Heck, even the centurion himself knew what that meant, which is why he sent the elders from the synagogue in Capernaum to speak on his behalf. Luke knew what that meant and Luke expected his readers to know what that meant. Well, that and that the centurion was a centurion. That’s all we know for sure from the story. Jesus simply praised the centurion’s faith and restored health and wholeness to his household and to all the relationships in it. Jesus didn’t ask that, and he didn’t insist on entering the centurion’s home in order to inspect whatever living arrangements the man had with this beloved companion of his. When you say pais, do you mean just, like, pais -pais? Or do you mean, you know, nudge nudge, wink wink, pais?” “But only speak the word, and let my pais be healed.” And Jesus never interrogates the man on that point. The story simply doesn’t give us enough information to be certain.īut then the story also doesn’t give Jesus enough information to be certain either.
And I’m not sure the parallel version of the story in Matthew or the maybe-parallel story in John’s Gospel - in which the word “son” is used instead - gets us any closer to conclusive certainty about the relationship between this centurion and his pais. I’m not trying to explain away that ambiguity - in either direction. “But only speak the word, and let my companion be healed.” It’s helpful, I think, to illustrate that ambiguity by using our own ambiguous term.
(Or is that a bad example? I mean Frodo and Sam as intended by Tolkien, not as written by him.) Maybe it was just a Frodo-and-Sam situation. But perhaps both of those arguments are too harsh - maybe this centurion just loved this loyal, faithful servant. Others point to that same deep emotion and see it as evidence that suggests we’re dealing with the other meaning of pais. The centurion in Luke 7 seems so heartbroken over the plight of his “beloved” pais that some have argued the word there might be better translated as “son.” His anguish seems surprising, after all, on behalf of a slave or servant. If we say “Matt Damon won an Emmy for portraying Liberace’s companion in Behind the Candelabra,” most people will understand that we mean something very different from what we meant about Monk and Natalie. We use it in much the same way first-century people sometimes used that word pais - to politely, indirectly describe an intimate, affectionate physical relationship.
It’s thus a common term for personal assistants - people in an economic relationship with an employer who would, in a more class-candid culture, be referred to as “servants.” So we might say, for instance, that “Adrian Monk arrived at the crime scene accompanied by his companion, Natalie Teeger,” and it would be a mistake to infer anything more intimate or romantic implied by the term.īut we also use that same word in a more “insinuating” way (as Jeff Bridges says in The Fisher King). Think of the many ways we use the word “companion.” Strictly speaking, it just means someone with whom one travels or with whom one spends a lot of time. It’s not unusual for words to have such very different meanings. And also, sometimes, it was a euphemism for, basically, a man’s boyfriend or a younger, same-sex concubine. We think it usually meant servant or slave, but it also sometimes meant son. That’s not wrong, but this wasn’t the only way that word pais was used in Jesus’ time. When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.” When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.”Īnd Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof therefore I did not presume to come to you. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death. After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum.
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