Once, there was an old priest who every day would take time to go to the monastery chapel to say his prayers. Now, a cat lived in the monastery, and this cat would always go and interrupt the priest's prayers. So daily, the priest would tie the cat up (how he did this, we can't really be sure) and go into the chapel to pray, then untie the cat when he was done. His disciples would see this, and so, when the old priest died, they would repeat this practice before their prayer times. Then, when the cat also died, the disciples went and got a new cat to tie up before their prayers.
So first: when the first Christians called Jesus the son of God, they were taking the Roman propaganda phrase a step further. They were telling the world that, well, no, Caesar was not really in charge. Sure, he had a few armies at his disposal, and a great deal of power and influence, but he was not really the "son of god" at all. So who was in charge? Well, for the early Christians the answer was: Jesus. He was the true Son of God. You can imagine that this made the Romans really angry, especially since Jesus was , from the perspective of Rome, just a regular Jewish carpenter from a poor nation without any actual power to speak of.
It's easy, as this story demonstrates, to get caught up in repeating some action or some words from the past without knowing exactly knowing what those actions or words mean. Well, the same may apply to the Apostles' Creed in general, but will in all likelihood apply particularly to the line that talks about belief in Jesus as "God's only Son" and as "our Lord." There are two ideas here that have rich historical implications, so let's explore them briefly here.
To fully appreciate the meaning of these two short phrases, it helps to have a sense of the historical context that Jesus was born into. In particular, we need to pay attention to the fact that Israel was occupied by Rome, which was the major political superpower of the day. Until around thirty years before the birth of Jesus, Rome was a republic, which is to say that no one was supposed to hold absolute, unilateral power. And while tyrants had held some power in Rome before, the fact that Rome was a republic limited the damage that those tyrants could do.
To fully appreciate the meaning of these two short phrases, it helps to have a sense of the historical context that Jesus was born into. In particular, we need to pay attention to the fact that Israel was occupied by Rome, which was the major political superpower of the day. Until around thirty years before the birth of Jesus, Rome was a republic, which is to say that no one was supposed to hold absolute, unilateral power. And while tyrants had held some power in Rome before, the fact that Rome was a republic limited the damage that those tyrants could do.
But this changed with Julius Caesar, a military hero who used his own influence in Rome to establish himself as a kind of dictator. He was held in such high regard that many people in Rome began to think of him as divine; that is, as a god. Traditionalist Roman republicans didn’t like this, so they assassinated him. Far from calming things down, however, this resulted in civil war. When the war ended, there was only one clear winner: the man who had been Julius Caesar's adopted son, Octavian.
Octavian didn't like the sound of his own name, it seems, so he changed it to Augustus, a name that meant "majestic" and "worthy of honour." He also took on the senior priestly role in Rome, as “Pontifex Maximus” (meaning, Chief Priest). And then, he got his court poets to produce some propaganda. As usual with any propaganda, this propaganda involved playing liberally with the truth. The story that was told was that the age of Augustus was the greatest age ever and that Rome was truly the most glorious empire that had ever been and ever would be.
Because Caesar was considered divine, Augustus Caesar was referred to the “son of god" or "son of divinity." The Romans were told in various ways the “Good news” that “The son of god has become king of the world!” One of the slogans of the time was the idea of the pax Romanum or "peace of Rome" which had been achieved through victory (i.e. violence over enemies, rather than through the love of those enemies).
And another slogan common at the time was this: “Caesar is lord.”
So, for the average Roman citizen, the question of “Who was in charge?” had a definite answer: Caesar, the son of a god, lord and chief priest was in charge. No one else stood a chance; so it seemed to the Romans.
Because Caesar was considered divine, Augustus Caesar was referred to the “son of god" or "son of divinity." The Romans were told in various ways the “Good news” that “The son of god has become king of the world!” One of the slogans of the time was the idea of the pax Romanum or "peace of Rome" which had been achieved through victory (i.e. violence over enemies, rather than through the love of those enemies).
And another slogan common at the time was this: “Caesar is lord.”
So, for the average Roman citizen, the question of “Who was in charge?” had a definite answer: Caesar, the son of a god, lord and chief priest was in charge. No one else stood a chance; so it seemed to the Romans.
So first: when the first Christians called Jesus the son of God, they were taking the Roman propaganda phrase a step further. They were telling the world that, well, no, Caesar was not really in charge. Sure, he had a few armies at his disposal, and a great deal of power and influence, but he was not really the "son of god" at all. So who was in charge? Well, for the early Christians the answer was: Jesus. He was the true Son of God. You can imagine that this made the Romans really angry, especially since Jesus was , from the perspective of Rome, just a regular Jewish carpenter from a poor nation without any actual power to speak of.
Truth is always stranger than propagandist fiction because we always make fiction to suit our own sensibilities.
This offers an interesting perspective on how the early Christians came to think of the ruler of the land. This follows Jesus' example. When Jesus was asked, for instance, if it was right to pay taxes, Jesus gave a mysterious answer after asking that a Roman coin be brought to him. Noting that the face on the coin was that of Caesar, Jesus said: "Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's" (Mt 22:21).
There's a lot going on here, but I just want to point out one meaning here. Let's notice what the "image of Caesar" represented: it represented a human being, who himself would be, from the perspective of a first century Jew, "the image of God." In other words, Caesar's very humanity (not his authority as ruler over the known world) pointed beyond itself. This is another way of saying: no matter how much Caesar may have thought of himself, there is always an authority higher than him and higher than all of us.
I know many people have come to different conclusions regarding the precise political implications of this statement, but my aim in this entire series of reflections on the Creed is to stick only to the stuff that isn't generally contested by Christians with an orthodox sensibility. What we can say for certain is this: no matter what part of the created order you are looking at, it is always meant to reference that which is beyond itself: i.e. God.
When it comes to finding meaning, we often make the mistake of getting stuck at the wrong level: we attribute ultimacy to that which isn't ultimate and easily take relative things to be absolute. Also, we forget that everything has its being only because of God (Acts 17:28). In doing so, we are effectively picking the wrong "son of god" instead of siding with the right and true "Son of God." We mistakenly “give to Caesar” without fully recognising that Caesar is not the maker of heaven and earth.
Then, notice that the phrase "Jesus is Lord" is a kind of echo of the idea that Jesus is the "Son of God." “Jesus is Lord” comes from the Greek: κύριος Ἰησοῦς (kyrios Iesous), which is one of the earliest “pre-New Testament” creedal assertions (1 Corinthians 12:3; Romans 10:9). It was something the earliest Christians used to say to remind themselves of who is ultimate in the largest scheme of things.
Jesus is Lord, not Caesar.
No wonder the early Christians were persecuted. They didn’t conform to the violence and power-obsessed rule of Rome. Their very presence was often a criticism of Rome’s self-assurance, especially since their claim was that the way of Jesus, which involved the love of the enemy, was better than the way of Caesar, which involved the destruction of the enemy.
But there is another dimension of the phrase "Jesus is Lord," which is that the word "Lord" here was the same word used in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament used by most of the early Christians) used this same word to refer to the God of the universe. This is another way of saying that Caesar's lordship is not even vaguely comparable to the lordship of Jesus. We are dealing, here, with a totally different order of reality: we are dealing with the One through whom all of reality has its reality.
Here's what we can say about all of this in terms of our own question for meaning: to find meaning, our "giving to Caesar" (that is, our working with the given order of things as they are), must point to the one of gives Caesar and us our very being. Also, it's important to realise that our sense of meaning is certainly bound up in the question of who we follow and serve. This may be an uncomfortable thing to think about, since we may be tempted to think that service is anti-freedom. The truth, however, is that freedom is primarily about service.
Freedom is our ability to choose constraints.
Our finding meaning is connected with our sense of freedom because freedom is ultimately about what we live for, not what we are free from. Think of any gift or talent that you have. The freedom you experience comes from living out that gift or talent to the best of your ability, not from hiding or suppressing it. Freedom is when you “click” with how you are made; it is found in working with God and others for the healing of the world.
Well, again, the Apostles' Creed suggests that when we trust in the "Son of God" and declare by our very lives that "Jesus is Lord," our freedom is made complete. Freedom is not found a flight from responsibility, but from taking responsibility. In fact, meaning in life will not be found in anything but the taking of responsibility, which is, very simply, the ability to respond: the decision to respond. So be very careful about the language of blame and fear and making enemies and pointing at the problem out there, because this will not lead to freedom or to meaning. Instead, such language pacifies us and puts us at the mercy of a world beyond us and powers (various "Caesars" beyond us) instead of helping us to lay claim to what has been given us by the Lord of All.
So, finally, here's a last thought of those monks at the start of this post, who had done well to take on their master's actions: tying up the cat before saying their prayers. This is a decent start, in a way, because at the very least they were trying to do the right thing, although without necessarily understanding it. The next step for them will be: taking responsibility and figuring out why and in what way their master's actions ought to have significance for them.
I know many people have come to different conclusions regarding the precise political implications of this statement, but my aim in this entire series of reflections on the Creed is to stick only to the stuff that isn't generally contested by Christians with an orthodox sensibility. What we can say for certain is this: no matter what part of the created order you are looking at, it is always meant to reference that which is beyond itself: i.e. God.
When it comes to finding meaning, we often make the mistake of getting stuck at the wrong level: we attribute ultimacy to that which isn't ultimate and easily take relative things to be absolute. Also, we forget that everything has its being only because of God (Acts 17:28). In doing so, we are effectively picking the wrong "son of god" instead of siding with the right and true "Son of God." We mistakenly “give to Caesar” without fully recognising that Caesar is not the maker of heaven and earth.
Then, notice that the phrase "Jesus is Lord" is a kind of echo of the idea that Jesus is the "Son of God." “Jesus is Lord” comes from the Greek: κύριος Ἰησοῦς (kyrios Iesous), which is one of the earliest “pre-New Testament” creedal assertions (1 Corinthians 12:3; Romans 10:9). It was something the earliest Christians used to say to remind themselves of who is ultimate in the largest scheme of things.
Jesus is Lord, not Caesar.
No wonder the early Christians were persecuted. They didn’t conform to the violence and power-obsessed rule of Rome. Their very presence was often a criticism of Rome’s self-assurance, especially since their claim was that the way of Jesus, which involved the love of the enemy, was better than the way of Caesar, which involved the destruction of the enemy.
But there is another dimension of the phrase "Jesus is Lord," which is that the word "Lord" here was the same word used in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament used by most of the early Christians) used this same word to refer to the God of the universe. This is another way of saying that Caesar's lordship is not even vaguely comparable to the lordship of Jesus. We are dealing, here, with a totally different order of reality: we are dealing with the One through whom all of reality has its reality.
Here's what we can say about all of this in terms of our own question for meaning: to find meaning, our "giving to Caesar" (that is, our working with the given order of things as they are), must point to the one of gives Caesar and us our very being. Also, it's important to realise that our sense of meaning is certainly bound up in the question of who we follow and serve. This may be an uncomfortable thing to think about, since we may be tempted to think that service is anti-freedom. The truth, however, is that freedom is primarily about service.
Freedom is our ability to choose constraints.
Our finding meaning is connected with our sense of freedom because freedom is ultimately about what we live for, not what we are free from. Think of any gift or talent that you have. The freedom you experience comes from living out that gift or talent to the best of your ability, not from hiding or suppressing it. Freedom is when you “click” with how you are made; it is found in working with God and others for the healing of the world.
Well, again, the Apostles' Creed suggests that when we trust in the "Son of God" and declare by our very lives that "Jesus is Lord," our freedom is made complete. Freedom is not found a flight from responsibility, but from taking responsibility. In fact, meaning in life will not be found in anything but the taking of responsibility, which is, very simply, the ability to respond: the decision to respond. So be very careful about the language of blame and fear and making enemies and pointing at the problem out there, because this will not lead to freedom or to meaning. Instead, such language pacifies us and puts us at the mercy of a world beyond us and powers (various "Caesars" beyond us) instead of helping us to lay claim to what has been given us by the Lord of All.
So, finally, here's a last thought of those monks at the start of this post, who had done well to take on their master's actions: tying up the cat before saying their prayers. This is a decent start, in a way, because at the very least they were trying to do the right thing, although without necessarily understanding it. The next step for them will be: taking responsibility and figuring out why and in what way their master's actions ought to have significance for them.
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