Annotation LXXVI

”Therefore the sons are free.” — Matthew 17:26

Whether Christians ought to pay tributes to their [own] princes.

Augustine, in the book of Evangelical Questions, question 23, expounds this passage thus: “What he said — ‘Therefore the sons are free’ — is to be understood [thus]: that in every kingdom the sons of the kingdom are free, that is, are not subject to tax. Much more, then, ought the sons of that kingdom, under which are all the kingdoms of the earth, to be free in any earthly kingdom [whatsoever].” Erasmus noted this passage as seemingly flattering those who think that no Christian owes taxes to his princes — on the ground that all Christians are sons of the kingdom, and all sons of the kingdom are free. I judge Augustine’s exposition to be mystical, and that in it the matter treated is the tribute of carnal and diabolical servitude (from which the sons of the kingdom, called into the liberty of the spirit, wherever they live, ought to be free) — and not [the tribute] of external and political [nature], which, according to the precept of Paul and of our Savior, must be paid to princes. For the liberty of Christ does not free the sons of the evangelical kingdom from external debts, but from those interior debts, from which we daily ask to be absolved, saying, “Forgive us our debts.”