Give to Caesar what is his and to God what is His
Knowing their malice, Jesus said, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin that paysthe census tax.” Then they [the Pharisees] handed him the roman coin. he said to them, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” They replied, “Caesar’s.” Atthat he said to them, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” – The Gospel of Saint Matthew, 22:18-21
The famous episode recounted in today’s Sunday Mass Gospel reading from St. Matthew the Apostle, partly quoted above, is also recounted in very similar words by the other two Synoptic Gospels, that of St. Mark, a disciple of the Apostle Peter, and St. Luke, a physician, who also wrote the Acts of the Apostles about the first years of Christianity and whose feast is celebrated today, October 18.
That the holy Spirit, in inspiring the Gospel writers, made sure the events and words of this event were recounted with little variation may underscore its immense veracity and value for the faith. There is consistency in all three versions, from the reputedly first recounting in Mark to its repetitions in the other two Gospels, despite decades of being passed on by oral tradition.
One may surmise why heaven would preserve the story from earthly corruption. It conveys Christ’s paramount message of putting God above all in our life and our heart, as we shall see when we pick apart the reading.
When ‘Sons of God’ meet
All three accounts began by disclosing that the Pharisees sent to question Jesus aimed to ensnare or entrap him. They first sought to make him let down his guard through flattery. They called him “a truthful man,” unswayed by others’ opinion in Matthew 22:16 and Mark 12:14, who “showed no partiality” in Luke 20:21 and taught God’s way without error, according to all versions.
But Jesus saw something unsavory in their blandishments: “malice” in Matthew’s recounting, “hypocrisy” in Mark’s, and “craftiness” in Luke’s. Our Lord then asked for a denarius coin, worth a day’s wage at the time, and asked whose face and words were engraved on it.
It was Caesar or emperor Tiberius, successor of the late great roman emperor Augustus (62 BC-14 AD), who fought for power after his uncle Julius Caesar was assassinated in 43 BC. Augustus and his ally Mark Anthony defeated rivals and divided the empire, with Anthony taking egypt, then ruled by Cleopatra. Augustus eventually conquered egypt in 31 BC, prompting the suicide of Anthony and Cleopatra. Augustus then took full imperial authority and expanded the empire to Spain and Central europe.
This bit of imperial history gives crucial context to the Gospel reading. For the face of Tiberius on the denarius was the visage not just of a monarch, but of a god-emperor, as Augustus was. Indeed, the inscription around Tiberius’s face was a partially abbreviated Latin text meaning, “Tiberius Caesar, Worshipful Son of the God, Augustus,” as explained by scholar Jeff Barr ( https://mises.org/ wire/render-unto-caesar-most-misunderstood
And if the divinity references weren’t clear enough, the other side