“Then the Pharisees going, consulted among themselves how to insnare him in his speech. And they sent to him their disciples with the Herodians, saying: ‘Master, we know that thou art a true speaker, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou dost not regard the person of men. Tell us therefore what dost thou think, is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?’ But Jesus knowing their wickedness, said: ‘Why do you tempt me, ye hypocrites? Shew me the coin of the tribute.’ And they offered him a penny. And Jesus saith to them: ‘Whose image and inscription is this?’ They say to him: ‘Caesar’s.’ Then he saith to them: ‘Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God, the things that are God’s.’ And hearing this they wondered, and leaving him, went their ways.”
Both love and hate are forces that, when denied in one way, another is sought with eagerness: “Behold he standeth behind our wall, looking through the windows, looking through the lattices” (Canticle 2:9). While Jesus seeks the heart as a sweet hunter, the Pharisees are consumed with malice, and seek to trap Jesus by way of collaboration with their political rivals. The Herodians were mockingly so called because, rather than seeing Rome as a force that overshadows Israel: “The Lord will bring upon thee a nation from afar, and from the uttermost ends of the earth, like an eagle that flyeth swiftly, whose tongue thou canst not understand, a most insolent nation, that will shew no regard to the ancients, nor have pity on the infant, and will devour the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruits of thy land: until thou be destroyed” (Deuteronomy 28:49-51), they were grateful for the security and peace and willingly paid tribute to them. The two collaborated in this snare: “Sinners have laid a snare for me: but I have not erred from thy precepts” (Psalm 118:110), that if Jesus were to oppose the tax to Caesar, He may be charged with treason against Rome and potentially condemned to death, whereas to agree with it would show Him to be unfaithful to Judaism. These two groups then arrive and extol their enemy, as is wont for those that speak not according to their hearts: “An evil mark upon the double tongued” (Ecclesiasticus 5:17). They do this by complimenting Jesus in being the perfect teacher, claiming Him to know and love the truth, honestly put forward the ways of God as He knows them, and does not withhold the truth due to fear or affection. This was done because many great teachers fall easily into pride, and are all too eager to showcase their wisdom, letting their lips fly into what isn’t prudent or loving: “A man full of tongue is terrible in his city, and he that is rash in his word shall be hateful” (Ecclesiasticus 9:25). Thus, the hope was that, by inflating the ego of Jesus, they might more easily catch Him in the snare they sought to lay. Jesus, however, replies in a way that cuts through their buttery tone like a knife, calling them hypocrites for being one thing and presenting another, which He does that He could show that He knew their hearts: “Thou hast foreseen all my ways: for there is no speech in my tongue” (Psalm 138:4), hoping that by putting them to shame, they may be corrected like deceitful children and come to know the patient love of those that they were trying to deceive. Jesus asks for the coin, which bore the image of Tiberius Caesar, which could have been particularly stinging to the Jewish people: “Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth” (Exodus 20:4). In Jesus’ reply, there is a greater subtilty than the surface denotes, because to have nothing of Caesar’s means one is not bound to pay what he is due, but to enjoy a country’s protection and other such gifts, one cannot complain for giving back to it. Now, this is insofar as nothing is put against the faith, because to sponsor a government that has animosity towards the Catholic Church is to give to the devil rather than Caesar. The second piece of subtilty is that the government made the coins, and therefore they belong to it and the image of the ruler is stamped upon them. The people merely borrow them, but to give to God what is God’s is to give His image that He made back to Him, to give the gift of yourself to God: “I to my beloved, and his turning is towards me” (Canticle 7:10). Because “you are not your own” (1 Corinthians 6:19), you can only find yourself through giving yourself back to God, to lose yourself in the divinity as He loses Himself in you: “I in them, and thou in me; that they may be made perfect in one” (John 17:23). While tithes, firstfruits, good works, and prayers are all wonderful gifts: “Honour the Lord with thy substance, and give him of the first of all thy fruits” (Proverbs 3:9), the gift He truly seeks is you and your heart: “Shew me thy face, let thy voice sound in my ears: for thy voice is sweet, and thy face comely” (Canticle 2:14); “Thou art beautiful, O my love, sweet and comely as Jerusalem: terrible as an army set in array” (Canticle 6:3). There is also a spiritual meaning, that to ignore your nature and over-spiritualize is to take the path of the Pharisees: “Forbidding to marry, to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful, and by them that have known the truth” (1 Timothy 4:3), for this path rips away your individuality and ignores that you are not only human, but uniquely so, but to entirely indulge nature without the spirit is to walk the way of the Herodians. Therefore, God calls not for a destruction of who you are, but a lifting of yourself into a covenant of love: “And the Lord hath chosen thee this day, to be his peculiar people, as he hath spoken to thee, and to keep all his commandments: and to make thee higher than all nations which he hath created, to his own praise, and name, and glory: that thou mayst be a holy people of the Lord thy God, as he hath spoken” (Deuteronomy 16:118-19), that you, rather than being suppressed by His commandments, may instead become fully alive by entering deeply into the love story: “I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). Though they should have believed in the face of this, the Herodians and Pharisees instead simply wonder and leave, showing that, when God manifests Himself to you, either by truth, consolation, or unveiling of love, to simply enjoy is certainly good, but these are also the opportunities to build your spiritual edifice even higher, to follow the breadcrumbs to the house of the Beloved, and thereby be drawn by what is shown to you into a more robust or deeper devotion: “And when Jacob awaked out of sleep, he said: Indeed the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not… This is no other but the house of God, and the gate of heaven… And he made a vow, saying: ‘If God shall be with me, and shall keep me in the way by which I walk, and shall give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, and I shall return prosperously to my father’s house: the Lord shall be my God” (Genesis 28:16-22).