Sometimes they rest on assumptions which, to say the least, are not grounded on evidence.] But we may as well note, that the circumstance, that the event is passed over by St. Mark, militates against the favourite modern theory of the Gospels being derived from an original tradition (what is called the 'original Mark,' Ur-Marcus'). [2 Godet has some excellent remarks on this point.]
If we keep in view the historical object of St. Matthew, as primarily addressing himself to Jewish, while St. Luke wrote more especially for Gentile readers, we arrive, at least, at one remarkable outcome of the variations in their narratives. Strange to say, the Judaean Gospel gives the pro-Gentile, the Gentile narrative the pro-Jewish, presentation of the event. Thus, in St. Matthew the history is throughout sketched as personal and direct dealing with the heathen Centurion on the part of Christ, while in the Gentile narrative of St. Luke the dealing with the heathen is throughout indirect, by the intervention of Jews, and on the ground of the Centurion's spiritual sympathy with Israel. Again, St. Matthew quotes the saying of the Lord which holds out to the faith of Gentiles a blessed equality with Israel in the great hope of the future, while it puts aside the mere claim of Israel after the flesh, and dooms Israel to certain judgment. On the other hand, St. Luke omits all this. A strange inversion it might seem, that the Judaean Gospel should contain what the Gentile account omits, except for this, that St. Matthew argues with his countrymen the real standing of the Gentiles, while St. Luke pleads with the Gentiles for sympathy and love with Jewish modes of thinking. The one is not only an exposition, but a justification, of the event as against Israel; the other an Eirenicon, as well as a touching representation of the plea of the younger with his elder brother at the door of the Father's House.
But the fundamental truth in both accounts is the same; nor is it just to say that in the narrative the Gentiles are preferred before Israel. So far from this, their faith is only put on an equality with that of believing Israel. It is not Israel, but Israel's fleshly claims and unbelief, that are rejected; and Gentile faith occupies, not a new position outside Israel, but shares with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the fulfilment of the promise made to their faith. Thus we have here the widest Jewish universalism, the true interpretation of Israel's hope; and this, even by the admission of our opponents, [1 So notably Keim.] not as a later addition, but as forming part of Christ's original teaching. But if so, it revives, only in accentuated manner, the question: Whence this essential difference between the teaching of Christ on this subject, and that of contemporary Rabbinism. Yet another point may be gained from the admissions of negative criticism, at least on
the part of its more thoughtful representatives. Keim is obliged to acknowledge the authenticity of the narrative. It is immaterial here which 'recension' of it may be regarded as the original. The Christ did say what the Gospels represent! But Strauss has shown, that in such case any natural or semi-natural explanation of the healing is impossible. Accordingly, the Trilemma' left is: either Christ was really what the Gospels represent Him, or He was a daring enthusiast, or (saddest of all) He must be regarded as a conscious impostor. If either of the two last alternatives were adopted, it would, in the first instance, be necessary to point out some ground for the claim of such power on the part of Jesus. What could have prompted Him to do so? Old Testament precedent there was none; certainly not in the cure of Naaman by Elisha. [2 The differences have been well marked by Keim.] And Rabbinic parallelism there was none. For, although a sudden cure, and at a distance, is related in connection with a Rabbi, [a Ber. 34 b.] all the circumstances are absolutely different. In the Jewish story recourse was, indeed, had to a Rabbi; but for prayer that the sick might be healed of God, not for actual healing by the Rabbi. Having prayed, the Rabbi informed the messengers who had come to implore his help, that the fever had left the sick. But when asked by them whether he claimed to be a prophet, he expressly repudiated any prophetic knowledge, far more any supernatural power of healing, and explained that liberty in prayer always indicated to him that his prayer had been answered. All analogy thus failing, the only explanation left to negative criticism, in view of the admitted authenticity of the narrative, is, that the cure was the result of the psychical influence of the Centurion's faith and of that of his servant. But what, in that case, of the words which Jesus admittedly spoke? Can we, as some would have it, rationally account for their use by the circumstance that Jesus had had experience of such psychical influences on disease? or that Christ's words were, so to speak, only an affirmation of the Centurion's faith, something between a 'benedictory wish' and an act? Surely, suggestions like these carry their own refutation.
Apart, then, from explanations which have been shown untenable, what is the impression left on our minds of an event, the record of which is admitted to be authentic? The heathen Centurion is a real historical personage. He was captain of the troop quartered in Capernaum, and in the service of Herod Antipas. We know that such troops were chiefly recruited from Samaritans and Gentiles of Caesarea. [a Jos. Ant. xix. 9. 1, 2.] Nor is there the slightest evidence that this Centurion was a 'proselyte of righteousness.' The accounts both in St. Matthew and in St. Luke are incompatible with this idea. A 'proselyte of righteousness' could have had no reason for not approaching Christ directly, nor would he have spoken of himself as 'unfit' that Christ should come under his roof. But such language quite accorded with Jewish notions of a Gentile, since the houses of Gentiles were considered as defiled, and as defiling those who entered them, [b Ohal xxviii. 7.] On the other hand, the 'proselytes of righteousness' were in all respects equal to Jews, so that the words of Christ concerning Jews and Gentiles, as reported by St. Matthew, would not have been applicable to them. The Centurion was simply one who had learned to love Israel and to reverence Israel's God; one who, not only in his official position, but from love and reverence, had built that Synagogue, of which, strangely enough, now after eighteen centuries, the remains, [1 Comp. Warren, Recovery of Jerusalem, p. 385 &c] in their rich and elaborate carvings of cornices and entablatures, of capitals and niches, show with what liberal hand he had dealt his votive offerings.
We know too little of the history of the man, to judge what earlier impulses had led him to such reverence for Israel's God. There might have been something to incline him towards it in his early upbringing, perhaps in Caesarea; or in his family relationships; perhaps in that very servant
(possibly a Jew) whose implicit obedience to his master seems in part to have led him up to faith in analogous submission of all things to the behests of Christ. [St. Luke vii. 8, last clause] The circumstances, the times, the place, the very position of the man, make such suppositions rational, event suggested them. In that case, his whole bearing would be consistent with itself, and with what we know of the views and feelings of the time. In the place where the son of his fellowofficial at the Court of Herod had been healed by the Word of Jesus, spoken at a distance, [St. John iv. 46-53] in the Capernaum which was the home of Jesus and the scene of so many miracles, it was only what we might expect, that in such case he should turn to Jesus and ask His help. Quiet consistent with his character is the straightforwardness of his expectancy, characteristically illustrated by his military experience, what Bengel designates as the wisdom of his faith beautifully shining out in the bluffness of the soldier. When he had learned to own Israel's God, and to believe in the absolute unlimited power of Jesus, no such difficulties would come to him, nor, assuredly, such cavils rise, as in the minds of the Scribes, or even of the Jewish laity. Nor is it even necessary to suppose that, in his unlimited faith in Jesus, the Centurion had distinct apprehension of His essential Divinity. In general, it holds true, that, throughout the Evangelic history, belief in the Divinity of our Lord was the outcome of experience of His Person and Work, not the condition and postulate of it, as is the case since the Pentecostal descent of the Holy Ghost and His indwelling in the Church.
In view of these facts, the question with the Centurion would be: not, Could Jesus heal his servant, but, Would He do so? And again, this other specifically: Since, so far as he knew, no application from any in Israel, be it even publican or sinner, had been doomed to disappointment,would he, as a Gentile, be barred from share in this blessing? was he 'unworthy,' or, rather, 'unfit' for it? Thus this history presents a crucial question, not only as regarded the character of Christ's work, but the relation to it of the Gentile world. Quiet consist with this, nay, its necessary outcome, were the scruples of the Centurion to make direct, personal application to Jesus. In measure as he reverenced Jesus, would these scruples, from his own standpoint, increase. As the houses of Gentiles were 'unclean,' [c Ohal xviii. 7] entrance. Into them, and still more familar fellowship, would 'defile.' The Centurion must have known this; and the higher he placed Jesus on the pinnacle of Judaism, the more natural was it for him to communicate with Christ through the elders of the Jews, and not to expect the Personal Persence of the Master, even if the application to him were attended with success. And here it is important (for the criticism of this history) to mark that, alike in the view of the Centurion, and even in that of the Jewish elders whop under-took his commission, Jesus as yet occupied the purely Jewish stand-point.
Closely considered, whatever verbal differences, there is not any real discrepancy in this respect between the Judaean presentation of the event in St. Matthew and the fuller Gentile account of it by St. Luke. From both narratives are led to infer that the house of the Centurion was not in Capernaum itself, but in its immediate neighbourhood, probably on the road to Tiberias. And so in St. Matt. viii. 7, we read the words of our Saviour when consenting: 'I, having come, will heal him;' just as in St. Luke's narrative a space of time intervenes, in which intimation is conveyed to the Centurion, when he sends 'friends' to arrest Christ's actual coming into his house, [a
