"And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it."
THE STORY OF THE MIRACLE WORKER
There was at Capernaum an officer of the Roman army, a man who had under him a company of a hundred men. They called him "a centurion," a word which means "commanding a hundred"; but we should call him "a captain." This man was not a Jew, but was what the Jews called "a Gentile," "a foreigner"; a name which the Jews gave to all people outside their own race. All the world except the Jews themselves were Gentiles.
This Roman centurion was a good man, and he loved the Jews, because through them he had heard of God, and had learned how to worship God. Out of his love for the Jews, he had built for them with his own money a synagogue, which may have been the very synagogue in which Jesus taught on the Sabbath days.
The centurion had a young servant, a boy whom he loved greatly; and this boy was very sick with a palsy, and near to death. The centurion had heard that Jesus could cure those who were sick; and he asked the chief men of the synagogue, who were called its "elders," to go to Jesus and ask him to come and cure his young servant.
The elders spoke to Jesus, just as he came again to Capernaum, after the Sermon on the Mount. They asked Jesus to go with them to the centurion's house; and they said:
"He is a worthy man, and it is fitting that you should help him, for, though a Gentile, he loves our people, and he has built for us our synagogue."
Then Jesus said, "I will go and heal him."