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Dear Parish Family,
In the days of Jesus, all secular money was thought to belong to the Emperor. The Temple had its own coinage, not used in paying secular debts. This is the reason that money changers were in the Temple area. The Emperor’s image was on each secular coin. The money belonged to him and he simply permitted people to use it. “Jewish Palestine circulated its own copper coins, omitting the image of the deified emperor, which was offensive to Jewish tastes … But foreign coins, which bore the emperor’s image and mention of his divine status, were in common circulation in Palestine, where neither gold nor silver coins were permitted to be struck. The Roman silver denarius … was required to pay taxes in Palestine, as elsewhere in the Empire, and Jewish people had to use it, whether they liked it or not. Revolutionaries in A.D. 6 had violently protested the use of such coins and incurred terrible Roman retaliation. If Jesus’ questioners here are concerned about paying Roman taxes, they obviously ought not to be carrying this coin!” ( IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, pp.105-106). By having a Roman coin in their possession, complete with Caesar’s image and Caesar’s inscription, the challengers had already shown where their loyalties lay. They had, in effect, answered their own question. Jesus, rather than answering their question directly, asked them a question, thus turning their trap inside out and upside down: “Whose image ( eikon in Greek) and inscription are these?” The census tax was paid with a denarius coin, which contained the image of the Emperor on one side with the inscription “Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus”—and on the other his title “Pontifex Maximus” (high priest). Thus, Caesar claimed not only political sovereignty but also Divine attributes. Therefore, the Jews considered the image idolatrous and the inscription blasphemous. “Caesar’s,” they said. Jesus then said, “Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar — and to God what belongs to God.” In other words, we give to the Emperor the coin because his image is on it, and we give to God our own selves because we are created in the image of God (Gn 1:26).
Jesus’ answer acknowledges our obligation as citizens to the state but affirms our larger obligation to God. Both the state and God require certain loyalties from us, but we owe God our very lives. The question Jesus was asked could have been phrased, “Whose side are you on? Israel’s or Rome’s?” Jesus’ answer was “On God’s side,” in other words, taxes are Caesar’s, so pay them; but your heart and your soul are Yahweh’s; give those to God! If the image of Caesar stamped on a coin means that the coin belongs to Caesar, then the image of God stamped on each human being means that each one belongs to God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church clarifies it: If that authority serves the common good of the people, then the choice of the type of political regime is left up to the citizenry (CCC #1901). When the demands of an authority violate the upright conscience of the people, (e.g. when that authority “legalizes” immorality (i.e., abortion, euthanasia, cloning, etc.) the refusal of obedience is acceptable (CCC #2242).
Thus, a real Christian is, at one and the same time, a good citizen of his country and a good citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, but his priority is his allegiance to God. As the famous martyr St. Thomas More said of himself: “I die the King’s good servant, but God’s first.” Cooperation with secular authority may not interfere with our primary duty of “giving back to God” our whole selves, in whose image – like the stamp on the coin – we are made. Consequently, we give taxes to the government, but we give ourselves to God, who created and redeemed us and with whom we will live our eternity.
Fr. Tom Kunnel C.O.