Greater Faith

Post haec autem cum venisset in Capernaum accessit ad eum centurio, rogans eum, et dicens: Domine, puer meus jacet in domo paralyticus, et male torquetur. Postquam Dominus populum docuit super montem et leprosum mundavit sub monte: post haec venit Capernauim in mysterio: post Judaeorum mundationem venit ad gentes. Et ecce centurio quidam accessit ad eum rogans. Centurio, primus fructus ex gentibus, ad cujus fidei comparitionem omnium Judaeroum fides infidelitas est inventa. Hic neques Christum audivit docentem, neque leprosum, cum mundaretur, aspexit, sed audita tantummodo sanitate leprosi, plus credidit quam audivit. Ille enim seipsum obtulit, dicens: Si vis, potes me mundare. Fidei quidem sunt haec verba, non tamen magnae, quoniam talia verba dici poterant etiam hominibus sanctis: qualis fuit Helisaeus, qui leprosum mundavit, non manibus, sed praecepto. Iste autem centurio non solum potestatis ejus virtutem confessus est, sed ipsam divinitatis ejus naturam cognovit. Non enim quasi corporalem sanctum rogavit, sed quasi Deum ubique praesentem, dicens: Dic verbo, et sanabitur puer meus. Quasi qui poterat etiam absentium infirmitatibus imperare. Erat enim iste centurio in mysterio gentium futurarum, quae neque legem aut prophetas legerant de Christo, neque ipsum Christum mirabilia facientem viderant, sed justitiam legis, quam in libris non legerant, in corde senserunt: et Christum, qum oculis non videerant, mente viderunt, ostendentes in se, quoniam Scripturae ad praejudicem peccatorum facatae sunt, non ad necessitatem sanctorum: quia rectis et fidelibus Scripturae necessariae non sunt , dicente Apostolo: Lex non est posita justo, sed injustis. Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum, Homilia XXII Source: Migne PG 56.751

After these things, when He had come to Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, beseeching Him, and saying, 'Lord, my serving boy lies paralysed in the house, and he is cruelly tormented.' 1 After the Lord taught on the mount and cleansed the leper at the bottom of it, after these things He comes to Capernaum for a mystery. After the cleansing of the Jews He comes to the Gentiles. And behold a certain centurion comes to him with an entreaty. A centurion, the first fruit of the Gentiles, in comparision to whose faith the faith of all the Jews is shown to be faithlessness. He did not hear Christ teaching, nor did he look on the leper when he was cured, he merely heard of the healing of the leper and believed more than he heard. For the leper offered himself, saying, 'If you will, make me clean,' and certainly these are the words of faith, but not of a great faith, because such words are able to be said to holy men, as it was with Elisha, who cleansed a leper, and not with his hands but with a command. 2 But this centurion not only confessed the might of Christ's power but he grasped the nature of His Divinity. For he did not ask him as a holy man, but as God who is present everywhere, saying: 'Say the word and my servant shall be healed.' As if He was able to issue commands even to the sick who are absent. This centurion was, in a mystery, the future for the Gentiles, because they neither read the law nor the prophets, nor did they see Christ performing miracles, but the righteousness of the law, which they did not read in books, was written on their hearts, 3 and Christ whom they did not see with their eyes, they saw with the mind, showing by themselves that the Scriptures were made for the judgement of sinners, not for the need of the holy, because there is no need of the Scriptures for the righteous and the holy, as the Apostle says: 'The Law was not given for the righteous man, but for the wicked.' 4 Opus Imperfectum on Matthew, from Homily 22 1 Mt 8.5-6 2 4 Kings 5 3 cf Rom 2.14-15 4 Mt 8.5-6