Texts in Conversation
Jesus' answer in Mark has two parts, Caesar and God. In the Gospel of Thomas he adds a third, telling them to give him what is his, a detail added to the story later.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Mark 12:17
New Testament
16 So they brought one, and he said to them, “Whose image is this, and whose inscription?” They replied, “Caesar’s.” 17 Then Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were utterly amazed at him.
Gospel of Thomas 1:100
Nag Hammadi
99 The disciples said to him, “Your brothers and your mother are standing outside.” He said to them, “Those here who do the will of my Father are my brothers and my mother; they are the ones who will enter the kingdom of my Father.” 100 They showed Jesus a gold coin and said to him, “Caesar’s men demand taxes from us.” He said to them, “Give Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; give God the things that are God’s; and give me what is mine.” 101 Jesus said, “Whoever does not hate his [father] and mother as I do cannot be my disciple; and whoever does not love his [father] and mother as I do cannot be my disciple. For my mother gave me falsehood, but my true mother gave me life.”
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Notes and References
“... The structure consists of (a) an opening question, served up thickly with compliments (vv 13-14); (b) Jesus’ counterquestion and demand to bring him a denarius (v 15); (c) Jesus’ second counterquestion and his interlocutors’ reply (v 16); and (d) Jesus’ stunning pronouncement (v 17). The Markan version of the story probably represents our earliest source. But there are three other versions. [...] A third form of the story appears in the Gospel of Thomas: “They showed Jesus a gold coin and said to him, ‘Caesar’s men demand taxes from us.’ He said to them, ‘Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar, give God what belongs to God, and give me what is mine’” (§100; tr. from J. M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library [Leiden: Brill, 1977] 128). Hultgren (Jesus and His Adversaries, 42-44) and Patterson (Thomas and Jesus, 69) try to explain away the evidence of the secondary relationship of Thomas to the synoptic form of the tradition, especially the Lukan form. They hope to show that the form in Thomas is independent. But the condensed version of the form in Thomas, in that Jesus is not asked to decide anything, undermines the whole point of Jesus’ pronouncement. Other details, such as the silver denarius becoming a gold coin and the addition of a third clause, “give me what is mine,” smack of secondary embellishments (see Bruce, Jesus, 149; Fitzmyer, Luke 2:1290-91; Gundry, 696-97; on the meaning of the form of the saying in Thomas, see Valantasis, Gospel of Thomas, 180-81). ...”
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