That Christ, while remaining in our body, did not raise all the dead, did not heal all the sick, let us believe was owing not to a lack of power, but to the time. For then he would have irradiated the whole world with the whole splendour of his power, and would have taken away the time of faith, and would have reserved nothing to the glory of his second coming. Nor indeed did he so temper the marks of his powers, that he might both manifest a token of his divinity, and bestow a most complete proof for believing, and take away the excuse of crafty unbelief — as today the centurion of whom the evangelist Luke makes mention showed by his faith and foresight. 'A certain centurion's servant,' he says, 'being sick, was ready to die, who was dear to him.' This centurion was a Roman;
but he himself was more a Christian, by a hundredfold fruit. And this man served God more than the world; and strong in human warfare, stronger in the divine, he remained in the guardianship of peace. Whose servant, being sick, was ready to die, who was dear to him. He was a servant who was valued at a price. Let us therefore inquire who is this servant that was dear to him. If the soul rules, the body serves; and to a man nothing is more precious than the body. This servant of that centurion, a precious one, sickens unto death; therefore the centurion begged that Christ alone might succour the mortal body by granting it perpetual life. 'When he had heard,' he says, 'of Jesus, he sent to him the elders of the Jews.' A Gentile sends the Jews to Christ;
and to those placed under the law, he who was without the law points out the author of the law. Let no one therefore wonder if a Gentile — that is, a Christian — either calls, or leads, or brings others to Christ. 'He sent to him the elders of the Jews, beseeching him that he would come and save his servant.' And when they had come to Jesus, they besought him earnestly, saying: 'He is worthy that thou shouldst do this for him, for he loveth our nation, and he himself hath built us a synagogue.' The Jews beg for a Gentile, who do not beg for themselves; and they do enough for the salvation of another's servant, who do nothing for the salvation of their own sons. They say: 'He is worthy that thou shouldst do this for him.' If he is worthy who hears, believes, sends to Christ:
As for the one who comes to Christ, sees, and yet does not believe—how is he not proved unworthy? 'For he loves our nation.' He loves your nation who thus makes it a suppliant before Christ; but you hate it, whom you thus render defiant against Christ. Or how does a Christian not love your nation, when in acknowledging Christ from your nation he takes up whatever belongs to your nation and exalts it to glory? 'For he loves our nation, and he himself has built us a synagogue.' You have heard that the synagogue is always cast down and lies forever in its rubble, and never rises into a heavenly edifice, unless a Christian builder has raised it up into the summit of the Church. 'Jesus,' it says, 'was going with them.' But they were not going with Jesus, since in mind they were not going with him;
nor were they with him, for those who were severed in heart only seemed joined to him in body. 'And when he was now not far off.' From whom? From the Gentiles. As greatly as the Jews were severing themselves from Christ, so Christ was being joined to the Gentiles. 'And when he was now not far off, the centurion sent friends to him.' He who before had sent Jews now sends friends, so that by so speaking he marks the Jews as enemies—as the Apostle confirms when he says, 'Enemies for your sake' (Rom. 11). While the Jews begrudge that the Gentiles have believed, they have lost whatever there was both of the Law and of grace. 'He sent friends to him.' Hear the Lord saying to the apostles: 'I will no longer call you servants, but friends' (John 15).
Just as faith advances servants into friends, so treachery reduces sons into penal servitude. 'He sent friends to him, saying: Lord, do not trouble yourself.' Why? 'For I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.' You see that Christ was rather leading the Jews than being led by the Jews, so that they might hear that in this centurion there was reverence for the Godhead, in this Gentile a cultivation of the Law, in this soldier the wages of grace, in this Roman the teaching of faith—in a pagan chill a Christian warmth, in an earthly breast a heavenly secret, and the whole knowledge of the supreme dominion amid the entire servitude of the world. 'Lord, do not trouble yourself.' This is to say: God, why do you trouble yourself in a human body? Why do you cast yourself into earthly toil? And why do you weary yourself with the length of the way?
Why do you journey from place to place, you who are wholly everywhere, and who hold and possess the whole creation within yourself? 'Lord, do not trouble yourself; I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.' Brethren, what is the roof that makes a man either worthy or renders him unworthy, whereby he either invites or repels the divine approach? Brethren, this roof is the body which covers the soul, which conceals the perception of the spirit, which veils the dwelling-place of the heart, which shuts off the freedom of the mind from the heavenly vision. Under this roof, then, the centurion judges it unworthy for Christ to enter—that is, for the divine Majesty to descend into a human body.
'I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.' But God, who—when he wills—makes what is human to be divine, and, when he deigns, transforms what belongs to our flesh into his own spirit, neither disdains to dwell in flesh nor to enter the roof of our body. 'Wherefore,' he says, 'I did not think myself worthy to come to you.' In both respects he is devout, since he both judges it unworthy for God to come to him, and knows that he himself is not worthy to draw near to him. Who enters before a judge unsummoned? Who goes in to a king unbidden? How much more does no one come to God unless he is called. 'Whom he called,' it says, 'those he also justified' (Rom. 8).
The centurion, therefore, does not shun the Lord's coming, nor refuse Christ's presence, but he acts so that it may be the grace of one who leaves room, not the rashness of one who presumes. For he suggests and instructs by a human example what God is able to do, saying: '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.' This is to say: if I, who am set under authority, by the sole command of my word make my subjects obey me, how can you, who are subject to none and to whose power all things are subject, not by your commanding word heal, send health, ordain mighty deeds? Or can you not cast off by a word what you made by a word? 'He spoke,' it says, 'and they were made;'
'he commanded, and they were created' (Ps. 148). Or are you not able to restore something out of something, you who framed all things out of nothing? 'Say, then, the word, and my boy shall be healed.' He fulfilled what the prophet sang of God: 'He sent his word, and healed them; and he rescued them from their corruption' (Ps. 106). Brethren, this centurion, in saying, 'I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof,' bears the figure of the Christian people, who judge themselves not to merit Christ's bodily presence, but by the word alone, by the message, by the mere hearing of faith, hear, believe, and behold all the Lord's mighty works in their own healing. For when he says, '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,'
he thus demonstrates the rejection of the Jews, the calling of the Gentiles, and the obedience of the Christian people. 'I say to this one'—that is, to the Jew who did not believe—'Go, and he goes'; 'and to another'—that is, to the Gentile, because he believed—'Come, and he comes'; 'and to my servant'—that is, to the Christian—'Do this, and he does it.' Let us pray, brethren, that we may deserve to be Christians not in name only, but in faith; and that what is commanded we may not merely hear, but do once heard. For as it belongs to a devout servant to have done what is bidden, so it belongs to the defiant not to have done these commands. 'Say the word, and my boy shall be healed.' When he heard this, it says, Jesus marveled. The Creator of marvels marvels; the Maker of ears, as though he knew not what he had not heard, is astonished as at something heard;
but while he marvels that a Gentile has thus believed, he reproves the unbelief of the Jews. Finally, to the crowds following him he says, rebuking the Jews who remain in death: 'Amen, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.' It is true, brethren: faith alone lives, and shall live among the Gentiles; signs and mighty works grow weary and profit nothing among the Jews.