What belongs to Caesar?
“We are a sovereign nation of laws!” So I am told.
But I wonder if this statement is really true.
I wonder things like: What are the requisites of sovereignty? What is “sovereignty,” exactly? Moreover, what is a “sovereign nation”? And how do “laws” follow from this “sovereign nation”? Does “law” require a sovereign nation to be fully and truly legal?
These questions all seem to think that there is a special place for national sovereignty that maps out a separate realm responsibilities and duties for the person.
Defending this view of national sovereignty, many like to cite Mark 12:17 (NJB): “Pay Caesar what belongs to Caesar—pay God what belongs to God.”
On the surface, Jesus seems to say that we ought to recognize the sovereignty of Caesar, national sovereignty and the laws that follow from it. But I think he begs a simpler question. Namely, “What belongs to Caesar?”
The question is even more radical given the dialectic between “Caesar” and “God” we find in Jesus’ reply. Considering this tension, the question becomes: “What belongs to Caesar that does not belong to God?”
Here we find an obvious answer: Nothing belongs to Caesar. That is, nothing belongs to Caesar that does not belong to God.
So, the reason we might give to Caesar is not because of the sovereignty of Caesar, but, instead, because of the sovereignty of God that makes giving to Caesar seem worthwhile. Withholding from Caesar, then, would follow from the same set of reasons.
In other words, we are not a sovereign nation of laws. Only God is sovereign. And laws derive their legality from divine—not nationalistic—order.
We are a nation of laws only insofar as those laws are in harmony with divine justice and, above all, Love.
Without this harmony, there is no law.
Without this truth there is no existence. There is nothing without God.
This is the real meaning and being of sovereignty: Nothing can be sovereign except God.
God alone suffices.
If this is true, then, whatever “national sovereignty” cannot be gained from the spoils of war and conquest. A nation can only approximate sovereignty by promoting justice and love.
Under these criteria we can be quite sure that we do not live in a sovereign nation. The “laws” that follow from such a nation, must be held in equal suspicion.
Comments are closed.
There are endless interpretations about exactly what Jesus meant (see Joel Marcus’s discussion the Anchor Bible volume Mark 8-16, pp. 815-826). But one of the things that has always struck me about using this saying is the fact that the questioners are not sincere in wanting an answer, and Jesus’s response is deliberately evasive and ambiguous. So it seems rather difficult to me to use this saying to define the obligations of Christians to the state. It was a trick question, and Jesus gave a trick answer.
“Here we find an obvious answer: Nothing belongs to Caesar.”
This isn’t obvious at all and if it were true Jesus wouldn’t have said what he did. He could have simply said, “everything belongs to God; nothing belongs to Caesar.” He wouldn’t have bothered to make the distinction if it weren’t meaningful. Of course, in the ultimate sense, everything belongs to God. But within the limits of our temporal order, Christ clearly recognized that some things belong to Caesar.
It’s also prima facie not true that nothing can be sovereign but God. For example, the Catholic Priesthood would make no sense. Priests and Bishops exercise a certain type of sovereignty over the Catholic people. I think you need to rethink your concept of sovereignty.
This isn’t obvious at all and if it were true Jesus wouldn’t have said what he did. He could have simply said, “everything belongs to God; nothing belongs to Caesar.” He wouldn’t have bothered to make the distinction if it weren’t meaningful. Of course, in the ultimate sense, everything belongs to God. But within the limits of our temporal order, Christ clearly recognized that some things belong to Caesar.
You could also say that if Jesus meant to say that “some things belong to Caesar in the temporal order” he would have said “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” and left it at that.
I don’t think the passage should really be read as a “distinction,” and certainly not a distinction between “temporal” and “spiritual” orders. You are mapping modern oppositions onto Jesus who would not have distinguished between those two things. (Unless you believe Jesus foresaw the great gift of modernity and wanted to share secular liberalism with his first century Jewish friends.)
Priests and Bishops exercise a certain type of sovereignty over the Catholic people.
The linking of sovereignty and the priesthood is outdated, dangerous, and in fact rejected by today’s church. But the idea is still alive, I see. And we wonder why we have a tradition of clergy abuse?
It seems to me that an American sensibility would add a third line to the injunction: “Keep for yourself what belongs to your self.” This motivates all the analysis, interpretations, counter-interpretations, tea-parties and tax revolts of the ages: “What’s in it for me?” Now that is the American way to pose a question!
And, of course, the answer we all know and fear is “both everything and nothing.” I have what I have and I am what I am through God’s grace in this moment, and nothing else.
He definitely gave a trick answer but it’s a trick answer with a radical point: that nothing belongs to Caesar, as Sam said. Which is clear enough but does not give a clear answer with regard to what we “owe” the state or to others in society.
There is also a layer of meaning with regard to the coin, which features Caesar’s image. The coin “belongs” to Caesar because it bears his image, and so he can have it back. But the human person bears God’s image, and Caesar can’t have that. Our bodies do not belong to the state. This has huge implications for the farce that is soldiering for the u.s. military as well as for the degree to which we cooperate with the state’s racist laws.
N.T. Wright, in his book Jesus and the Victory of God, really shows how little we understand about Jesus, especially in the cryptic sayings like the one about God and Caesar. According to Wright, Jesus is deliberately invoking the Maccabees’ response to the pagan defilement of the temple:
In other words, Give to Caesar what is his is precisely a call to revolution against Caesar - yet in Christ’s message, this revolution is nonviolent.
My hairs stand on end as I realize that Jesus’ words are a call to overthrow Caesar, but phrased in such a way as to be able to claim otherwise. This is a constant motif of Wright’s interpretation of Christ’s cryptic sayings – revolutionary for those with ‘ears to hear’, but a puzzle for those without.
Read more: http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_God_Caesar.pdf
What does Caesar deserve? He deserves to be thrown down from his throne. What does God deserve? He deserves that we throw down Caesar according to enemy-love.
Thanks for that N.T. Wright piece, Nate.
“When you give to God what belongs to God, there is nothing left for Caesar.” – Dorothy Day
Aren’t people here ignoring a long tradition in the Catholic Church (going all the way back to New Testament times) of respecting civil authority?
Aren’t people here ignoring a long tradition in the Catholic Church (going all the way back to New Testament times) of respecting civil authority?
I don’t see anyone ignoring that tradition, just thinking critically about it and asking what it does and does not mean to “respect” civil authority. We have a textual tradition on these matters and then we have a tradition of Catholics misunderstanding and/or misusing that tradition to insist upon an obedience to the state that it does not deserve. The way we can be most “respectful” of the state is to remind it that it is not God.
I am not a theologian or a scripture scholar. My intention here is simply to ask some straightforward question about sovereignty and its connections to a nation and its laws.
Obviously, this has been spurred-on by the recent developments in Arizona, but the curiosity has been in my heart for quite some time.
If anyone finds my conclusion suspect, then, I would ask for one of two things:
1). Come up with a better answer to the question “What belongs to Caesar that does not belong to God?”
2). Point out the flaw in the question itself in a way that leads to a different question altogether.
Otherwise, I fear we will be lost in circles of tribal warfare—each point of view being a predetermined tribe.
At the end of the day, the point is both radical and ordinary: Everything belongs to God and what other things might possess never do so with complete sovereignty. Insofar as we think ourselves—or our nations—”sovereign” the measure of it will always be the Gospel. Nothing else.
In the end this is not about ignoring or dismissing any nation or law outright. Instead, it is about holding any nation or law accountable to a higher order of sovereignty at all times.
I think that Jesus was saying that in the final analysis both Caesar and his gold are irrelevant. Immediately, of course, both can be an obstacle. But it does not behoove us to go out of our way to make them into obstacles. Where we can, we should just walk around them. There is a Gnostic saying attributed to Jesus that says simply: “Become bystanders.” That is often the best advice: a little “wu-” goes a long “wei.”
I agree with you completely, Sam, and meant to back your point up with Wright’s analysis.
I believe part of the interpretative problem is in seeing ‘Caesar’ as representative of all government, when in fact, Jesus is really referring to the Roman occupiers.
I believe part of the interpretative problem is in seeing ‘Caesar’ as representative of all government, when in fact, Jesus is really referring to the Roman occupiers.
Yes, this is a good point. “Caesar” can’t really be read simply as a stand in for “the state” in a direct way. Any meaning we get from the passage (and I do think there is meaning there for us) is by analogy. Few Catholics recall Jesus’ imperial context. To do so would call our situation into judgment in a more severe way than they are comfortable with. The abstract question of “what do we owe ‘the state’” is much more comfortable.
In Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, I thought it was interesting how the point was reinforced by a continuation of the story itself. I am of course going by memory of it right now, and so I think I am getting some of the details wrong. But it basically goes that after saying “render unto Caesar’s what is Caesar’s,” Jesus is said to put the coin into his pocket. When asked why he did that, he said “I told you to give to God what is God’s, and that image is mine.”
Henry,
Did you actually read Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman? I couldn’t finish it. Certainly it was one of the most disappointing sequels of all times.
David
Yes, I actually read it and finished it — it is disappointing, if one has expectations for it based upon Canticle. But I had read enough of its reputation not to have that expectation. Beyond that, I found it fascinating for three reasons. First, it got me into Miller’s mind, to see the problems he faced before his suicide. I could see much of it there. Second, the Native American elements interested me. Third, there are Sophiological elements as well. But it is a very depressing novel, and at times, very crude. I wonder how much of it would have been changed if he didn’t kill himself and he edited it himself.
In other words, Give to Caesar what is his is precisely a call to revolution against Caesar – yet in Christ’s message, this revolution is nonviolent.
Nate,
If this is what Jesus meant, it seems to me Christianity didn’t get the message. The Church got more and more entangled with the Roman Empire as time went along rather than less and less.
If this is what Jesus meant, it seems to me Christianity didn’t get the message. The Church got more and more entangled with the Roman Empire as time went along rather than less and less.
I would agree that most of Christianity has not gotten the message.
It’s not worth talking to you guys.
Zach: Why not? What have I said here that makes it not worthwhile to talk to me? And why talk to me to tell me that I am not worth talking to?
I suppose I should have confined my remarks to Michael alone, but I also think that you did not address my original comment. You ignored my objection to your argument and reasserted your original answer to the question, rather than attempt to engage my comment.
This passage from the Gospel we are discussing here – it has been needlessly overcomplicated – it’s clearly a limitation on the power and authority of Caesar (Caesar is the stand-in for “political authority – Christ was giving us a principle not a particular”). God’s law is always above the law of the political authority and the law of the political authority is always beholden to God. Christ gives us an intellectual distinction that we can and have put into practice in our lives together. This is to agree with your remark : “…it is about holding any nation or law accountable to a higher order of sovereignty at all times.” I’m not sure why you didn’t say this originally.
But really Sam you are just the recipient of my long-standing grief with this website and my frustration with what I understand to be the total absence of common sense in a group of people. I’ve held out hope for a long time but I think I can no longer read this website. I think most of the contributors are confused people who are beholden to their own idiosyncratic ideas about politics and Catholicism and can and will tolerate nothing else. In this forum, it is near impossible to persuade anyone of anything and I have had to learn this lesson the hard way.
Sorry to bug you all, it won’t happen anymore.
Zach – The reality is that the passage in question is complicated because we tend to read our own ideas about politics and its separation from the “spiritual order” back onto Jesus’ time. What I, and others here, have been suggesting is that is a distorting oversimplification. Jesus’ first century Jewish context within a community occupied by a particular empire is essential for understanding the full implications of the passage. Unfortunately, reading scripture is not simply a matter of “common sense.” There is too much distance between us and the scriptures to be able to deal with it that way. And far too much distortion over the years as well. Even popular, grassroots readings of the Bible, such as those that have taken place in poor communities throughout the world have had to grapple with this and have done really well in making connections between Jesus’ time and ours. But it’s because they have felt the need to really understand Jesus’ context in order to see the relevance for today — probably because their own socio-political context is so vivid for them and not just a backdrop to their reading of scripture.
I can’t speak for this blog anymore, but I find your reaction to this discussion a little baffling. Unlike the way some are treated at another website, you are getting a real discussion here, not name-calling, etc. You are simply running into people who will not accept your “common sense” approach to such a misused scripture passage. I’m not sure why that frustrates you.
I have a bit of a different tack on the saying. I think it is a “trick answer,” but one that relies heavily on insider/outsider dynamics. That is to say, Jesus’ accusers would have heard it one way and “insiders”–the apostles, for example–would hear it a different way. Part of the trick answer explanation depends on Jesus’ answer being coherent enough to not prolong the conversation. If Jesus wanted to shut down the topic, and I’m assuming that he did, he probably had to pass something somewhat agreeable on to them.
To insiders though, I think it came off as very anti-ceasar. That statement itself is intentionally vague and imprecise so I consider this to be well within the realm of possibility.
Michael – It’s fine to situate the comment in it’s socio-political context. But the context doesn’t change the principle that Christ gives us in that passage. The context colors the principle and helps us to see it more clearly.
Michael – It’s fine to situate the comment in it’s socio-political context. But the context doesn’t change the principle that Christ gives us in that passage. The context colors the principle and helps us to see it more clearly.
“Change” it? I’m not saying knowing the context “changes” anything. The context helps us to know what his comment actually means, as opposed to the misunderstandings that we have had to deal with in our history, such as your claim that Jesus is talking about two different “orders.”
To insiders though, I think it came off as very anti-ceasar.
Absolutely! This statement of Jesus is invoked during his trial precisely for that reason. But it was invoked not by disciples but by the religious authorities.