| Baroque_Dude said:
By the way, "render to Caesar what is Caesar's" is a quote by Jesus. |
The Bible says that Jesus admitted to forbidding to give tribute to Caesar.
And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King. And Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answered him and said, Thou sayest it. - Luke 23
Elsewhere, Jesus is quoted as saying:
Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar? Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's. - Matthew 22
This is a contradiction. Its obvious that Jesus claims to be King of the Jews and wants to liberate Israel from Rome, including putting an end to tribute to Rome. However, he is also quoted as saying that one should give tribute to Rome. These verses are from two different periods of Christian thought, the first being the earliest Christian thought with a desire to end Roman rule and build a Kingdom of God/Israel, and the second being later Christian thought (introduced by Paul) with an appeasement to Roman rule. Paul altered Christianity to make it more friendly to Roman rule, and in doing so decreased the need for Rome to persecute Christians so that Christianity could grow.
Paul was a major player in Christian thought, and just as all religions (including Christianity) change over time, Paul changed Christianity so that it could survive and later flourish in the Roman Empire. The Pope is a player in Christian thought today, and over the past few centuries the stance of the church on many issues, such as science, has changed significantly. The difference here is that Paul's ideas were frozen in time and made into the fundamental basis of Christianity, instead of a later evolution of Christian thought as it truly is.
