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| Concerning Those Who Demanded the Half-Shekel.
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10. Concerning
Those Who Demanded the Half-Shekel.
“And when they were come to Capernaum, they
that received the half-shekel came to Peter.”5904
There are certain kings of the earth,
and the sons of these do not pay toll or tribute; and there are others,
different from their sons, who are strangers to the kings of the earth,
from whom the kings of the earth receive toll or tribute. And
among the kings of the earth, their sons are free as among fathers; but
those who are strangers to them, while they are free in relation to
things beyond the earth, are as slaves in respect of those who lord it
over them and keep them in bondage; as the Egyptians lorded it over the
children of Israel, and greatly afflicted their life and violently held
them in bondage.5905
It was for
the sake of those who were in a bondage, corresponding to the bondage
of the Hebrews, that the Son of God took upon Him only the form of a
slave,5906
doing no work that
was foul or servile. As then, having the form of that slave, He
pays toll and tribute not different from that which was paid by His
disciple; for the same stater sufficed, even the one coin which was
paid for Jesus and His disciple. But this coin was not in the
house of Jesus, but it was in the sea, and in the mouth of a fish of
the sea which, in my judgment, was benefited when it came up and was
caught in the net of Peter, who became a fisher of men, in which net
was that which is figuratively called a fish, in order also that the
coin with the image of Cæsar might be taken from it, and that it
might take its place among those which were caught by them who have
learned to become fishers of men. Let him, then, who has the
things of Cæsar render them to Cæsar,5907
that afterwards he may be able to render to God the things of
God. But since Jesus, who was “the image of the invisible
God,”5908
had not the image
of Cæsar, for “the prince of this age had nothing in
Him,”5909
on this account He
takes from its own place, the sea, the image of Cæsar, that He may
give it to the kings of the earth for Himself and His disciple, so that
those who receive the half-shekel might not imagine that Jesus was the
debtor of them and of the kings of the earth; for He paid the debt, not
having taken it up, nor having possessed it, nor having acquired it,
nor at any time having made it His own possession, so that the image of
Cæsar might never be along with the image of the invisible
God.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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