Coins of the reign of Paul I and the gospel tale about the Caesar's denarius

This article discusses the change by Emperor Paul I of the appearance of Russian gold and most of silver coins - the refusal to mint a named portrait of the monarch and the reproduction of the inscription “not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name” (abbreviated beginning of Ps. 114:9). The disappearance of the imperial portrait from the obverses of coins was a challenge to the ideas of that time about the fundamental importance of its presence on metal money of the corresponding denomination. The indicated inscription looks like a dedication of the coin to God and, at the same time, as an explanation for the absence of the named portrait of Paul on the coin, referring us to the Gospel story about Caesar’s denarius. Paul I dialogizes his perception of this narrative, so to speak, “continues” the sacred text with his actions. However, it is possible that the conditionality of the monetary innovation of Paul I by this Gospel story was exclusively implicit in nature. Indeed, the only source that records the response of Emperor Paul himself to the placement of the inscription “not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name” on coins does not clarify the motives for this innovation. We can talk about Paul I being in a state of internal personal conflict, in which the tendency to build external socio-religious behavior as a repetition-reconstruction contradicted the internal desire for a creative perception of sacred texts. Episodic outbursts of this aspiration allow us to judge the depth of its rootedness in the nature of Paul I.