'... They besought Him ... saying, That he was worthy
for whom He should do this:... 6. I am not worthy that
Thou shouldest enter under my roof: 7. Wherefore
neither thought I myself worthy to come unto Thee....'
--LUKE vii. 4. 6. 7.
A Roman centurion, who could induce the elders of a Jewish village
to approach Jesus on his behalf, must have been a remarkable person.
The garrison which held down a turbulent people was not usually
likely to be much loved by them. But this man, about whom the
incident with which our texts are connected is related, was
obviously one of the people of whom that restless age had many, who
had found out that his creed was outworn, and who had been drawn to
Judaism by its lofty monotheism and its austere morality. He had
gone so far as to build a synagogue, and thereby, no doubt, incurred
the ridicule of his companions, and perhaps the suspicions of his
superiors. What would the English authorities think of an Indian
district officer that conformed to Buddhism or Brahminism, and built
a temple? That is what the Roman officials would think of our
centurion. And there were other beautiful traits in his character.
He had a servant 'that was dear to him.' It was not only the nexus
of master and servant and cash payments that bound these two
together. And very beautiful is this story, when he himself speaks
about this servant. He does not use the rough word which implies a
bondservant, and which is employed throughout the whole of the rest
of the narrative, but a much gentler one, and speaks of him as his
'boy.' So he had won the hearts of these elders so far as to make
them swallow their dislike to Jesus, and deign to go to Him with a
request which implied His powers at which at all other times they
scoffed.
Now, we owe to Luke the details which show us that there was a
double deputation to our Lord--the first which approached Him to ask
His intervention, and the second which the centurion sent when he
saw the little group coming towards his house, and a fresh gush of
awe rose in his heart. The elders said, 'He is worthy'; he said, 'I
am not worthy.' The verbal resemblance is, indeed, not so close in
the original as in our versions, for the literal rendering of the
words put into the centurion's mouth is 'not fit.' But still the
evident antithesis is preserved: the one saying expresses the
favourable view that partial outsiders took of the man, the other
gives the truer view that the man took of himself. And so, putting
away the story altogether, we may set these two verdicts side by
side, as suggesting wider lessons than those which arise from the
narrative itself.