MINA (Ehr. mānēh; Gr. μνᾶ; Lat. mina or mna). — A unit of weight used in the biblical age for gold (1 Kings 10:17) and for silver (Ezra 2:69; Neh. 7:71), based on the Babylonian system of weights, where the mina (manā, "to count") weighed 502.2 g and corresponded to 1/60 of a talent (30.13 kg), divided into 60 shekels (8.37 g). The heavy mina was double this weight. Among the Hebrews, the talent was also reckoned as 60 minas, but only 3,000 shekels (instead of 3,600; cf. Ex. 38:25–27), thus reducing the mina to 50 shekels, as in Syria and at Rās Shamrah.
In some legal texts, the ancient mina of 60 shekels is preserved (Ex. 21:32), while in Deuteronomic texts the current usage of the 50-shekel mina seems to be recognized. Ezek. 45:12 appears to reconcile the current 50-shekel mina with the older value of 60 for sanctuary use through a somewhat unusual calculation. Stone and lead weights, inscribed or not, recovered in excavations do not allow for any precise approximation, as they were of local use and varied by period.
In the Hellenistic period, the Attic talent used in Palestine (1 Macc. 11:18) seems to have been divided into 60 minas or 6,000 drachmas (ibid. 14:24; 15:18; Luke 19:13–25), making the mina equal to 10 drachmas. Flavius Josephus (Antiquitates Judaicae, 14.7.1) writes that the talent, weighing 43 kg, was divided into 50 minas, each worth about 2½ Roman pounds.
Miltiades, pope, saint — Medallion from the series of popes in the basilica of St. Paul (9th century) — Rome.