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Rendering to God

by Jacob Imam

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] . . .