“Ts it lawful to give tribute, or not? Shall we give, or shali we not give?” The double question is to emphasize their earnestness, and to invite a prompt reply, affirmative or negative; tough the first question may refer to the lawfulness of the payment, and the second to its expediency or advisability. 2. The motive which actuated them to interrogate our Lord so peremptorily was most sinister and insidious, The evangelists, viewing their conduct from different standpoints, characterize it differently. This difference, which we discover by comparing the parallel passages, is most instructive. Their conduct in propounding this ensnaring interrogatory was wickedness (xovnplay), according to the first evangelist ; it was craftiness (xavovpylay), according to the thins while, according to the second, it was hypocrisy (iwécpiow). Their question had a close connection with and combined all these three elements; it was conceived in wickedness, cradled in craftiness, and cloaked by hypocrisy. Thus the interrogators acted as spies, or “liers in wait” (@yxa9érovs), as St. Luke calls them, while they feigned themselves just men. Our Lord tore off their mask, exposing them in their true colours, and addressing them in their real character, when, according to St. Mat- thew, he says, ““ Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?” 3. The object they had in view was to embroil the Saviour with the royalists, and so compass his destruction, For this purpose it is plain they desired a negative answer, as appears suggested by the words, “ Thou regardest not the person ef men,” implying such fearlessness as would enable him to reject foreign authority as inconsistent with acknowledging God as their King. Their ulterior object, as stated by St. Luke, was “ that they might take hold of his speech, so as to deliver him up to the power and to the authority of the governor;” in other words, to deliver him to the Roman power, rule, or magistracy (apx#), and to the lawful authority or jurisdiction (éfovela) of Pilate, the Roman procurator. 4. Neces- sity brings together strange companions. The Pharisees were as mean as they were unprincipled, and as untruthful as they were unprincipled and mean. They proved their want of principle by the unnatural coalition which they formed with the Hero- diana—the patriots so called who opposed foreign dominion with the elastic politicians who owned the Roman power; the foes with the friends of Cassar; sticklers for the Law with the supporters of an authority deemed inimical to the Law. Their meanness was manifest in the fulsome flattery with which they addressed eur Lord; while in their base untruthfulness they pretended to approach him with a quasi-case of conscience, though in reality they were carrying out the counsel for his destruction.
if. Tue Savioun’s repty. Had he replied in the affirmative, he would have for- feited his popularity ; had he answered in the negative, he would have forfeited his life, The latter was the consummation wished for by the members of this unholy alliance of superstition with political expediency. To give vividness to the transaction, our Lord ordered the production of a Roman penny, or denarius, a small silver coin of the value of sevenpence halfpenny, or eightpence halfpenny at most. On that coin was an image, the head of the then reigning sovereign, Tiberius, while round it ran the usual superscrip- tion or inscription, consisting of the name and titles of the emperor. Our Lord, as if in surprise, asks, half in irony and half in indignation, what all this meant, and whose it was? Their unavoidable answer was, “Cesar’s;” and this very answer broke the snare, and the bird escaped out of the net of the fowler. Then said our Lord—Give back (arédore) to Cxsar what belongs to him; pay back to Cesar what you acknow- ledge to be his. The coinage proves the king, the currency affords evidence cf his property ; while, on the other hand, you render to God the things that are his,
IV. Larorranr princirits. This principle, so important and far-reaching, though plain enough in its general bearing, has been differently understood. Some have regarded the two parts of the answer as entirely distinct, as though belonging to dif- ferent spheres, or placed on different planes, and so incapable of clashing or even coming in contact; as though he said, “ Pay your taxes, and perform your religious duties, but keep the two things apart.” More usually they are understood as two separate departments of buman duty, coexisting and compatible; or as standing to each other in the relation of the part to the whole. According to the second of these three views, the payment of civil dues and the observance of religious duties stand side by wide together, and as equally obligatory; that is, render to Cesar, as civil ruler the obedience that belongs to him, and to God, as spiritual Sovereign, the homage of the soul stamped with the Divine image, and therefore his due; or, in a more literal
182 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. [ou, xu. i—44,