Fathers

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What the Fathers say

Luke 20:24

Western Saints

Ambrose of Milan

When they questioned him about the penny, he asks about the image, because there is one image of God and another image of the world. The apostle also admonishes us, "As we have borne the image of the earthly, let us bear also the image of the heavenly." Christ does not have the image of Caesar, because he is the image of God. Peter does not have the image of Caesar, because he said, "We have left all things, and have followed you." The image of Caesar is not found in James and John, because they are the Sons of Thunder. …

Exposition Of The Gospel Of Luke 9.35 ↗

Bede

They answered and said: Caesar's. And he said to them: Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's. Let us not think of Caesar as Augustus but as Tiberius, his stepson, who succeeded in the place of his stepfather, under whom the Lord also suffered. All Roman kings from the first Gaius Caesar, who had seized the empire, were called Caesars. …

On the Gospel of Luke ↗

Bonaventure

And because the cunning of temptation is refuted through the manifestation of truth, therefore it is added: Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription does it bear? They answered and said to him: Caesar's, namely in the outward sign. The Lord does not ask this because he doubts, but so that from their response he might confute them. Or he asks about the image and inscription of the denarius so that from the very form and figure and quality of the thing he might show that a judgment of equity ought to flow forth. …

Commentary on Luke, Chapter 20 ↗