious Jews who desired to live up to the
traditional requirements of their law; from which requirements, moreover,
no class of society seems to have been held exempt, tithe-paying being
thereby brought to bear on the daily life not only of the affluent and
well-to-do, but of the laborer who weeded onions, the errand-boy sent to
market, and the man who asked his mother-in-law to cook fruit. 

     Of course, it may be urged that some of the minute requirements
previously mentioned are of a later date, because internal evidence
connected with certain of the rules points to their belonging to the time
of the Roman domination of Palestine; but it is highly probable that a
larger number of the rules were of very ancient usage. 

     When we consider that the whole of what is written in the Pentateuch
concerning tithes is comprised in a few verses, it will be seen at once
that so soon as the law on tithe came to be put in force, a number of
questions would be immediately raised as to how the law was to be carried
out; such, for instance, as to what particular seeds, fruits, or animals
were to be tithed; the age at which animals and products were to become
tithable; how far products of trifling value were to be disregarded, to
what extent products of the second tithe might be consumed on the way to
the ecclesiastical capital; and many others. 

     Unless we are to imagine that every man was left to do as he pleased
(which would mean confusion), it is reasonable to suppose that such
questions would in the first place be referred for determination to
Joshua, to the seventy elders, or to other competent authority.  Such
decisions, with other additions as time went on, would naturally be handed
down by the priests and Levites, who, if only because their bread partly
depended thereon, would be interested in preserving them; and thus many of
the decrees and traditions embodied in the Mishna may well have passed
down as unwritten rules to the days not long before the Christian era,
when these traditions were committed to writing, thus serving as the basis
for their arrangement in the form we have them now. 

     These extracts, at all events, may suffice to show that during the
period between the Old and New Testaments the practice of tithe-paying was
in full force, and carried out by many with a minuteness and
conscientiousness such as cannot be traced in the Pentateuch or in the
after history of Israel as exhibited in the remaining books of the Old
Testament. 

     There is, moreover, another and more important consideration to
Christians, which adds greatly to the value of the evidence here
collected, in that we trace in the Talmud what was considered the standard
of tithe-paying and religious beneficence, and what was received and
practiced among the Jews in Palestine when Christianity appeared; and
consequently what probably was thought and practiced by most, if not all,
of those Jews who became the first heralds of the Cross.