The healing of the centurion's servant is one of the

miracles A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific lawsOne dictionary define"Miracle"as: "A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divin ...

performed by

Jesus of Nazareth Jesus ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religi ...

as related in the

Gospel of Matthew The Gospel of Matthew is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells the story of who the author believes is Israel's messiah (Christ (title), Christ), Jesus, resurrection of Jesus, his res ...

and the

Gospel of Luke The Gospel of Luke is the third of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It tells of the origins, Nativity of Jesus, birth, Ministry of Jesus, ministry, Crucifixion of Jesus, death, Resurrection of Jesus, resurrection, and Ascension of ...

(both part of the

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

biblical canon). The story is not recounted in the Gospels of either John or Mark. According to these accounts, a Roman

centurion In the Roman army during classical antiquity, a centurion (; , . ; , or ), was a commander, nominally of a century (), a military unit originally consisting of 100 legionaries. The size of the century changed over time; from the 1st century BC ...

asks Jesus for his help because his servant is ill. Jesus offers to go to the centurion's house to perform a healing, but the centurion hesitates because he understands he is not worthy Jesus should enter under his roof. He suggests that Jesus' word of authority would be sufficient in healing. Impressed, Jesus comments approvingly at the strong religious faith displayed by the soldier (despite not being a

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

) and grants the request, which results in the servant being healed the same day.

Sources

Scriptural sources

The story of the centurion appears both in the

and that of

Luke Luke may refer to: People and fictional characters * Luke (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Luke (surname), including a list of people with the name * Luke the Evangelist, author of the Gospel of Luk ...

Origins

The story of the centurion is not mentioned in the Gospel of Mark, the earliest of the four gospels. One theory is that material not in Mark but found in both Matthew and Luke may have come from a lost source known as " Q". If true then this passage would still be an anomaly as Q is believed to have been a collection of sayings of Jesus (a list of sermons and quotations) with no other contextual material; but the story of the centurion does include background detail. It would also be the only miracle story that originated in Q. One possibility is that only the dialogue was in Q, and both Matthew and Luke added the background details from a shared oral history. The basic problem is the difference between the two accounts. Since Luke does not say that the centurion himself came to Christ, but only sent to Him, first Jews, and then his friends. St.

John Chrysostom John Chrysostom (; ; – 14 September 407) was an important Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and p ...

Theophylact of Ohrid Theophylact (, ; around 1055after 1107) was a Byzantine Empire, Byzantine Archbishop of Ohrid and commentator on the Bible. He is regarded as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, commemorated on December 31st. Life Theophylact was born in the ...

, and

Euthymius Euthymius the Great (377 – 20 January 473) was an abbot in Palestine (region), Palestine. He is venerated in both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Euthymius' ''Hagiography, vita'' was written by Cyril of Skythopolis, who describe ...

, all hold that these events in Luke happened first and then last of all the centurion came to Christ. He did this "either for the sake of doing Him honour, or because of the urgency of the disease, and the imminent peril of death." St.

Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosop ...

and

Bede Bede (; ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, Bede of Jarrow, the Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable (), was an English monk, author and scholar. He was one of the most known writers during the Early Middle Ages, and his most f ...

are of the opinion that the centurion never came to Jesus but only came in the sense of sending his friends as emissaries.

John's Gospel

The

Gospel of John The Gospel of John () is the fourth of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "Book of Signs, signs" culminating in the raising of Lazarus (foreshadowing the ...

does narrate the account of Jesus healing the son of a royal official at

Capernaum Capernaum ( ; ; ) was a fishing village established during the time of the Hasmoneans, located on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. It had a population of about 1,500 in the 1st century AD. Archaeological excavations have revealed tw ...

at a distance in . Some modern commentators treat them as the same event. However, in his analysis of Matthew,

R. T. France Richard Thomas France (1938–2012), known as R. T. France or Dick France, was a New Testament scholar and Anglican cleric. He was Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, from 1989 to 1995. He also worked for the London School of Theology. ...

presents linguistic arguments against the equivalence of ''pais'' and son and considers these two separate miracles.

Merrill C. Tenney Merrill Chapin Tenney (April 16, 1904 – March 18, 1985) was an American professor of New Testament and Greek and author of several books. He was the general editor of the Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary, and served on the original translat ...

in his commentary on John and Orville Daniel in his

Gospel harmony A gospel harmony is an attempt to compile the canonical gospels of the Christian New Testament into a single account. This may take the form either of a single, merged narrative, or a tabular format with one column for each gospel, technically kn ...

also consider them to be two different incidents.

Interpretations

According to

I. Howard Marshall Ian Howard Marshall (12 January 1934 – 12 December 2015) was a Scottish New Testament scholar. He was Professor of New Testament Exegesis at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He was formerly the chair of the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblic ...

, there were no Roman forces in Galilee prior to AD 44; therefore, the soldier was probably a member of

Herod Agrippa Herod Agrippa I ( Roman name: Marcus Julius Agrippa; ), also simply known as Herod Agrippa, Agrippa I, () or Agrippa the Great, was the last king of Judea. He was a grandson of Herod the Great and the father of Herod Agrippa II, the last known k ...

's troops, which modeled Roman organization. Either way, although his nationality is not given, he is clearly a

gentile ''Gentile'' () is a word that today usually means someone who is not Jewish. Other groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, have historically used the term ''gentile'' to describe outsiders. More rarely, the term is used as a synony ...

Meaning of "servant"

Luke 7:2 and 7:10 refer to the person to be healed as (), unambiguously meaning "

slave Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

" (interpretatively tr. as "servant") but has the centurion himself call him () – which has a number of more ambiguous meanings including "boy", "child" (, ), "son" (), "slave", and "servant" (, ).

Meaning of "such faith"

Christ says "He did not find such faith in all Israel", which, according to

John McEvilly John McEvilly (1818–1902) was an Irish Roman Catholic Church clergyman who served as the Archbishop of Tuam from 1881 to 1902. He was born on 15 April 1818 in Louisburgh, a small town near Westport, County Mayo, Ireland., ''The Episcopal Su ...

implies that he was a Pagan soldier, most likely Roman. He further states that this statement must have excluded those who "from the very nature of things, and the well-known evidence of facts, were excepted". This exception would include the

Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...

, the Patriarchs and Prophets of the Old Testament, the Apostles, etc. This is clear when Jesus refers to John the Baptist, saying, "No greater arose among the born of women." (Matt 11:11) And of course he would have excluded himself.

Gnostic interpretation

In his

Against Heresies ''Against Heresies'' (Koine Greek: Ἔλεγχος καὶ ἀνατροπὴ τῆς ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως, ''Elenchos kai anatropē tēs pseudōnymou gnōseōs'', "Refutation and Overthrowal of Knowledge falsely so-called"), som ...

Irenaeus Irenaeus ( or ; ; ) was a Greeks, Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christianity, Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the development of Christian theology by oppos ...

conveys that some

Gnostics Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek: , romanized: ''gnōstikós'', Koine Greek: �nostiˈkos 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among early Christian sects. These diverse g ...

believed the story to be metaphorical, with the centurion being merely a symbol of the

demiurge In the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, the Demiurge () is an artisan-like figure responsible for fashioning and maintaining the physical universe. Various sects of Gnostics adopted the term '' ...

. According to this interpretation, the demiurge tells Jesus that he has tried all he could to save the servant (humanity) but his laws have not succeeded in healing humanity or offering it a proper means towards spiritual development. Accordingly, the demiurge urges Jesus to say a word (spread gnosis) to offer true salvation to humanity.

Homosexual interpretation

Daniel A. Helminiak, an excommunicated American Catholic priest, theologian and author of ''What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality'', states that the word , used for the servant, could have a sexual meaning. Theodore W. Jennings Jr. and

Tat-Siong Benny Liew Tat-Siong Benny Liew is an American New Testament scholar. He is the Class of 1956 Professor in New Testament Studies at the College of the Holy Cross. Biography Liew obtained his B.A. and M.A. from Olivet Nazarene University and completed a ...

, also authors of various Christian books, further write that Roman historical data about patron-client relationships and about same-sex relations among soldiers support the view that the in Matthew's account is the centurion's "boy-lover", and that the centurion, therefore, did not want Jesus to enter his house for fear perhaps that the boy would be enamoured of Jesus instead. The Roman military historian D.B. Saddington writes that while he does not exclude the possibility, the evidence the two put forward supports "neither of these interpretations".

Use in the liturgy

The statements made by the centurion are used in the Prayer of Humble Access contained in many

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...

, and other Christian

Eucharist The Eucharist ( ; from , ), also called Holy Communion, the Blessed Sacrament or the Lord's Supper, is a Christianity, Christian Rite (Christianity), rite, considered a sacrament in most churches and an Ordinance (Christianity), ordinance in ...

liturgies Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a community, communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, ...

. His statements are also used as part of the Communion rite in the

Roman Rite The Roman Rite () is the most common ritual family for performing the ecclesiastical services of the Latin Church, the largest of the ''sui iuris'' particular churches that comprise the Catholic Church. The Roman Rite governs Rite (Christianity) ...

of the Catholic Church.

References

{{Authority control LGBTQ and Christianity Miracles of Jesus Supernatural healing Matthew 8 Military history of the Roman Empire Works about servants