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What were the centurion’s words?
Luke: “Certainly this was a righteous man” ([xxiii, 47]).
Matthew: “Truly this was the Son of God” ([xxvii, 54]).
We have here the anomaly of a Roman officer—a Pagan—entertaining a Jewish doctrine of a Messiah, and accepting the Christian claim that Jesus was the Messiah. If this be true it is strange that he permitted his soldiers to insult and abuse Jesus.