Christ and Caesar. A neotestamentary perspective
Christ and Caesar. A neotestamentary perspective

Summary/Abstract: This study approaches the relation between the divine power and the worldly power, starting from a few neotestamentary texts. The first text approached is to be found in the Gospel according to Luke, in chapter 2, and it refers to the order issued by emperor Octavian Augustus concerning the census of “the whole world”. Caesar was interested in registering the whole world, in registering the subjects of the empire in records, but Messiah was interested, too. To the first, people owed taxes, excessive and oppressive tolls and to the second they owed the liberation from sin at the cost of His own Blood. The next text represents a lapidary phrase, a sort of apothegm of Jesus who left a deep mark in history and in the common language of people: “Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar‟s, and to God the things that are God‟s” (Mt 22: 21; Mk 12: 16-17; Lk 20: 27). The interpretations given to these words could very rarely grasp and highlight the significance of Jesus‟answer and the impact His answer had on His adversaries. The third analysed text regards the kingship of Jesus or his imperial dignity, brought up during His trial in front of the procurator Pontius Pilate. We will reveal two types of sovereignty of God over the world, different from a qualitative point of view: the spiritual sovereignty, exerted directly through Jesus Christ, and the temporal or political sovereignty, which God exerts indirectly, entrusting it to the free choice of the game of secondary interests.

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