Caesar

Caesar was a title assumed by the Roman emperors after Julius Caesar, used throughout the New Testament to designate the reigning emperor as the sovereign authority over Judaea without specifying individual proper names (John 19:15; Acts 17:7). The Jews were required to pay tribute to Caesar (Matthew 22:17), and Roman citizens held the right of appeal directly to his authority (Acts 25:11). The Caesars referenced in the New Testament include Augustus, under whom Jesus was born and who ordered the census bringing Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem (Luke 2:1); Tiberius, during whose reign John the Baptist and Jesus carried out their ministries (Luke 3:1); and Claudius and Nero, during whose reigns the apostolic church expanded across the empire. The famous pronouncement of Jesus, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21), established the foundational Christian teaching on the relationship between civic and divine obligation.