Within the political philosophy of liberalism, just societies must be centered around a neutral, political space of shared normative assumptions, like the right to free speech. They must contain a public square in which the Church is one voice among many, and in which citizens have the capacity to choose the Church out of a marketplace of ideas, rather than being coerced into belief. The maintenance of this neutral space ostensibly allows for the Church to be a champion of human freedom, but it disallows a public square in which Christ is king, Lord over our souls, the marketplace, and the government. To introduce Christ into the collective, normative assumptions that make up the political sphere destroys its neutrality; “that all men have a right to their opinion” sits uneasily next to “that all institutions must be redeemed in Christ Jesus.” Many who hold this liberal ideal, colloquially expressed as “the separation of Church and State,” justify their position from a particular Biblical passage: “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s.” We are bound to give to God our hope for salvation, our souls, and our prayers; we are bound to give Caesar our obedience, our respect, our fidelity as compliant citizens, and our filial love for our nation.
At face value, it seems quite plausible that Jesus’ words demarcate a “political sphere” quite apart from a “religious sphere.” But a patient look at the passage, its historical context, and even the tradition’s interpretation of it, suggests a different understanding, diametrically opposed to that of the Liberal.
The Passage
The scribes and the chief priests, according to Luke, or the Pharisees accompanied by Herodians, according to Matthew, come to Jesus hoping “deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor” Pilate (Lk 20:20). The Herodians were supporters of the rule of Herod the Tetrarch and, by extension, supporters of Roman rule, for the Romans had set Herod upon his throne. It is popularly thought that the Pharisees, for their part, opposed Roman rule and wished for an independent Israel; this passage throws such characterizations into question. The Pharisees hope to deliver Christ to the Roman governor Pilate.
Often pastors and homilists assume that the Pharisees and the temple leadership were opposed to Roman rule, in contrast to the Herodians who praised it. In some ways this is correct. The Herodians certainly enjoyed the power that came with being aligned with Rome, Herod’s ally. But the Pharisees, like the scribes and Sadducees, enjoyed a similar “propping up” by the Roman state. [1]
After the great Maccabean wars, the Roman dictator Pompey appointed Hyrcanus, “a disciple of the Pharisees,” according to Josephus, as the high priest and ruler of Palestine. [2] Josephus himself speaks long and eloquently arguing for the great friendship that Romans had with the Jews — and with the pharisaical legal experts in particular.
According to John P. Meier, Pharisees were in their own day skillful masters of pragmatic politics, which, at the very least, minimized major disturbances and bloodshed. As a result, from the viewpoint of high-level Jewish and Roman politics in Judea, the time of Jesus’ adulthood and ministry was the most stable (though not entirely peaceful) period in the 1st century AD. To be sure, Pilate ignited a number of dangerous politico-religious conflicts, as when he introduced military standards with the emperor’s medallions into Jerusalem, a blasphemy to many Jews who recoiled from the medallions’ praise of the god-king Caesar. But, while the laity were perturbed by his offenses, there is no evidence to suggest that the ruling class was troubled in the least. In general, both prefect and high priest worked effectively to prevent conflicts from exploding into a full-scale uprising. In the end, it was a conflict of Pilate with the Samaritans, not the Jews of Judea, that caused his recall to Rome. [3]
The Pharisees were not concerned with non-Jewish power; they were concerned with not wielding that power for themselves. If Anthony J. Saldarini is correct in suggesting that the Pharisees were strongly represented in the “retainer class” of Judean society; that is, the class of low-level bureaucrats, functionaries, and educators on whom the aristocrats depended to keep everyday government operating, then the Pharisees would have had a kind of “backstairs” access to power. [4]
One way the Pharisees increased their influence with the local people was through the law. Josephus, who was himself a Pharisee, praises his sect for excelling in the knowledge of the laws of their country while also admitting that “the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the law of Moses.” [5] They learned the law so well, says Josephus, in order to “have so great a power over the multitude, that when they say anything against the king or against the high priest, they are presently believed.” [6] In fact, Josephus says that the Sadducees assuming public office had to obey the regulations of the Pharisees. [7] It goes without question that through their legal expertise, the Pharisees were able to control the people and increase their power.
Alongside Josephus, Christ contends that the Pharisees added to the law of Moses:
And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God, in order to keep your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die’; but you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, what you would have gained from me is Corban’ (that is, given to God)— then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God through your tradition which you hand on. [8]
The Pharisees misused the law for their own gain. [9] We are trained to think of this misuse as a kind of ultra-literalism, but the evidence points to the contrary. Like depraved lawyers, they knew the law well so as to know their way around it. In fact, claiming that the Pharisees took the law too seriously would indicate that God’s law is inherently flawed; if an intense faithfulness to the law causes problems, then the law itself misleads. Christ observed the law with unrivaled faithfulness and intensity, but it never led him to flirt with foreign rule; quite the opposite, in fact. Christ’s critique of the Pharisees is that they pick and choose from the law, making it a tool for their own gain and not a directive for proper adoration of God. They use the very law that was designed to keep men from “lifting his heart above his brethren” (Dt 17:20) as the means for doing so.
It is not a feeble or controversial conclusion to assert that the Pharisees and those with them came to Christ to deliver him up to Pilate (Lk 20:20) not only to protect their own position as the influential sect among the Jewish population but also to nurture their relationship with the Romans by preempting a revolutionary challenge to Caesar’s throne.
The Tax and the Coin
It is impossible to overestimate the degree to which Rome had transformed Palestine during the century before Christ. In 52 BC, Israel was no longer a cohesive whole. It was broken into individual provinces led by various governors and tetrarchs. The gospels allude to this arrangement: Pilate sends Christ to King Herod Agrippa because Christ was originally from Galilee, which was under Herod’s jurisdiction, not Pilate’s. Each of these jurisdictions wielded its own administrative, punitive, and tax systems. In Herod’s region, the king collected the taxes, and, legally speaking, he owned all of them. But, to keep the peace with Rome, he gifted 1,200 talents of silver to Caesar each year. In Jerusalem proper, taxes went directly to Caesar in the form of poll taxes (head counts), sales tax, and several other specific forms. This was part of the controversy over paying the temple tax (Mt 17); that a portion of what was essentially a sacrificial offering found itself in the Roman purse.
The particular tax mentioned is, in Greek, a kēnsos, which is derived from the Latin census. The kēnsos was a poll tax, or head count, meaning that every citizen counted by Caesar would have to pay a single denarius, a coin roughly worth a day’s labor. This was the very same census tax that drove Joseph to take Mary to Bethlehem. This was the census tax under which Christ was born. For Caesar, it was a way of knowing how many citizens he controlled and wielded, as well as a way of growing in wealth. Rome produced few goods in its own day, and yet it was the wealthiest city in the world. Around the time of Christ, Rome was pulling in approximately 800 million denarii (~$128 billion) each year to be used for the army, senators, and the imperial sacrifices, which included the gladiatorial fights. By living off the taxes coming in from conquered areas, the Romans were free from work themselves. The Romans were genius financiers. The invention of coinage had only arisen in the seventh century BC Lydia and the Romans learned how to move money and produce more of it while ensuring that they were not causing abject inflation. But the key to their success, and the money economy in general, was demarcating which coins were licit to use and which were not. They did so by inscribing particular markings on each coin.
Jesus himself brings up the markings. He asks two things in response to the Pharisees’ question “should we pay taxes to Caesar?” First, whose image (eikon) is on the coin? Second, what inscription (epigraphē) is on the coin? His opponents respond: “Caesar.” Many assume that this response answers both questions — what image and inscription — but does it? Could there be a reason why his opponents did not want to answer one of the questions?
To know this answer, we have to know what coins were used. The tax demanded a denarius and there were two Roman denarii that were at use during Christ’s day. Upon the reverse side of both coins was a deceased Queen Mother of Rome who was considered to be a goddess and sat upon a chair embodying Pax, the great peace that Rome provided the world by its dominance. [10]
The obverse side of these coins had one of two images and a very similar inscription for both. Augustus Caesar was the first image with an inscription reading: “CAESAR AUGUSTUS DIVI F PATER PATRIAE” — translating to “Caesar Augustus Son of God, Father of the Nation.” His son Tiberius was on the second coin with the inscription: “TI CAESAR DIVI AUG F AUGUSTUS” — “Tiberius Caesar Son of the God Augustus”. Caesar, at this point in history, was not so much a title as it was a family name. Nonetheless, it was considered a divine family. With Queen Mother — the goddess of peace — on the back of the coin, and with one of the Caesars — both considered a son of god — on the front of the coin, Christ set a stark contrast between himself as God in the flesh versus the god Caesar, whose peace is only achieved by the military and money.
The image (eikon) alone is a controversial element; Hippolytus records that the Essenes (a first century Jewish faction) applied the first commandment even to coinage with the image of a false god upon it: “The members of one of these parties lay such emphasis upon the precepts that they will never touch a coin on the ground that one should neither carry, nor look upon, nor make an image.” [11] As Christ is never found to have money in the Gospels (it is the traitor Judas who carries a money-bag) it seems that he may have held to this same conviction. [12] The inscription (epigraphē) spells out Caesar’s clear claim to divinity. The very word epigraphē only appears in two places in the Gospels: here, in which case the inscription reads “Tiberius Caesar Son of God”, and describing the writ of Jesus’ conviction atop the cross which read: “The King of the Jews” (Lk 23:38; Mk 15:26). These conflicting images and inscriptions are essential to a proper interpretation of Jesus’ response. [13]
If modern liberal interpretations of this passage are correct, and Christ was merely making a point about the natural political state of humanity, extrapolating the two independent realms in which man dwelt — the spiritual (God’s) and the political (Caesar’s) — then Jesus would hardly have done it by holding up an image of a man claiming to be the “son of god” with the entire Jewish tradition behind him that forbade graven images. For Christ to reference this coin was political dynamite with the Pharisees, given their desire to get into bed with the Romans. Christ denies the divinity of Caesar and claims him as a false god.
A Classical Interpretation
This, then, is a better interpretation of the passage:
Christ demarcates a divide between Christian and worldly rule and dramatically reveals them to be rivals. Everything we are — our customs, our dispositions, our behavior in the marketplace — must tend toward adoration of God and obedience to him. Christ condemns his opponents for their attempt to participate in the polity of a perverse man claiming to be the Son of God. But Caesar is not a general term for “any government.” If “Caesar” has a symbolic meaning, then we should follow the Church Fathers who often suggest that Caesar represents Satan. [14] But in the historical context Christ lived, Caesar was Tiberius Caesar; a sinner whose spiritual guidance must be rejected, but whose heart must be won for God. We are to pay him tribute to keep the relationship with him, befriending, as Tertullian said allying Christ’s words, “the mammon of iniquity.” [15] This is the only way to understand, not only this chapter, but the entirety of New Testament political theology and the subsequent Christian interpretation of it. Whose image is on the coin? Caesar’s. Whose is on man? God’s. But even Caesar bears the image of God and he must render all his soul, mind, and strength to the King of kings.
St. Paul gives credence to this interpretation. He couches his discussion of taxation and subjugation to temporal rule in a broader context of the holy, self-giving, long-suffering disposition of a Christian. He says in the verse immediately preceding his political commendations, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rm 12:21), suggesting that paying taxes is a manner of overcoming evil with good.
Nonetheless, the tax was certainly unjust. When Christ asks Peter regarding payment of the half-shekel tax, “From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their children or from others?” and Peter answers “From others,” Christ commends his answer saying, “Then the children are free.” The Christian is under no obligation to false gods. “But,” he continues, “so that we do not give offense (Greek: skandalisōmen) to them, go to the sea and cast a hook; take the first fish that comes up; and when you open its mouth, you will find a coin; take that and give it to them for you and me” (Mt 17:25-7). The longstanding Christian theology of scandal is too dynamic and subtle to discuss here, but for the sake of this essay it is essential to know that scandal is meant to be avoided for the sake of another’s salvation when the Christian’s perfect adoration of God would not be compromised in any way. Avoiding scandal, says St. Thomas, is the duty of the Christian to keep others from “spiritual downfall” (cf Summa II.II.43).
This is consistent with the Old Testament's commendation to the faithful under pagan rule, to maintain the relationship with the sovereign; to remain in Babylon. The Jews stuck under Babylonian rule wrote back to those in Jerusalem: “Pray for the life of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and for the life of Belshazzar his son, that their days on earth may be like the days of heaven” (Bar 1:11-2). If there is no relationship with a pagan kingdom, then there is little hope for its conversion. The Scriptures maintain that the boundaries of the Church and World are porous. The Church reaches out into the sinful world and both draws it into herself and attempts to extend herself into it. Retaining as much integration with the regime as possible seems to be an aspect of this Catholic conviction.
Worldly kings derive their sovereignty from their subjects through military might and through money. The military is an obvious way to power — through it, free men submit themselves to the will of the sovereign in order to enforce his laws. Money is more subtle. The sovereign coins our money and regulates how it can be used. By believing this coin to be a true element of (purchasing) power, I agree to see the world as the sovereign sees it and behave in the way that he regulates it.
In the early Christian empire, it was not the case that Christians were simply allowed to participate in these two methods of maintaining the fiction of human sovereignty. Pope Leo lived during a time when Rome had technically become a Christian empire, though it had yet to act like it. This nominal conversion did not dissuade him from saying that Christians should reject the Roman marketplace (“it is hard for sin not to come into transactions between buyer and seller”), avoid Roman legal courts (“if the penitent has a matter which perchance he ought not to neglect, it is better for him to have recourse to the judgment of the Church than of the forum”), and to escape military service:
It is altogether contrary to the rules of the Church to return to military service in the world after doing penance, as the Apostle says, “No soldier in God's service entangles himself in the affairs of the world” [2 Timothy 2:4]. Hence he is not free from the snares of the devil who wishes to entangle himself in the military service of the world.
This alone should give the lie to the idea that a Christian’s relation to an unconverted sovereign Caesar is simply to plug his nose, engage in the “political world,” and retain an interior Christian disposition that opposes it. The pope commanded a limited participation of the Christian with the state. Nevertheless, throughout the Christian tradition, an allowance is made for taxes. Why are taxes the means by which the Christian is allowed to remain in a dynamic relation with the pagan king? Unlike military service and market participation, taxes do not extend the sovereign’s power by creating tendrils of control that penetrate the lives of the common man. The possibility of a tax is dependent on an already existing subjugation; Caesar can tax me because he already rules me; my aunt cannot tax me because she does not. To pay a tax, while it may not always be the proper thing to do, recognizes and re-enacts the already-existing fact of political and military subjugation. In this sense, to pay a tax can truly be said to give to the pagan king what is already his. As Tertullian commented, Christ commands us to be as wise as serpents and make friends with the mammon of iniquity. In that way, we can stand to convince them of the Christian goodness. [16]
Taxes maintain the sovereign's power without dirtying our hands. I do not reduce my neighbors to contractual relationships of debt and credit when I pay taxes. Rather, I give Caesar's money back to Caesar, in a closed-circuit that does not expand his sovereignty into the souls of other men except by giving him more spending power. We are closing the loop — sending the money back where it came from. This is captured by Christ’s use of the word apodidōmi. Often translated as “render,” the word usually means “return” in New and Old Testament writings. As it pertains to God, this “return” entails a demand for theosis: the soul must return to God. But as it pertains to Caesar, it is expelling oneself from the monetary system he artificially created.
This interpretation makes sense of the common patristic dictum to give all one’s money away so as to escape Caesar. As St. Ambrose says to his listeners, “If you would not be indebted to Caesar, do not possess what belongs to the world. You have wealth; therefore you are indebted to Caesar. If you want to owe nothing to an earthly king, leave all that you have and follow Christ.” [17] Needless to say, he is not speaking figuratively. [18]
Dynamic Exegesis
Medieval Christendom never saw a proper empire. The Holy Roman Empire never had a standing army or centralized taxes. In fact, there was no unified, regulated currency. There was no king playing the role of an absolute sovereign; that space was dedicated to God alone. So, when Medieval Christians read the Render unto Caesar passage, they had a very different vision of civil power. Indeed, in St. Thomas, for example, one finds a positive vision of serving both God and Caesar:
You belong to God and to Caesar, and you have for your use what belongs to God and to Caesar. You have natural riches from God, namely, bread and wine, and from these, give to God: you have these man-made things, such as the denarii, from Caesar, and render these to Caesar. Mystically, it is as follows: ‘We have a soul which is made to God’s image, for that reason, we ought to render it to God; in regard to the things that we have from the world, we ought to have peace with the world.’ Holy men, even in this life, have been raised up from the world, nevertheless, because they have social intercourse with others in the world, they ought to strive after Babylon’s peace. [19]
At the time of St. Thomas’ writing, Caesar, that is, the temporal authority, was an explicitly Christian force for the propagation of a holy Catholic society – one that had no real authority on its own, but only accepted its power to create laws based upon the authority of the Church. The prince himself was submissive to the Church, living out his own baptism. St. Thomas believed that temporal happiness, which conformed to eternal happiness, was the goal of the political space. [20] Praying for “Babylon’s peace” is not a plea for mere civil tranquility, like the pax augusta of the first century AD, but for national conversion to adore the one Lord; the “holy men” striving for peace because they hope for all interactions to be oriented to Christ. Peace, for St. Thomas, is something only achieved by perfect love of God. There is imperfect peace — the state of non-violence —but this is an incomplete and perverted form of the real thing, he says in the secunda secundae of his Summa (Question 29). The goal of Israel was the same as that of the Church: to teach the nations adoration of the true God.
So what accounts for the difference between St. Leo and St. Thomas? You do not owe your body to Caesar, except insofar as Caesar tends toward the holy and just St. Louis. As Caesar converts, the game changes. But this is a gradual process, in which the Caesars become more and more just. Tertullian foresaw this conversion of Caesar and the implications for Christ’s command:
[Christ] goes on also to show how he wishes you to be subject to the powers, bidding you pay “tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom,” that is, the things which are Cæsar’s to Cæsar, and the things which are God’s to God; but man is the property of God alone. Peter [1 Pt 2:13], no doubt, had likewise said that the king indeed must be honoured, yet so that the king be honoured only when he keeps to his own sphere, when he is far from assuming divine honours; because both father and mother will be loved along with God, not put on an equality with Him. Besides, one will not be permitted to love even life more than God. [21]
As soon as the king no longer acts as a sovereign and instead orients his subjects toward the adoration of God, then he can be followed and fully obeyed.
The liberal has no dynamic view of history. For him, Caesar will always represent the government and our taxation to him will always represent our participation in the neutral political space. But if we approach this passage from a well-informed historical view with a knowledge of the exegetical tradition, Christian history itself makes more sense. It is the story of a pagan empire slowly converting. As the rulers of this earth become Christian, we move from the rigorous demand for a minimalist participation expressed in Fathers such as St. Ambrose and Origen (“The prince of this world, that is, the Devil, is called Cæsar; and we cannot render to God the things that are God’s, unless we have first rendered to this prince all that is his, that is, have cast off all wickedness” [22]) to a maximalist participation in the business of the peace and the faith pursued by a good king who makes no attempt to usurp the sovereignty which belongs to God alone.
Just because there is a negative connotation implied in this tax does not mean that we are to become like American Quietists, giving up on the country. Christ is setting up a dynamic route to salvation for the human polity. He is saying that you are in Babylon and you need to get out, not by violence on the one hand or passive disobedience on the other, but by an ongoing relationship orientated towards the conversion of pagan rule. Of course, this technique shifts and changes through the dynamism of history. There is not just one way to relate to a governing authority; it matters who that governing authority is, who he claims to be, and what he intends for the community he has power over. With this said, the Christian should avoid scandal in their response to pagan rulers so that they might serve as a door through which those same pagans might enter the Church. If the Kingdom of God is like leaven in dough, Christ is saying, “Do not destroy the dough, for the leaven is still doing its job. Maintain the raw material on which the Kingdom of Heaven works.”
We cannot give our souls, or the souls of our neighbors, to the pagan Caesar. The marketplace, by treating souls as commensurable, does so. The military, by submitting to the will of the (unjust/pagan) sovereign in order to enforce his will on others, does so. The use of his legal courts, does so. But Daniel, an advisor to Nebuchadnezzar, Esther the wife of Ahasuerus, and Nehemiah the cupbearer of Artaxerxes all found ways “to be subject to every human institution…for the Lord’s sake” (1 Pt 2:13). These were roles of influence which did not extend or solidify the legal fiction of human sovereignty. So, too, the modern Christian can obey a tyrant, insofar as he is just. In fact, this is difference that Christianity brings to politics. Every particular decree of our leaders can be judged as either usurping God’s authority or rightfully, humbly instantiating it, and it is to our leaders as conveyors of justice that we are bound to be obedient.
We do not live under a Caesar who is St. Louis but a Caesar who is Tiberius, or, rather, under a diversity of Christian apostates who cannot help but have Christian inclinations. Christ’s cagey response to the Pharisee’s question during the reign of Tiberius is itself a reminder to us to be as wise as serpents. The Christian order will not come about through naïveté and a conservative voting record, but a return to self- and free-giving that leads Caesar to once again seek the face of God.
Notes
The Pharisees did not always enjoy a unified position on the matter of taxation. Josephus himself oscillates back and forth between whether or not a relationship with Rome was good for Israel, finally arguing that it was. But what I am claiming here is that the group that has come to capture Jesus, as well as most at this time, had a positive orientation toward Roman occupation.
Antiquities 13.10.5
Antiquities 18.4.1–2
Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 4–5, 35–49, 87–88, 99–106. On p. 313, Saldarini defines “retainer class” as “those who served the needs of the ruler and governing class, including soldiers, bureaucratic government officials, educators, religious leaders. They shared the life of the governing class to some extent, but had no independent base of power or wealth, much like the shrinking modern middle class of the US.”
Antiquities 13.10.6. See also, J.W. 2.8.14; Ant. 13.15.5–13.16.1; 18.1.3; 18.1.4.
Antiquities, 13.10.4
Antiquities, 18.1.4. This claim may be exaggerated, some scholars believe, though it reflects the power and attention of the Pharisees that the Gospels attribute to them. Cf. Meier, Marginal Jew, 297.
Mk 7:9–13.
Christ also chides them for destroying widow’s homes, Lk 20:47.
Many of the Church Fathers discuss this peace – the pax augusta – into which Christ was born. Over and again we find comments that this was not a true peace, for it was one that the emperor created by violence and the threat of violence. But it was a peace that Christians should use for the benefit of sending missionaries across borders without issue.
Refutation of All Heresies, 9.26
Money, even on a literary level, is a bad symbol for participation in the polity as Christ never carries money and never affirms a transaction (Cf Mk 6:37, 14:5; Jn 4:32). Is the perfect man, then, outside the political realm? If that is the case, then the liberal interpreters would be in an even more difficult spot as Caesar’s realm should not be dwelt in at all.
Cf. Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2008), 311.
For example, see Origen’s interpretation below
Tert., De fuga, 13.
Ibid. It is important to note that Tertullian ultimately says that perfect love of God will not lead to paying taxes to the corrupt Caesar. That if we fear his military’s threat, then we ought to trust in God, not in money, to secure our safety.
Exposition of the Gospel of Luke, 9.35.
This shocking claim, while still radical in the fourth century, perhaps sounded more plausible than it does today, as one could farm the land. Christians following Ambrose would not be rich, but that has never been the Christian’s goal.
Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew, trans. Paul M. Kimball (Dolorosa Press, 2012), 719.
Summa, I-II.90.3
Scorpiace 4.38
Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea: Commentary on the Four Gospels, Collected out of the Works of the Fathers: St. Matthew, ed. John Henry Newman, vol. 1 (Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1841), 752.
This essay was originally published in the first issue of New Polity Magazine. For essays like this one, which aim to deconstruct the pretensions of liberalism and lay the intellectual groundwork for building postliberal, Christian societies: