7 ms·

“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" The Christian world has long acknowledged a division between the secu

“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" The Christian world has long acknowledged a division between the secular and the religious. Islam never has. This has hurt both scientific and industrial progress, and the productive synergy between the two.

29athrowaway 3y ago
Could it be because the Roman Empire directly shaped all the official precepts in the belief system through the ecumenical councils ran by the Roman emperor?
mathgradthrow 3y ago
I'm pretty sure that this line is supposed to be tongue in cheek. Everything is god's, some of it is Caesar's.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- explaininjs 3y ago
  God is not concerned with trivialities of coinage. Indeed it is explicitly stated that `No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve both God and Mammon.` (mammon meaning "riches"), which draws a clear distinction between those things that are of Godly import versus those that are merely earthly. The point is that those items made in Caesar's image should be considered his property and reunited with him, whereas those items made in God's image (humanity) are God's property and should be reunited with Him.
paulddraper 3y ago
Islam was birthed with one of the largest conquests of history. [1] Christianity was birthed with persecution by the Jews and Romans. Christianity had its whack at that too in later centuries, but the original source materials are different in treatment of believer/unbeliever. Buddhism is similar (persecution by Hindus). I'd argue this affected cultural appetite for tolerance, expression, etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests
- aprilthird2021 3y ago
  >the original source materials are different in treatment of believer/unbeliever Those materials are pretty similar in this treatment between Judaism and Islam, religions which also were born with massive conquest. The difference between the two religions' national capabilities has little to do with this then, we can conclude.
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    I agree with the observation. But my point isn't whether a nation is stronger or weaker but rather the tolerance of the culture for ideas. (But on that subject...Judiasm had millennia of subjugation and dispersion -- that left a mark.)
    - aprilthird2021 3y ago
      Do the two religions have vastly different tolerance for ideas? If so, the origins and original source material don't seem to affect that then since these have very similar origins and source material. If they do have similar tolerance for ideas, then that must not have a lot to do with scientific output (the focus of the article)
    - catlover76 3y ago
      [dead]
- Yoric 3y ago
  Well, to be fair, Christianity became a thing only when it got the Roman Emperor, which happened also as part of a war. Until then, it was considered just another Jewish sect, impossible to distinguish from a dozen other Jewish sects or a dozen other non-Jewish mostly monotheistic sects. As far as I understand, Judaism as a single organized religion (rather than a federation of ±12 tribes each with their own belief) became a thing as a consequence of the conquests of Alexander the Great, because the Hebrews needed a written code and history to demonstrate that they had a king (even if that king was immortal and invisible), otherwise they would have been treated as a subjugated barbarian tribe and lost the right to their own laws and customs. So, I'm not sure that any conclusion can be drawn.
ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
I think Christianity had the fight with science during Copernicus and Galileo. Islam never had that fight. And since Islam claimed to be the last and final word of god, it became really hard to change it.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > Christianity had the fight with science during Copernicus and Galileo. Islam never had that fight. The article literally describes that fight in the backlash to Al-Mamum's oppressive secularism.
- jcranmer 3y ago
  > I think Christianity had the fight with science during Copernicus and Galileo. You are aware that Copernicus was a Catholic priest, right?
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  Galileo's story is a bit exaggerated in the popular zeitgeist. Promoting heliocentrism vs geocentrism as a scientific theory may have annoyed the church, but he was ultimately granted permission to publish his findings. It was the satirical, strawman representation of the geocentrist (and, by extension, the Pope) as a complete idiot in his published dialogue that got him imprisoned.
sn41 3y ago
You are oversimplifying the Enlightenment. One needs only to look at Galileo, and the current unnecessary shenanigans of American Christians over evolution to know that Christianity does have a problem with science.
- Yoric 3y ago
  Galiloe's story is a bit more complicated than that. The Inquisition didn't have any problems with Galileo and his theories until he started insulting the pope in one of his books. Then the theories became a pretext to pressure him.
- candiodari 3y ago
  Likewise, islam was never meant as a religion. It was always a state, for the vast majority of it's adherents, and power and law came first and second, with religion a very distant concern. The center point of islam was always the state, power and army, not religion (just as it is in current islamic countries, the state holds TIGHT control over religion, not the other way around). People call it a religion now ... because there isn't a state anymore (called a caliphate). Which illustrates yet again how central the state is to islam. All states, including the Taliban and the Mullahs of Iran, radically de-emphasize the fact that the islamic religion demands a global central totalitarian state, and emphasizes nationalism and, for example, the difference between Iranians and Pakistani. Every 6 year old Iranian knows how "their islam", first, centers around the Iranian state, and second how pakistani islam is totally wrong. Plus, of course, how trying to work out those differences, as the "one islam" ideal in the religion itself would seem to reward, is treason.
ants_everywhere 3y ago
I don't think Jesus was huge on the division between church and state. That line in particular was interpreted by his audience to mean they should render no tax to Caesar in Luke.
- explaininjs 3y ago
  Where do you read that in Luke? To me, the message is very clear: This item is Caesar's. It has his name on it, his face on it, he made it, it's his. You should return it to him. You, on the other hand, are God's. You are made in His image, and you should return yourself to Him. And I do not see any evidence of the listeners rejecting the message. Instead we get a jumpcut to a seductress.
  - ants_everywhere 3y ago
    Then the whole company of them arose and brought him before Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, "We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king."
    - bentley 3y ago
      The company in question purposely misinterpreted Jesus’s words in an attempt to have him executed. (It worked!)
      - ants_everywhere 3y ago
        > The company in question purposely misinterpreted Jesus’s words That's why I said "was interpreted by his audience". We know what he (allegedly) said and how his audience (allegedly) understood it. What (if anything) he was implying and whether the audience misunderstood him has been the subject of debate for pretty much the entire history of Christianity.
        explaininjs 3y ago
aprilthird2021 3y ago
Neither has the Jewish world which still produces lots of scientific output. I think Occam's razor applies here. Stable, long-lasting governments and ample resources make a nice bed for technological and scientific output anywhere.
yongjik 3y ago
> “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" That was a statement made when the Caesar was a nonbeliever, he ruled the world, and he could literally crucify you for believing the wrong stuff. It just means "Folks, let's not pick up an unnecessary fight against someone who can casually murder all of us." Of course, later the Ceasars became Christian, and the line became a lot more blurry.
gerdesj 3y ago
"The Christian world has long acknowledged a division between the secular and the religious." ALL religions _insist_ on a divide between secular and religious by definition. I still consider myself a Christian but please do better than a quote from the big guy that related to taxation to somehow justify some sort of scientific related superiority over another Abrahamic religion. I think you also managed to miss-quote the usual translation because I think it should be something like: "Render unto Caesar that which is due to Caesar and render unto God those things that are due to God". My Aramaic is a little rusty and I don't have access to the original docs so I might be wrong. I think that the issue at the moment that JC was quoted talking about was regarding taxation and JC used that to make a rather neat earthly/heavenly analogy. Earthly taxation unto Caesar and Heavenly "taxation" unto God. I think that twiddling an analogy about a situation that happened roughly 2000 years ago into another analogy, might be a step too far.
- YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
  ἀπόδοτε οὖν τὰ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι καὶ τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ τῷ θεῷ Not Aramaic, but Greek. Aramaic was the language spoken by the people in the Gospels, but the Gospels themselves were written in koine Greek, the English of the ancient world. The sentence says "Give to Cesar what is Cesar's and to God what is God's" in my translation. From Matthew, 22:16-22. Like you point out the context was taxation. Pay Cesar's taxes and give prayer to God, would be a more liberal translation. Edit: full text of the relevant passage. 15 Τότε πορευθέντες οἱ Φαρισαῖοι συμβούλιον ἔλαβον ὅπως αὐτὸν παγιδεύσωσιν ἐν λόγῳ. 16 καὶ ἀποστέλλουσιν αὐτῷ τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτῶν μετὰ τῶν Ἡρῳδιανῶν λέγοντας Διδάσκαλε, οἴδαμεν ὅτι ἀληθὴς εἶ καὶ τὴν ὁδὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν ἀληθείᾳ διδάσκεις, καὶ οὐ μέλει σοι περὶ οὐδενός, οὐ γὰρ βλέπεις εἰς πρόσωπον ἀνθρώπων· 17 εἰπὸν οὖν ἡμῖν, τί σοι δοκεῖ; ἔξεστιν δοῦναι κῆνσον Καίσαρι ἢ οὔ; 18 γνοὺς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς τὴν πονηρίαν αὐτῶν εἶπεν Τί με πειράζετε, ὑποκριταί; 19 ἐπιδείξατέ μοι τὸ νόμισμα τοῦ κήνσου. οἱ δὲ προσήνεγκαν αὐτῷ δηνάριον. 20 καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς Τίνος ἡ εἰκὼν αὕτη καὶ ἡ ἐπιγραφή; 21 λέγουσιν· Καίσαρος. τότε λέγει αὐτοῖς Ἀπόδοτε οὖν τὰ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι καὶ τὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ τῷ Θεῷ. 22 καὶ ἀκούσαντες ἐθαύμασαν, καὶ ἀφέντες αὐτὸν ἀπῆλθαν. https://biblehub.com/nestle/matthew/22.htm https://biblehub.com/nestle/matthew/22.htm To summarise, the Pharisees wanted to trap jesus, by making him say something foolish. So they sent their students accompanied by Herod's followers (Ἡρῳδιανῶν) to, well, troll Jesus, first praising him for speaking the truth without fear, and then asking him if he was asking to be given Cesar's tribute (κῆνσον Καίσαρι). Jesus asked them to show him the coin of the tribute and when they showed him a dinar (δηνάριον) he asked them: "Whose is this image and legend?". They replied it was Cesar's. And Jesus said " Then give to Cesar what is Cesar's and to God what is God's". And thus doth he shutte them uppe for goode and there was much rejoicement. Liberal translation. The previous passage (Matthew 22:1-14) is the parable of the wedding, where Jesus compares the Kingdom of Heaven with a human kingdom, whose king throws a wedding party for his son. This could be mistaken as Jesus claiming for himself an earthly kingdom, with him as king. This would have displeased Cesar. So the Pharisees were trying to entrap Jesus and make him look like he wanted to rebel against Rome, why they took Herod's followers with them. But this backfired and they gave Jesus the chance to allay any suspicions that he was anything else but a religious leader, and to say that he was not a threat to Rome. He did that by invoking a powerful symbol of Cesar's power: his coin, with his face and name on it. Jesus was a smart guy! Also: hey, I can still read that. Blimey! Been a while...

29athrowaway 3y ago

Could it be because the Roman Empire directly shaped all the official precepts in the belief system through the ecumenical councils ran by the Roman emperor?

mathgradthrow 3y ago

I'm pretty sure that this line is supposed to be tongue in cheek. Everything is god's, some of it is Caesar's.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
explaininjs 3y ago
God is not concerned with trivialities of coinage. Indeed it is explicitly stated that `No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve both God and Mammon.` (mammon meaning "riches"), which draws a clear distinction between those things that are of Godly import versus those that are merely earthly. The point is that those items made in Caesar's image should be considered his property and reunited with him, whereas those items made in God's image (humanity) are God's property and should be reunited with Him.

paulddraper 3y ago

Islam was birthed with one of the largest conquests of history. [1] Christianity was birthed with persecution by the Jews and Romans. Christianity had its whack at that too in later centuries, but the original source materials are different in treatment of believer/unbeliever. Buddhism is similar (persecution by Hindus). I'd argue this affected cultural appetite for tolerance, expression, etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests

aprilthird2021 3y ago
>the original source materials are different in treatment of believer/unbeliever Those materials are pretty similar in this treatment between Judaism and Islam, religions which also were born with massive conquest. The difference between the two religions' national capabilities has little to do with this then, we can conclude.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  I agree with the observation. But my point isn't whether a nation is stronger or weaker but rather the tolerance of the culture for ideas. (But on that subject...Judiasm had millennia of subjugation and dispersion -- that left a mark.)
  - aprilthird2021 3y ago
    Do the two religions have vastly different tolerance for ideas? If so, the origins and original source material don't seem to affect that then since these have very similar origins and source material. If they do have similar tolerance for ideas, then that must not have a lot to do with scientific output (the focus of the article)
  - catlover76 3y ago
    [dead]
Yoric 3y ago
Well, to be fair, Christianity became a thing only when it got the Roman Emperor, which happened also as part of a war. Until then, it was considered just another Jewish sect, impossible to distinguish from a dozen other Jewish sects or a dozen other non-Jewish mostly monotheistic sects. As far as I understand, Judaism as a single organized religion (rather than a federation of ±12 tribes each with their own belief) became a thing as a consequence of the conquests of Alexander the Great, because the Hebrews needed a written code and history to demonstrate that they had a king (even if that king was immortal and invisible), otherwise they would have been treated as a subjugated barbarian tribe and lost the right to their own laws and customs. So, I'm not sure that any conclusion can be drawn.

ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago

I think Christianity had the fight with science during Copernicus and Galileo. Islam never had that fight. And since Islam claimed to be the last and final word of god, it became really hard to change it.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Christianity had the fight with science during Copernicus and Galileo. Islam never had that fight. The article literally describes that fight in the backlash to Al-Mamum's oppressive secularism.
jcranmer 3y ago
> I think Christianity had the fight with science during Copernicus and Galileo. You are aware that Copernicus was a Catholic priest, right?
OkayPhysicist 3y ago
Galileo's story is a bit exaggerated in the popular zeitgeist. Promoting heliocentrism vs geocentrism as a scientific theory may have annoyed the church, but he was ultimately granted permission to publish his findings. It was the satirical, strawman representation of the geocentrist (and, by extension, the Pope) as a complete idiot in his published dialogue that got him imprisoned.

sn41 3y ago

You are oversimplifying the Enlightenment. One needs only to look at Galileo, and the current unnecessary shenanigans of American Christians over evolution to know that Christianity does have a problem with science.

Yoric 3y ago
Galiloe's story is a bit more complicated than that. The Inquisition didn't have any problems with Galileo and his theories until he started insulting the pope in one of his books. Then the theories became a pretext to pressure him.
candiodari 3y ago
Likewise, islam was never meant as a religion. It was always a state, for the vast majority of it's adherents, and power and law came first and second, with religion a very distant concern. The center point of islam was always the state, power and army, not religion (just as it is in current islamic countries, the state holds TIGHT control over religion, not the other way around). People call it a religion now ... because there isn't a state anymore (called a caliphate). Which illustrates yet again how central the state is to islam. All states, including the Taliban and the Mullahs of Iran, radically de-emphasize the fact that the islamic religion demands a global central totalitarian state, and emphasizes nationalism and, for example, the difference between Iranians and Pakistani. Every 6 year old Iranian knows how "their islam", first, centers around the Iranian state, and second how pakistani islam is totally wrong. Plus, of course, how trying to work out those differences, as the "one islam" ideal in the religion itself would seem to reward, is treason.

ants_everywhere 3y ago

I don't think Jesus was huge on the division between church and state. That line in particular was interpreted by his audience to mean they should render no tax to Caesar in Luke.

explaininjs 3y ago
Where do you read that in Luke? To me, the message is very clear: This item is Caesar's. It has his name on it, his face on it, he made it, it's his. You should return it to him. You, on the other hand, are God's. You are made in His image, and you should return yourself to Him. And I do not see any evidence of the listeners rejecting the message. Instead we get a jumpcut to a seductress.
- ants_everywhere 3y ago
  Then the whole company of them arose and brought him before Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, "We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king."
  - bentley 3y ago
    The company in question purposely misinterpreted Jesus’s words in an attempt to have him executed. (It worked!)
    - ants_everywhere 3y ago
      > The company in question purposely misinterpreted Jesus’s words That's why I said "was interpreted by his audience". We know what he (allegedly) said and how his audience (allegedly) understood it. What (if anything) he was implying and whether the audience misunderstood him has been the subject of debate for pretty much the entire history of Christianity.
      - explaininjs 3y ago

aprilthird2021 3y ago

Neither has the Jewish world which still produces lots of scientific output. I think Occam's razor applies here. Stable, long-lasting governments and ample resources make a nice bed for technological and scientific output anywhere.

yongjik 3y ago

> “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" That was a statement made when the Caesar was a nonbeliever, he ruled the world, and he could literally crucify you for believing the wrong stuff. It just means "Folks, let's not pick up an unnecessary fight against someone who can casually murder all of us." Of course, later the Ceasars became Christian, and the line became a lot more blurry.

gerdesj 3y ago

"The Christian world has long acknowledged a division between the secular and the religious." ALL religions _insist_ on a divide between secular and religious by definition. I still consider myself a Christian but please do better than a quote from the big guy that related to taxation to somehow justify some sort of scientific related superiority over another Abrahamic religion. I think you also managed to miss-quote the usual translation because I think it should be something like: "Render unto Caesar that which is due to Caesar and render unto God those things that are due to God". My Aramaic is a little rusty and I don't have access to the original docs so I might be wrong. I think that the issue at the moment that JC was quoted talking about was regarding taxation and JC used that to make a rather neat earthly/heavenly analogy. Earthly taxation unto Caesar and Heavenly "taxation" unto God. I think that twiddling an analogy about a situation that happened roughly 2000 years ago into another analogy, might be a step too far.

YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
ἀπόδοτε οὖν τὰ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι καὶ τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ τῷ θεῷ Not Aramaic, but Greek. Aramaic was the language spoken by the people in the Gospels, but the Gospels themselves were written in koine Greek, the English of the ancient world. The sentence says "Give to Cesar what is Cesar's and to God what is God's" in my translation. From Matthew, 22:16-22. Like you point out the context was taxation. Pay Cesar's taxes and give prayer to God, would be a more liberal translation. Edit: full text of the relevant passage. 15 Τότε πορευθέντες οἱ Φαρισαῖοι συμβούλιον ἔλαβον ὅπως αὐτὸν παγιδεύσωσιν ἐν λόγῳ. 16 καὶ ἀποστέλλουσιν αὐτῷ τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτῶν μετὰ τῶν Ἡρῳδιανῶν λέγοντας Διδάσκαλε, οἴδαμεν ὅτι ἀληθὴς εἶ καὶ τὴν ὁδὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν ἀληθείᾳ διδάσκεις, καὶ οὐ μέλει σοι περὶ οὐδενός, οὐ γὰρ βλέπεις εἰς πρόσωπον ἀνθρώπων· 17 εἰπὸν οὖν ἡμῖν, τί σοι δοκεῖ; ἔξεστιν δοῦναι κῆνσον Καίσαρι ἢ οὔ; 18 γνοὺς δὲ ὁ Ἰησοῦς τὴν πονηρίαν αὐτῶν εἶπεν Τί με πειράζετε, ὑποκριταί; 19 ἐπιδείξατέ μοι τὸ νόμισμα τοῦ κήνσου. οἱ δὲ προσήνεγκαν αὐτῷ δηνάριον. 20 καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς Τίνος ἡ εἰκὼν αὕτη καὶ ἡ ἐπιγραφή; 21 λέγουσιν· Καίσαρος. τότε λέγει αὐτοῖς Ἀπόδοτε οὖν τὰ Καίσαρος Καίσαρι καὶ τὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ τῷ Θεῷ. 22 καὶ ἀκούσαντες ἐθαύμασαν, καὶ ἀφέντες αὐτὸν ἀπῆλθαν. https://biblehub.com/nestle/matthew/22.htm https://biblehub.com/nestle/matthew/22.htm To summarise, the Pharisees wanted to trap jesus, by making him say something foolish. So they sent their students accompanied by Herod's followers (Ἡρῳδιανῶν) to, well, troll Jesus, first praising him for speaking the truth without fear, and then asking him if he was asking to be given Cesar's tribute (κῆνσον Καίσαρι). Jesus asked them to show him the coin of the tribute and when they showed him a dinar (δηνάριον) he asked them: "Whose is this image and legend?". They replied it was Cesar's. And Jesus said " Then give to Cesar what is Cesar's and to God what is God's". And thus doth he shutte them uppe for goode and there was much rejoicement. Liberal translation. The previous passage (Matthew 22:1-14) is the parable of the wedding, where Jesus compares the Kingdom of Heaven with a human kingdom, whose king throws a wedding party for his son. This could be mistaken as Jesus claiming for himself an earthly kingdom, with him as king. This would have displeased Cesar. So the Pharisees were trying to entrap Jesus and make him look like he wanted to rebel against Rome, why they took Herod's followers with them. But this backfired and they gave Jesus the chance to allay any suspicions that he was anything else but a religious leader, and to say that he was not a threat to Rome. He did that by invoking a powerful symbol of Cesar's power: his coin, with his face and name on it. Jesus was a smart guy! Also: hey, I can still read that. Blimey! Been a while...