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NB: I tried to post this on Friday:
On 17 October, as I write, it is the anniversary of John Paul II’s election as Vicar of Christ, Bishop of Rome, Supreme Pontiff. As a young priest and bishop then-Bishop Karol Wojtyła participated in the Second Vatican II and, indeed, as part of the group which composed the 1965 Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et spes. His contribution is especially noteworthy in a section that, in effect, rescues the document from an overly optimistic and perhaps exaggerated focus on man, an anthropocentrism. A young critic of Gaudium et spes, who had been a theological expert (peritus) at the Council said that some parts of the Constitution were “downright Pelagian”. What Bishop Wojtyla brought in was a decided Christocentric element. This marked Christ centeredness is particularly present in the amazing paragraph 22:
The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself [hominem ipsi homini plene manifestat] and makes his supreme calling clear. It is not surprising, then, that in Him all the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown.
Christ reveals us fully to ourselves.
Christ is the Son, the Second Person Incarnate. As the Son, before the Incarnation, He was the perfect image of the invisible God (cf. Col 1:15). In the Incarnation, taking human nature into an indestructible bond with His divinity, Christ became the perfect visible image of God. We are creatures and, as a result, imperfect. We, however, also are in the image and likeness of God although begotten and made (Gen1:26-27). Hence, by looking at Christ, we see who we are. We were made to reflect God especially in knowing, willing and loving, in acting according to reason in line with the goodness, truth and beauty which are, ultimately, God. Christ reveals us fully to ourselves.
Enter the Pharisees in Matthew 22 who wanted fatally to trap Christ through a deceit.
By the time we reach Matthew 22:15-21and our Gospel pericope for this 22nd Sunday after Pentecost, Jesus is spending His last days in Jerusalem in the face of increasing opposition from officialdom. He has entered the city triumphantly, cleansed the Temple, cursed the barren fig tree, and taught parables about the inevitability of eternal judgment.
The Pharisees with some politicians aligned with Herod had a cunning plan. They approached the Lord with unctuous words, with forked-tongue compliments: “Teacher, we know that you are true, and teach the way of God truthfully, and care for no man; for you do not regard the position of men” (v. 16).
They asked a “yes” or “no” question. Either answer would have been deadly. They asked,
“Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?”
If Christ had said “Yes”, He could have been pegged as a Roman sympathizer. At the time there was great resentment among the Jews at the ongoing pagan Roman occupation, the imposition of a client ruler, and oppressive taxes, including the hated annual “poll” or “capitation tax”. The Zealot faction refused to pay it. There was a former Zealot from Cana in Jesus’ following, Simon, probably a close relative of Jesus (cf Mark 6:3).
If Christ had said “No”, He could have been charged with sedition by the Romans and killed. That’s what the Jewish officials wanted to engineer because they, under the Romans, couldn’t do it themselves.
Christ, instead, made a distinction.
The Latin phrase, after all, is “qui bene distinguit bene docet… He teaches well who makes distinctions well”.
In response to the trap question the Lord asked for a coin. Not just any coin, but a nómisma toû kénsou, a “tribute coin”. They gave him one, a denarion, a Roman silver coin commonly used also as a laborer’s day wage. This coin, we learn from Christ’s interrogation (“Whose are this image and the inscription?” v. 20) bore the image of the Emperor Augustus’ adopted son Tiberius, then reigning (AD 14-37) and the Latin lettering: TI[berius] CAESAR DIVI AUG[usti] F[ilius] AUGUSTUS … Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of the divine Augustus.” Augustus, “deified” after his death (AD 14) by acclamation, was titled also as “divi filius” as adopted son of the officially deified Gaius Julius Caesar (in 42 BC).
The coin given to the Son of God said that Tiberius was the “son of god”, Augustus). Even if the coin was older, from the time Augustus, it would have had DIVI F on it.
Despite the Decalogue’s injunction against graven images, that is idols of false gods, at least one among these hypocritical Pharisees and Herodians had a coin with a graven image of the false god Tiberius within the precincts of the Temple (cf Mat 21:23). Hypocrites indeed.
His response,
Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. (v. 21)
Hence the true Son of God faced down murderous hypocrites sporting an idolatrous image of a false god within the sacred Temple precincts whence He had recently driven money handlers who exchanged unclean Roman denarii to ritually pure Temple currency for sacrifices.
All things are God’s (King of the universe, of all of creation) therefore, all things must be rendered to God. Some things are Caesar’s (the temporal created ruler over some created things, therefore some things must be rendered to the Caesar.
The tribute coin was stamped with the image of Tiberius. We are stamped with the image of God.
We must try to be good citizens in the temporal sphere, for the sake of peaceful good order, as well as strive with all our heart and strength to be good citizens of the City of God, for the sake of eternal peace in Heaven.
We are, in a sense, citizens of two realms, earthly and (in anticipation) Heaven. We have duties towards both, though not in the same degree. In normal times there is no conflict between our social duties and our religious duties. It is good and proper, in normal times, to give our country our “tribute” in the form of legitimate taxes and different forms of service. However, all social duties are to be conditioned on what is owed to God, who is the sovereign over all. This concept of the social kingship of Christ is duly present in the orations of the Traditional Latin Mass, most explicitly on the Feast of Christ the King, which falls next Sunday, the last Sunday of October. The Novus Ordo tends to emphasize Christ’s Kingship after the Second Coming.
By the way, were it not for the Feast of Christ King, the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost also has the theme that our citizenship is in Heaven. Though we await the return of the Lord in the Parousia, a theme that runs through these final weeks of the liturgical year, we are already inscribed in Heaven’s book, so to speak. Our lives here and new should reflect this.
Circling back, there are theologians who, after the Council, stressed probably too much the here and now and the rights of man, with a strong anthropocentric turn. Their focus would be Gaudium et spes 36 which looks at the “legitimate autonomy of temporal affairs”. Ut brevis, we must not absolutely oppose the affairs of the world and our striving after than which is above. To oppose them absolutely is to create a false dichotomy. This is why the insight offered by the future Pope John Paul II in GS 22 is so important. This is also at the heart of Christ’s lapidary response to his opponents. What involves Heaven and God must always have logical priority in our earthly dealings.
The same principle must govern our liturgical choices in our sacred worship of God. When what the world has to offer is given priority over what the Church has to give to the world, our sacred liturgical worship goes awry and we no longer give what is due to God first and foremost: proper worship.
