The biblical story of the widow's mite appears in the New Testament (Mark 12:41-44), it tells of a poor widow who gave two mites to the treasury of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.  Jesus used this offering, all that the poor widow owned, as an example of faith and sacrifice.  The mite is the smallest of all Roman coins (about the size of a dime); it circulated in Judea beginning in 103 BC, continuing into the early 1st century AD.