You are to hear today, brethren, how a centurion of a Roman cohort became a leader of the Christian warfare; and rightly, because he began to teach before he believed. 'Jesus,' it says, 'came to Capernaum, and a centurion approached him, beseeching and saying: Lord, my servant lies at home paralyzed and is grievously tormented. And Jesus said to him: I will come and heal him. And the centurion answering said: Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed: for I too am a man set under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say to this one, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to my servant, Do this, and he does it' (Matthew 8:5).
You see that the centurion, before he entered upon the office of discipleship, had obtained the place of a teacher. For he offers a pattern of asking, he gives a norm of believing; he opens up the causes of faith; he commends examples of the virtues — he who had not yet entered upon the discipline of the Christian school. 'A centurion approached him, beseeching him.' This is to be wise, not merely to ask. 'My servant lies at home.' He pleads his servant's cause as though a master: truly a centurion, who exchanged earthly wages for the hundredfold fruit of heaven, and raised the servitude of worldly warfare into divine dignity. 'Lord, my servant lies at home.' He who calls him Lord, faithfully confesses his own servitude. And how did this centurion, who thus acknowledges the Lord, dare to profess him his own servant;
as though not knowing that a servant's property belongs to the Master? Or is he ignorant of common things, who teaches things so secret, so profound? 'My servant.' 'I call him mine because he lies sick: if he were yours, Lord, he would not lie thus.' The prophet proves this when he says: 'Behold now, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand in the house of the Lord' (Psalm 133:1). 'Who stand,' he says, 'not who lie'; your servants stand, the servants of men lie. 'My servant who lies — that he may be yours, let him rise: mine, because paralyzed; that he may be yours, let him now be healed. Mine, because grievously tormented; that he may be yours, let him now be no longer in punishment. Lord, it does not befit your servants to lie under evils; the punishment of your servants is your own injury; the power of evils ought not to possess your servants;'
Your servants, even though they suffer evils, do not suffer them unto punishment, but they undergo them unto crowns. Adversities are for them not the occasion of constraint, but the cause of victory. They are servants of men who suffer evils unwillingly, because in the helplessness of their masters they can find no relief. But you, O Lord, whom the powers serve, whom cures obey, whom health itself heeds, how will you reckon your servant, whom you behold to be the servant of so great diseases? Your goodness toward the wicked is well known; even the impious confess your compassion; strangers proclaim aloud your mercy. Should I not call this man yours, whom, as he lies prostrate, your kindness does not fail to seek out? He lies in the house, and is grievously tormented.
Hence it is that the greatness of the servant's suffering does not permit him to bring the man forth and to present him to you, lest the household affliction, publicly displayed, become both an occasion of grief and of shame. The centurion moved the Judge by pleading things so great and so weighty; and he moved him in such a way that he brought the Lord of heaven himself to be willing to go to his servant. 'I,' says Christ, 'will come and heal him.' Brethren, the centurion did not draw the Author of compassion to compassion, nor did he compel Christ to go to that for which Christ had already come: rather the centurion is taught to feel and to understand more fully why Christ came to a servant in the form of a servant, why God came to man in a man;
namely, that he might raise up those who lay fallen, lift up the crushed, loose the fettered, and that he himself, the most merciful bearer of his own work, might carry those whom now no one could either bring or present. But now let us hear what the centurion answered: 'Lord,' he says, 'I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.' He gave a fitting reply out of humility, and marked him to be the Lord by a singular awe, while he feared to lead him into the house of his soul, into the secret place of his heart, under the roof of his conscience, into the inner chamber of his mind, in which the household of thoughts dwells disordered and confused; nor does it permit the hall of the human breast to remain in the silence of purity without the din of vices. Therefore out of reverence for the Master he answered: 'Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.'
Hence it is that Peter, when he recognized Christ to be the Author of all things, cried out saying: 'Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinner' (Luke 5). Just so Peter begs him to depart from himself, in the same manner as the centurion, in his supplication, begs him not to come to himself; for each acts lest the unworthiness of the host should remain an injury to the guest. 'I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.' This would be well spoken before God entered the dwelling of our flesh: but now, why does the centurion thus forbid Christ to enter his roof, whom he sees to be already remaining wholly within the roof of his body? Brethren, the centurion already saw in Christ the form of his own body, but he did not see in him the passions of his body. Christ was born in the flesh, but he was born of the Holy Spirit:
he received the lodging of flesh, but in the court of a Virgin, so that there might be both the truth of a human body, and that he might have nothing of the defilement of a human body. Rightly then does the centurion judge his own roof unworthy of Christ, because Christ was dwelling under the singular roof of our body: according to that word of the prophet, 'I have watched, and am become as a sparrow alone upon the housetop' (Ps. 101:8). 'But only say the word, and my servant shall be healed.' This centurion, though he was without the Law, did nothing without law. He says: 'Only say the word.' Because it had been said, 'He spoke, and they were made' (Ps. 48:5). And if all things were made perfect by his word, how should a single infirmity not be cured by his word alone? 'Only say the word'—and without the word which is spoken, what is there?
But this man asks for a word, not from the practice of speaking, but from the power of accomplishing; a word of which it is said: 'He sent his word, and healed them' (Ps. 106:20). 'Only say the word.' Because this man believed that in the word all the powers abide. Your word, O Lord, is health; your word is life; when your word approaches, straightway from thence pain flees, sickness soon withdraws; the word by which Peter, when he let down his nets, took a multitude of fishes, without which he endured a night of ignorance, and the fisherman, watching through the night, found no fruit. 'Lord,' he says, 'having toiled all night, we have taken nothing; but at your word I will let down the nets' (Luke 5).
And as though it did not suffice that he had dealt with the word, that what he asks can be accomplished by a word, he confirms it with facts, he commends it by example. 'For I too am a man set under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say to this one, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to my servant, Do this, and he does it.' 'For I too am a man.' This is to say: You are God set in authority. This is: You are power itself, the very authority. 'Having soldiers under me.' This is: You have the powers. 'And I say to this one, Go, and he goes.' This is: Say to the infirmity, Go, and it goes. 'To another, Come, and he comes.' This is: Say to health, Come, and it comes. 'And to my servant, Do this, and he does it.' That servant of mine shall be both mine and your servant, when he has received his health. Let him hear—what shall he hear? 'You are made whole; now sin no more' (John
5); let him do righteousness, that he may be freed from the paralysis of all sins, and may be able to sing with the prophet: 'Return, O my soul, unto your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you—for he has delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from falling. I will please the Lord in the land of the living' (Ps. 114:7-9). Brethren, let him who desires to attain to the hundredfold fruit imitate the centurion. Let us not then lightly pass over the prudence of this centurion; today let what has been said about him suffice: for the mystery is very great, whereby a Gentile is set forth as a figure. That Christ crosses the seas, that he traverses places, is not a matter of human desire, but is the cause of human salvation.
Christ walks, not that he might see places, but that he might find men who had perished through various misfortunes. He who had made the places, what new thing should he see in places? Or what could be absent to him who was everywhere present? As a man he was seen in places, but as God he saw everywhere; and indeed he saw, and saw the despairing, to whom he was going to bestow divine remedies; he was going to the care of those for whom human care had already failed, just as has been shown in today's reading. 'When Jesus,' it says, 'had come across the strait into the region of the Gerasenes, there met him two men having demons, coming out of the tombs, exceedingly fierce, so that no one could pass by that way' (Matt.
8). It pleased the Lord to have known and seen what of evil, what of peril, was held for those men in that place, and therefore to have gone there, so that thus he might succor the despairing, the afflicted, the wretched. 'There met him two having demons, coming out of the tombs.' In the tombs the authors of death had made their seat. Observe what savagery, what fury, what rabid madness of the demons toward the human race: even the brief span of men they cannot endure; they are not content that men should die, but they desire to bury men alive; they consign them to sepulchres, that they may lead men back into the graves: they feed on corpses, they fatten on rottenness, they take delight in stench—those for whom all pleasure is that men should perish.
But let us perceive what they contrive by their frauds, what they scheme by their evils, whose cruelty holds no measure even in the open. What do these do when they flaunt riches, but that they may sow avarice? That they may implant pride, they set forth pomp. They vend singularity, that they may exclude what belongs to fellowship. That they may nourish anger, they color pretexts. That they may violate piety, they give complaints to the affections. They feign philosophy, that they may make men know nothing by seeking more. They fashion many gods, that the God who is one and true may be unknown. 'There met him two, having demons.' When it signifies that many demons came together against two men, it signifies that a whole legion came against one:
this he does for this reason, that he may teach that demons are to be guarded against, not to be feared; and at the same time he shows how singular is the power of Christ, in that by the sole lordship of Christ the whole multitude of demons is put to flight. 'There met him two, having demons.' They came exhibited, not willing; at the command of him who bade them, not by their own daring; they were dragged unwilling, not running of their own accord. Finally, at the presence of Christ, men come out of the tombs, and in turn they carry off captive those by whom they had been made captive; they set to punishment those by whose torments they had been tormented; they fit to sentence those by whom they had already been consigned to the graves. 'There met him two having demons, exceedingly fierce, so that no one could pass by that way.'
You see that the demons had blocked the way to those coming to Christ, had denied passage. For this is the concern of the demons, that men should not be able to find a return to God. For they cannot possess men in any other way, unless they draw them away from fellowship with their Author. 'So that no one could pass by that way.' Hence it is that Christ was made the way. 'So that no one could pass by that way'—by that way, not by this. 'I am,' he says, 'the way' (John 14). So that the demons' power might not avail to hinder those coming to the way by the way, to God by God: for one cannot come to God except through God. But now let us hear what the demons cried out. 'What have we to do with you, Son of God?' This is to say: Author of life, what have you to do with the dead?
Dweller of heaven, what have you to do with sepulchres? Fragrance of paradise, what have you to do with stench? Those whom you cast down from heaven, whom you shut out of paradise, from whom you now take away cities, to whom you deny habitable regions—permit us to inhabit at least the tombs: and if we are worthy of so great a persecution, you are not worthy of so great an injury. 'What have we to do with you?' What? What the judge has to do with the accused, what the avenger with the condemned, what the king with the deserter. 'What have we to do with you, Son of God?' This the plunderers say to the possessor, to the lord; they hold the spoils, they carry off the plunder, and they ask what he has to do with them who demands back his own. 'What have we to do with you, Son of God?' What? That you may give back the men, that you may restore the world to its Author;
and that, at the coming of the Creator, you may know that nothing further is permitted to you among the creatures. 'What have we to do with you, Son of God? Have you come before the time to torment us?' 'What have we to do with you?' And what have you to do with men? 'What have we to do with you, Son of God?' They acknowledge, they acknowledge God; they confess him the Judge; they cry that they owe judgment, and they prescribe concerning the time. 'What have we to do with you, Son of God? Have you come before the time to torment us?' They set time in opposition to the Author of times. 'Have you come before the time to torment us?' Thus they complain of time, as though they themselves had made it together with time, in that they buried the living in sepulchres. 'Have you come before the time to torment us?' Immature cruelty cuts short time, forestalls death, buries the living:
and it complains of time, as though it ought unjustly to have before the time what it desires, and not to be punished as soon as its malice has arisen: the hardened wickedness of the age pleads about time. To the wicked, patience is brief; to the good, vengeance is slow; what is long to the injured is narrow to the injurers. 'There was,' it says, 'not far from them a herd of many swine feeding. And the demons besought him, saying: If you cast us out, send us into the herd of swine.' Unworthy servitude begs for unworthy things. 'Send us into the herd of swine.' From the tombs, wickedness prays to be sent into swine, because it knows not how to lose its stench, but only to change it. 'Send us into the herd of swine.' They ask for filth, though rushing down from heaven; after the ethereal habitations they seek the wallowing-places of swine.
'Send us into the herd of swine.' A herd is sent into a herd, that the multitude of demons might be disclosed: so that it might appear that two men had borne that which the whole number of swine could not endure. He said to them, 'Go.' And they, going out, went into the swine; and behold, the whole herd rushed headlong down the steep into the sea, and they perished in the waters. The vile beasts are handed over not according to the will of the demons, but that by such a deed it might become known how they rage against men, how they seek the deaths of men—they who thus sought after swine that they might destroy them. The demons burn to destroy everything that exists, is moved, is stirred, lives—not to possess it. Therefore, lest any man presume to become such, there is against the human race an ancient enmity, a fixed wrath, a determined malice.
Demons do not yield unless bound, they cannot injure unless bidden. Therefore the vile beasts are handed over, that it might shine forth to the demons that nothing is permitted to them against men, to whom it was commanded concerning the swine, that they might be permitted. We therefore either by our vices cause them to receive the power of harming, or by our virtues, with Christ triumphing, we tread upon the necks of the demons subjected to us.