The Roman centurion of Capernaum
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A respectful soldier of the population of Capernaum, he had the city's synagogue built.[1]
Jesus is not a stranger to him: a month ago, an officer of King Herod went to Cana to obtain from Jesus the healing of his son.[2] This distant healing caused a great stir in the town.[3]
The centurion himself, on a surveillance mission, slipped into the crowd listening to the Sermon on the Mount. He was touched by the teaching given.[4]
He asks Jesus to heal his servant in an act of faith that remains famous: "Just say the word...":[5]
"I have a servant who is ill, Lord. He is lying in my house, in his bed, paralyzed by a disease of the bones and he suffers dreadfully. Our doctors cannot cure him. Your doctors refuse to come. I invited them to come because it is a disease caused by the corrupt air of this area and they know how to cure it with the herbs of the feversome soil of the shore where the water stagnates before being absorbed by the sand of the sea. I am very sorry because he is a faithful servant.»
«I will come and cure him.»
«No, my Lord. I am not asking You to go to all that trouble. I am a heathen, filth, as far as you are concerned. If the Jewish doctors are afraid of becoming contaminated by coming to my house, all the more reason it would contaminate You, Who are divine. I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof, but if You say only one word here, my servant will be cured because You rule over everything. Now if I, who am subject to my authorities, the first being Caesar, for whom I must act, think and behave as I am told, can in turn order soldiers under me, and if I say to one: “Go” to another: “Come” and to a servant: “Do that”, the first one will go where I send him, the other will come because I call him, and the third will do what I tell him, You, as You are Who You are, will be immediately obeyed by the disease, which will vanish.»" [...][6]
Jesus (...) turns smiling towards the centurion:
"«Go ahead and I will come after you.»
But the centurion says once again: «No, my Lord, I have told You: it would be a great honour if You entered under my roof, but I do not deserve so much; say only one word and my servant will be cured.»
«Let it be so. Go and have faith. This very moment the fever is leaving him and life is flowing back into his limbs. Endeavour to get Life to come also to your soul. Go.»
The centurion salutes, then bows and goes away.
Jesus watches him go away, then turns to the people present and says: «I solemnly tell you that I did not find so much faith in Israel. Oh! It is quite true! [...]"[7]
Later, under the pretext of maintaining order, he discreetly listens to Jesus teaching in the synagogue.[8]
During a teaching by Jesus in this same synagogue, Eli, a hostile Pharisee whose grandson he had saved, picks a quarrel and provokes an uproar. The centurion intervenes:
"You have hundreds of [Rabbis], and they are all wicked teachers. Here is the only virtuous one. I order you to go out."[9]
As the Pharisee does not comply quickly enough, he wants to expel him from the synagogue and report to the Proconsul. The threat is only canceled by Jesus’ intervention.[10]
His name
Anonymous in the Gospel, as in the Maria Valtorta's work.
Where is he mentioned in the work?
More about this character
A centurion commands a century (100 men), itself grouped into a maniple (2x100 = 200 men) itself grouped into a cohort (3x2x100 = 600 men) forming finally a legion (10x3x2x100 = 6,000 men).
In his book, Abbé Maistre cites Flavius Lucius Dexter, a 4th-century historian and friend of Saint Jerome: this centurion would be an Andalusian from Malaga, named Gaius Cornelius. Returning to Spain, he would have been instructed by James the Greater.[11]
The information is taken up by Bishop Jean-Joseph Gaume in his Evangelical Biographies. [12]
A tradition gives him as the father of the centurion Cornelius "of the Italian cohort", baptized in Caesarea by Peter.[13]
Notes and references
- ↑ Luke 7:5
- ↑ John 4:46-53.
- ↑ GRM 151.1
- ↑ GRM 171.1
- ↑ Matthew 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10.
- ↑ GRM 177.2
- ↑ GRM 177.3-4.
- ↑ GRM 269.4
- ↑ GRM 447.4.
- ↑ GRM 447.6-7
- ↑ Life of Illustrious Men of the Primitive Church, 1874, page 239.
- ↑ 1881 - Volume 1 page 521.
- ↑ Acts 10:1-48