II.
Jesus nowhere gives systematic teaching in regard to politics. His attitude towards the state and political relations is to be seen, if at all, (1) in his own life, (2) in specific statement, (3) in general comparisons and implications.
1. As regards his own life, it is very evident that he obeyed the local and imperial governments under which he lived, and that he distinctly refused to be made a governor or a king, or in any way to be involved in political revolution.[1] While it is, of course, in the main true that this attitude of conformity was due to the conditions which governed his work as a religious teacher, it is none the less probable that in it there was a recognition of the necessity and the rightful claims of the state.
2. The principles which he enunciates are very general and scattered. Nowhere have we anything like the fullness and the explicitness that mark his teachings in regard to marriage and divorce. The most celebrated text[2] "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's," is rather an avoidance of specific teaching than an enunciation of a principle. The position in which Jesus found himself precluded any unequivocal answer.[3] That was why his opponents asked the question. His answer, therefore, was one that might be interpreted either favorably or unfavorably according to the conception his opponents held as to whether or not Cæsar really owned the coins. Once grant (as the account would lead us to suppose they did grant) that "the image and superscription" on the coin implied the sovereignty of Cæsar, and the reply of Jesus would of necessity pronounce the payment of taxes legitimate.[4] Deny that implication and his reply says nothing of the law. It is, therefore, obvious that any wide application of this text to
- ↑ John 6:15; 18:36; Acts 1:5 sq.
- ↑ Matthew 22:18–22.
- ↑ The taxes were a constant cause of revolt. See Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 18:1:1–6; 20:5:2; Acts 5:37.
- ↑ That the effigy was regarded by the Jews as implying sovereignty is clear from the fact in the revolt against Hadrian they restamped the Roman coins. See Madden, Coins of the Jews, 176, 203, and Renan, Life of Jesus (Am. ed., 1895), 337 n.
