When the Last Supper was being paid for what general type coins would they have used?  This blog over time will cover many individual coins that are possible but for now I would like to answer this question in a general way. First let’s look at this coin which was minted years after the Last Supper but it contains some interesting information.

• Ruler: Septimius Severus
• Date of Coin: 194 AD
• Denomination: Sestertius 
• Obverse: Septimius Severus
• Reverse: Three Monetae

The reverse of this coins show the three Monetae or the three types of “money” used at this time.  The three figures are holding cornucopias, a sign of wealth or bounty. They are also holding scales, the original way metals were traded – they were weighed on scales.  One figure stands for “gold,” a second for “silver” and the last one for “bronze.”

Gold coins would have been used mainly by governments to support their armies or by merchants for the trading of major goods.  Silver would be used to pay workers and because of their value were useful for travelers to carry on trips, meaning they did not weigh a lot and would be acceptable in many areas to convert into local coinage.  Bronze coins were definitely local coins that were used by the population to buy food, lamp oil and other daily necessities.

The Disciples would have most likely been using either silver or bronze coins to pay for what they needed at the Last Supper.  They could have been minted in Judea (bronze) or in various Roman mints (gold, silver & locally minted bronze) or coins still in circulation from previous/neighboring kingdoms/dynastys (silver mostly).