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Now if Babylonian culture and religion had thus spread to the Canaanites, it
suggests a reason why the colony of Phoenicians from Tyre, who founded Carthage(say
about 900 B.C.) were tithe-payers. Also, if Melchizedek may be regarded as a
Canaanitish priest, then it would be as natural for him in his royal and priestly character
to expect tithes from Abram as it was for Abram to pay them. Hence the professor,
alluding to this incident, says (Patriarchal Religion, p. 175):

"This offering of tithes was no new thing. In his Babylonian home Abram must
have been familiar with the practice. The cuneiform inscriptions of Babylonia
contain frequent references to it. It went back to the pre-Semitic age of Chaldaea,
and the great temples of Babylonia were largely supported by the esra or tithe
which was levied upon prince and peasant alike. That the god should receive a
tenth of the good things which, it was believed, he had bestowed upon mankind
was not considered to be asking too much. There are many tablets in the British
Museum which are receipts for the payment of the tithe to the great temple of the
sun-god at Sippara, in the time of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors. From one
of them we learn that Belshazzar, even at the very moment when the Babylonian
empire was falling from his father's hands, nevertheless found an opportunity for
paying the tithe due from his sister."

A question may here be asked as to the extent of Abram's tithes: were they a tenth
of all his spoils only, and so given voluntarily and specially on this particular occasion--
or were they a tenth of all his income and something paid as a due?

Neither the Hebrew of Genesis nor the Greek of the Epistle to the Hebrews limits
the word "all" to the spoils. In Hebrews 7:4 the writer argues that Melchizedek was
greater than Abram because Abram paid tithes to him. Now, when a man pays a tribute or
due, we look upon the receiver as being, for the moment, superior to the giver; and the
writer of the epistle adds that without contradiction the person less in dignity is blessed
by the person who is greater in dignity. Hence we conclude that the tenth paid by Abram
was not merely an offering, which the patriarch was at liberty to render or to withhold as
he pleased, but a payment of obligation.

This, too, appears the more likely because Abram by right of conquest might have
claimed all that he captured from Chedorlaomer. The king of Sodom, recognizing this,
invites him to take the goods to himself, (Genesis 14:21). But Abram declines to take
anything for himself, though, as a conqueror, he seems to have recognized that he had no
jurisdiction over YEHOVAH's tenth; and whilst surrendering his own claim to nine-
tenths of the spoil, he acted as though he could not surrender YEHOVAH's. (Compare
Gold and the Gospel, p. 24.)

It seems, moreover, exceedingly probable that the priestly acts which
Melchizedek performed for Abram were simply such as this priest king would from time
to time perform for any Canaanitish chief returning from a victorious expedition -- as also
perhaps when his people paid their tithes on ordinary occasions. And since Abram often
was dwelling within a day's journey of Salem (that is, Jerusalem), we need not at all