12, LXX), and in the end the tithe for
the poor was paid separately over and above the first and second
(Tobit i. 7, 8; Jos., Ant., iv. 8, 22).
It is absolutely astounding that the tithe which in its proper
nature should apply only to products of definite measure, such
as corn and wine and oil (Deuteronomy xiv. 23), comes to be extended
in the Priestly Code to cattle also, so that besides the male
firstlings every tenth head of cattle and of sheep must also be
paid to the priests. This demand, however, is not yet met with in
Numbers xviii., nor even in Nehemiah x. 38, 39, but first occurs as a
novel in Lev. xxvii. 32 (1Samuel viii. 17). Whether it ever
came into the actual practice of Judaism seems doubtful; in
2Chronicles xxxi. 6 the tithe of cattle is indeed mentioned,
but on the other hand the firstlings are not; in the pre-rabbinical
literature no traces of it are discoverable,--especially not in
Philo, who knows only of the ordinary tithes due to the Levites,
and not of the tithes of cattle due to the priests (De praem.
sacerd. 6).
With the tithe of the fruit of the soil the first fruits are at
bottom identical; the latter were reduced to definite measure
later and through the influence of the former.
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