Tribute Money

1. ("Tribute to Caesar") (Matt. 22:15–22; Mark 12:13–17; Luke 20:20–26). When Christ was teaching in the Temple at Jerusalem the Pharisees asked him whether it was right to pay taxes to Rome, hoping thereby to trick him into an answer which either way would Jay him open to accusation - by the Roman authorities or by those among the Jews who resented the tax. Pointing to the effigy of the emperor on a coin Christ silenced them with the reply, "Render unto Caesar..." There may be no more than two figures, Christ and a Pharisee who holds the coin; or we may have a broader scene of the interior of the Temple with several figures surrounding Christ, their faces expressing cunning and malice. Christ's finger pointing upwards signifies, "Render to God the things that are God's." The sudden emergence of the theme in Christian art in the 16th century is attributed by some to its relevance to the state of war then existing between the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the Pope - which culminated in the sack of Rome in 1527.
2. (Matt. 17:24–27). At another time in Capernaum, Peter was asked by tax-collectors whether his master contributed to the tax levied on all Jews for the upkeep of the Temple. Jesus told Peter that if he cast his line into the lake he would find in the mouth of the first fish that he caught a silver coin sufficient to pay the tax for them both. Masaccio (Brancacci chapel, Sta. Maria del Carmine, Florence) depicts Christ among the disciples and tax-collectors. Peter crouches at the water's edge drawing a coin from a fish's mouth.