Luke 7:1-10	Matt 8:5-13	John 4:46-54
1 After he had completed
all he had to say
to his audience,
he went into	5 When he had entered
Capernaum.	Capernaum,	46 In Capernaum
		there was
2 A Roman officer	a Roman officer	a government official
had a slave		whose son
he was very fond of
but who was sick		was sick.
and about to die.		[see John 4:47 below]
3 So when he heard		47 When he heard
about Jesus,		that Jesus
		had returned to Galilee
		from Judea,
the officer sent some elders
of the Jewish community
to him
and asked him to come
and cure his slave.
4 When they came to Jesus	approached him	he approached him
they pleaded with him ,	and pleaded with him,	and pleaded with him
urgently		to come down
		and cure his son,
[see Luke 7:2 above]		who was about to die.
saying,	6 "Sir, my servant boy
	was struck down
	with paralysis
	and is in terrible pain."
"He deserves
to have you do this
for him,
5 because
he loves our people,
and even built
a meeting place for us.
6 So Jesus went	7 And he said to him,	48 Jesus said:
with them.	"I'll come and cure him."	"You people
		won't believe
		unless you see
		signs and omens."
When he got close
to the house,
the officer	8 And the officer	49 The official
dispatched friends	replied,	responds,
"Don't trouble yourself,
sir,	"Sir,	"Sir,
for I don't deserve	I don't deserve	please come down
to have you come	to have you
into my house;	in my house;
7 that's why
I didn't presume
to come to you
in person.
Just say the word	but only say the word
and let my boy be cured.	and my boy will be cured.	before my child dies."
8 After all,	9 After all,
I myself am under orders	I myself am under orders
and I have soldiers	and I have soldiers
under me.	under me.
I order one to go,	I order one to go,
and he goes.	and he goes.
I order another to come	I order another to come
and he comes; and	and he comes; and
I order my slave	I order my slave
to do something	to do something
and he does it."	and he does it."
9 As Jesus listened	10 As Jesus listened
to this
he was amazed at him.	he was amazed
He turned and said	and said
to the crowd	to those
that followed,	who followed,
"I'm telling you,	"Let me tell you,
not even in Israel
have I found	I have not found
such trust."	such trust
	in a single Israelite.
[see Luke 13:28-29 below]	11 I predict that
	many will come
	from east and west
	and dine with
	Abraham and Isaac
	and Jacob in
	the empire of Heaven,
	12 but those who think
	the empire of Heaven
	belongs to them
	will be thrown out
	into the utter darkness.
	There'll be weeping
	and grinding of teeth
	out there."
	13 And Jesus said	50 Jesus says:
	to the Roman officer:
	"Be on your way.	"Go home.
	Let it happen to you	Your son will live."
	according to	The man believed
	your trust."	what Jesus had told him
10 And when
the emissaries returned
to the house,		and went home.
		51 While he was still
		on his way home
		his slaves met him
		and told him
they found the slave	And the boy	that his boy
in good health.	was cured	was alive.
		52 So he asked them
		when he'd begun
		to recover,
		and they told him
		"The fever broke
		yesterday
		at one o'clock."
		53 Then
		the father realized
		that one o'clock
	at that precise moment.	was precisely the time
		that Jesus had said:
		"Your son will live."
		And he believed,
		as did his whole household.
Luke 13:28-29
28 "There'll be weeping	[see Matt 8:11-12 above]
and grinding of teeth
out there when you see
Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob
and all the prophets
in God's empire
and yourselves
thrown out.
29 And people will come		[see Thom 45:2 above]
from east and west,
from north and south,
and dine
in God's empire."

Narrative frame

This is the longest story common to Matthew and Luke that is not based on Mark. Unlike the earlier Q version of Jesus' temptation, Matthew and Luke share few details beyond the lines of dialogue (see Matt 8:8-10//Luke 7:6b-9 above). Both claim that when Jesus enters Capernaum, a Roman officer asks him to heal a member of his household. But they differ in describing (a) the invalid's social status, (b) the illness, (c) where the centurion is, (d) how the request was communicated, and (e) the conclusion.  Luke stresses the centurion's character, focusing on his relationship with the Jews and his faith, but puts little emphasis on the cure.  Matthew is briefer on background, but stresses the cure and inserts a Q saying about Gentiles sharing God's domain (Matt 8:11-12), which Luke reports in a different context (Luke 13:28-30).

John has a similar story about Jesus curing the son of a royal official from Capernaum. In several details Matthew's version is closer to John's than to Luke's. But John neither identifies the officer as a Roman nor quotes the Q dialogue that is the core of Matthew and Luke's agreement. Instead of illustrating the faith of a non-Jew, John's report focuses on the power of Jesus' words. In structure and emphasis this version is similar to stories about other Jewish healers. Compare, for example, this anecdote from the Babylonian Talmud about a long-distance cure credited to a first-century Galilean holy man:

Our rabbis taught:
Once it happened that the son of Rabban Gamaliel (I) fell sick.
They sent two disciples of the sages to ^cHanina ben Dosa
to pray for mercy on him.
When he saw them, he went up to the upper room
and prayed for mercy on him.
When he came down, he told them:
-- "Go, the fever has left him!"
They said to him:
--"Are you a prophet?"
He told them:
--"I'm not a prophet or a prophet's son" (Amos 7:14)
but my tradition is thus:
-- 'If my prayer flows from my mouth, I know it's accepted;
if not, I know its rejected.'
They sat down and wrote, noting the exact hour.
And when they came to Rabban Gamaliel he told them:
--"(My) Worship! It happened neither sooner nor later, but just then.
That was precisely the hour that the fever left him
and he asked us for water to drink."
---Berakoth 34b

In each case the person credited with the cure does not actually visit the invalid; and, except for Luke, the narrator concludes by stressing that the sick person was cured at the exact moment that the holy man declared him well.

Source recovery

The fact that Matthew and Luke both report this incident just after the end of Jesus' sermon and present much of the dialog verbatim (Matt 8:8-10//Luke 7:6b-9) indicates use of a common source. But the fact that each frames or punctuates that dialog with material not reported by the other complicates identification and recovery of that source. Luke obviously inflated background details to stress the officer's worthiness of Jesus' help, while Matthew just as obviously edited Jesus' response by adding a prediction of doom for Jews that is totally inappropriate in this context. If one removes elements peculiar to either gospel, one is left with a core dialog with a minimal narrative frame that is not unlike other dialogs in Q:

[As Jesus] entered Capernaum
a Roman officer came and pleaded with him:
"Sir, my boy is [sick]!"
Jesus said: "I'll come [and cure him]."
But the officer replied:
"Sir, I don't deserve to have you in my house.
Just say the word and my boy will be cured.
After all, I myself  am under orders, and I have soldiers under me.
I order one to go and he goes; I order another to come and he comes;
and I order my slave to do something and he does it."
As Jesus listened he was amazed and said to those who followed him:
"I have not found such trust even in Israel."
And the boy was [cured just then].

Dialog

A story of Jesus curing a soldier's boy at Capernaum was well-known to early Christians, as the independent accounts in Q and John indicate. But it is uncertain that Q's dialog belongs to the original core. The single pronouncement Q attributes to Jesus is context bound. Since it presupposes a history of encounters with Jews who did not regard Jesus as a healer, it suits the views of later Christians but is inappropriate at this point in the outline of either Matthew or Luke.  But it fits the perspective of the compiler of Q. Later, Q included sayings criticizing Jews who did not respond to Jesus' mission, both at Capernaum and Jerusalem (see below Luke 10:13-15//Matt 11:21-24 and Luke 13:34-35//Matt 23:37-39). And it contrasted apathy in Israel to the responsiveness of foreigners (see Luke 11:29-32//Matt 12:38-40 and Luke 13:28-30//Matt 8:11-12).

Attribution

Officer's son	%	Red	Pink	Grey	Black	WA	Print
Luke 7:7 Matt 8:10 John 4:48 John 4:50a,53b		0 0 0 0	18 18 5 27	9 9 27 33	73 73 68 40	15 15 12 28	black black black grey

Since Q's version of this dialog is indistinguishable from the perspective of its post-crucifixion compiler, most Fellows did not consider it reliable evidence of things said in an actual encounter between Jesus and some Roman soldier.  However, John's simpler account struck several Fellows as closer to an oral report of a historically plausible encounter at Capernaum.  For it simply portrays Jesus' reassuring a desperate man that his boy is going to get better, and he does. If this was a complete fiction designed to glorify Jesus, one would expect more spectacular details, since the Fourth Gospel presents this as the second "sign" that led people to believe in Jesus (John 4:54). Thus, the optimistic words of reassurance "Your son will live" that John ascribes to Jesus (John 4:50a,53b) were deemed to reflect the gist of his response which made such an encounter so memorable.

Foreigners & patriarchs	%	Red	Pink	Grey	Black	WA	Print
Matt 8:22-23 Luke 13:26-27		0 0	25 21	25 29	50 50	25 21	black black

Matthew and Luke present this pair of sayings in reverse order and in totally different contexts. As noted above, Matthew's emphasis on prediction of the exclusion of those of Israelite heritage from the fellowship with the Hebrew patriarchs is totally out of place in a story designed to celebrate the faith of a non-Jew.  So Luke's order and context, culminating with the inclusion of foreigners to replace those who were left out, is probably closer to its original setting in Q.  In either case, the idea of rejection of native Israelites is closer to the message that Q ascribes to John the Baptist (Matt 3:7-10//Luke 3:7-9) than to those sayings it attributes to Jesus.  And the prediction of the inclusion of foreigners fits better in the apostolic mission of the post-crucifixion era than the historical milieu in which Jesus was active.  So most Fellows did not think these sayings echoed ideas that can be reliably traced to Jesus himself.