Difference between revisions of "Centurion's Servant"

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*ANCIENT SOURCES: see [[Centurion's Servant (sources)]]
#REDIRECT [[:Category:Centurion's Servant (subject)]]
*LIST OF SCHOLARLY AND FICTIONAL WORKS: see [[:Category:Centurion's Servant (subject)]]


The ''' Centurion's Servant ''' was one of the [[Miracles of Jesus]], according to the Gospels of Matthew (8:5-13) and Luke (7:1-10) and with different details, John (4:46-54).
==Overview==
This is one of the few miracle stories coming from the earliest Christian tradition (Q Gospel?), to deal with a Gentile. At [[Capernaum]] a Roman centurion asks Jesus to heal his "boy/servant" (''pais'', Matthew)" or "servant" (''doulos'', Luke). The episode offers Jesus the opportunity to explicitly praise the faith of a Gentile and foretell their future conversion to the Church.
In Matthew the Roman centurion approaches Jesus directly. Luke recognized the difficulty of such a close encounter; in his account, there is no direct relationship between Jesus and the centurion, as the conversation was mediated by some "Jewish elders" and "friends."  Luke also stresses that the centurion was a ''God-fearer'' and was well known by the local Jewish population for his "piety." The narrative is more plausible; however it remains very unlikely that a Roman centurion lived at the Jewish village of [[Capernaum]] 
John offers a less controversial (and more primitive?) version of the story. It was not a Roman centurion but a (Jewish?) royal official who at [[Cana]] interceded for his "son" (''uios''/''pais'') who laid ill in [[Capernaum]].
The two narratives are too similar to assume that they referred to two different miracle stories. It is more likely that the original reference to a Jewish "royal official" (of king [[Herod Antipas]]) could be mistaken for a "Roman centurion" while his "son" became one of the Centurion's slaves. In its metamorphosis the story offered to Q (and then Matthew and Luke) the opportunity to relate Jesus to Gentiles and offer a justification for the Christian preaching to Gentiles.
==The Centurion's Servant in ancient sources==
==The Centurion's Servant in scholarship==
==The Centurion's Servant in literature and the arts==
==External links==
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healing_the_Centurion%27s_servant Wikipedia]


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Latest revision as of 13:23, 23 June 2012

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