That's the problem with very thick books, you just can't remember everything ...

The Bible forbids being rich so I'm cool with that lol wealth tax baby thanks Jesus!!!

The person who took out the mortgage, though that wasn't the term used back then.

Christians banned it for most of the history of Christianity. Starting in the late Middle Ages, the way they'd game the system was by having Jews do the lending at interest, which they were OK doing as long as it was the goyim on the receiving end. Some of the Italian city-states also started doing interest-bearing loans around that time. Then, when Protestantism started, everyone got into the game.

Islam forbids it too. So they've developed slightly different financial mechanisms which in most regards work similarly to interest. The big difference is that lenders have more skin in the game. And for that reason, most Muslim countries that actually ban interest (many ignore the ban) have a problem with systematic underinvestment.

And the meaning in that passage is revealed by the questions: what does Caesar own? And what does God own?

Starting from the end: God owns everything. Now what? It was a veiled subversive message.

Most of the other passages about submitting to earthly authorities are in St Paul. It's one of the many ways he was more conserative than JC.

Well, yeah, but those guys wear towels on their heads instead of red baseball hats, so it's entirely different.

They have come up with some convoluted bullshit interpretations to nullify it. "Duh, the Eye of the Needle was the name of a gate in Jerusalem." A story that traces back to some late-medieval donor-friendly commentator, who pulled it out of his monastic ass.

I did not know any of that history, so thank you for sharing. Fascinating stuff.