Of all the exactions to which the country newly conquered by Rome was subjected, the census was the most unpopular.[1] This measure, which always astonishes people unaccustomed to the requirements of great central administrations, 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.