Two Neglected Aspects of the Centurion’s Slave Pericope

How to cite this article: JP Staff Writer, “Two Neglected Aspects of the Centurion’s Slave Pericope,” Jerusalem Perspective (2024) [https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/28673/].

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Scholars have given a great deal of attention to various aspects of the story of the military officer who pleaded with Jesus on behalf of his ailing “boy.” Much of the discussion focuses on the identities of the characters involved and the nature of their relationship. It is because the story occurs with disparate details in two very different versions in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (Matt. 8:5-13 ∥ Luke 7:2-10) and in a more distant parallel to the story in the Gospel of John (John 4:46-54) that so much discussion occurs. Thus, whereas Matthew and Luke describe the petitioner as a ἑκατόνταρχος/ἑκατοντάρχης (hekatontarchos/hekatontarchēs, “commander of a hundred”), a term that is equivalent to the Latin centurio (“centurion”) but could also be used for non-Roman officers, the Johannine parallel refers to the petitioner as a βασιλικός (basilikos, “royal official”). These details could be reconciled by supposing that the petitioner was a military officer who served in the private army of Herod Antipas,^[1] who ruled over the Galilee in the time of Jesus. But should these details be reconciled? Or was the identity of the petitioner intentionally changed in the Johannine or the synoptic sources for apologetic purposes?^[2] The Gospels also use different terms to describe the ailing person. In Matthew he is called a παῖς (pais, “boy,” “slave boy”), while in Luke he is called a δοῦλος (doulos, “slave”), and John’s Gospel identifies the sick person as the petitioner’s υἱός (huios, “son”). Again, these seemingly conflicting details could be reconciled by supposing that in the earliest version of the story the petitioner referred to the ailing individual as his “boy,” which Luke (or his source) mistakenly interpreted as meaning his “slave,” but which John (or his source) correctly interpreted as meaning his “son.”^[3] Others have supposed that “boy” should not be taken to mean “son” or “slave,” but should be understood as referring instead to the junior sexual partner in a relationship between the petitioner and a youth who might or might not be the petitioner’s slave.^[4] But once again we are confronted with the legitimacy of the harmonizing approach to the story. Are interpreters justified in interpreting Matthew’s “boy” in light of John’s “son” or Luke’s “slave”? Or might one of the evangelists (or their sources) have deliberately changed the identity of the ailing person for some reason?

Interesting as such questions are, these aspects of the story are minor in comparison with the roles ritual purity and Roman imperialism play in the Lukan and Matthean versions of the pericope. While the exact identity of the petitioner, the ailing person, and the nature of their relationship are important, they are not fundamental to a coherent understanding of the pericope. On the other hand, understanding the dynamics of ritual purity and Roman imperialism brings clarity to the otherwise unintelligible statements the centurion makes to Jesus. How prominent a role these inherently Jewish concerns play in the different versions of the story versus how much these concerns have receded into the background is also a useful index of how close or far each version of the story is to Jesus’ Second-Temple Jewish cultural context, since the importance of these issues diminished as the church became increasingly Gentile in composition. Because Gentiles were not bound by the scriptural prescriptions of Levitical purity, Gentile believers tended not to understand the dynamics of ritual purity and to disregard their importance. Likewise, the political aspects of Jesus’ message and his story were downplayed or ignored by Gentile believers for whom the tensions between the Jews living in their ancient homeland and their Roman (or Roman instated) overlords were irrelevant. Therefore, the presence and prominence of these themes in the versions of the Centurion’s Slave pericope are likely to be a reliable measure of each version’s authenticity.

Conclusion

The interactions described in Centurion’s Slave cannot adequately be understood without an appreciation for the roles ritual purity and Roman imperialism play in the story. The degree to which the issues of ritual purity and Roman imperialism are portrayed accurately and realistically in the Lukan and Matthean versions of the story, as well as in the more distant Johannine parallel, is a reliable measure of each version’s authenticity. It is Luke’s version of Centurion’s Slave that most accurately represents the ritual purity concerns of the actors and that portrays most realistically how the dynamics of Roman imperialism affected the various actors in the story.

• ^[1] Scholars who identify the petitioner as an officer in Antipas’ private army include Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Luke (ICC; 5th ed.; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1922 [orig. pub. 1896]), 194; Alexander Balmain Bruce, The Synoptic Gospels (6th ed.; Expositors Greek Testament; London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910 [orig. pub. 1897]), 138, 510; H. van der Loos, The Miracles of Jesus (Leiden: Brill, 1965), 533; I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 279; A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Law and Roman Society in the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1978, 1992), 123-124; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke (2 vols.: AB 28A and 28B; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981, 1985), 1:651; Ulrich Luz, Matthew: Hermeneia—A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (3 vols.; trans. James E. Crouch [Das Evangelium nach Matthäus, 1985-2002]; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001, 2005, 2007), 1:9-10; John Nolland, Luke (3 vols.: WBC 35A-35C; Dallas: Word Books, 1989, 1993, 1993), 1:316; François Bovon, Luke: Hermeneia—A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (3 vols.; trans. Donald S. Deer [Evangelium nach Lukas, 1989-2009]; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002, 2013, 2012), 1:259-260, esp. 259 n. 6; John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew (5 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1991-2016), 2:720-721; Michael Wolter, The Gospel According to Luke (2 vols.; trans. Wayne Coppins and Christoph Heilig; Waco, Tex.: Baylor, 2016-2017), 1:293; R. Alan Culpepper, Matthew: A Commentary (New Testament Library; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2022), 169; Christopher B. Zeichmann, Queer Readings of the Centurion at Capernaum: Their History and Politics (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2022), 171, 197-201, 249. ↩
• ^[2] For the sake of promoting the Gentile mission a redactor of the pre-synoptic tradition could have identified the petitioner as a centurion in order to more clearly indicate his Gentile status. On the other hand, a redactor of the Johannine tradition could have suppressed the petitioner’s non-Jewish ethnicity because he was opposed to the Gentile mission. ↩
• ^[3] Cf. Thomas Walter Manson, The Sayings of Jesus as Recorded in the Gospels According to St. Matthew and St. Luke (London: SCM Press, 1957; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979 [orig. pub. 1937]), 64; C. H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 190 n. 2; Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray et al.; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977 [Das Evangelium des Johannes, 1964]), 205 n. 1; Luz, Matthew, 2:10. ↩
• ^[4] For an overview of the scholarship on this issue, see Zeichmann, Queer Readings of the Centurion at Capernaum. ↩