For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.
Ver. 9. For I am a man] But thou, Lord, art more than a man; for the centurion here makes comparison with our Saviour, both in respect to his person and to his power, as to the less with the greater. For his person, he saith not, Nam et ego sum homo, ut tu, " For I also am a man such as thou art" (as the Vulgate here corruptly renders it); but, "I am a man," a mere man; thou art God also, very God. And for his power, though subject to another, have soldiers at my beck and check, how much more hast thou, who art over all, an absolute power over sickness and death! The palsy, or, as some say, the epilepsy, was anciently called Morbus sacer, or the holy disease; for the priests, to enrich themselves, persuaded the superstitious people that this disease, as being sudden, hidden, and for the most part incurable, was an immediate hand of God, and could be cured by none but priests. The medicines they gave were much like that of the French mountebank, a who was wont to give in writing to his patients, for curing all diseases, these following verses:
" Si vis curari de morbo nescio quali,
Accipias herbam, sed qualem nescio, nec quam:
Ponas nescio quo, curabere nescio quando. "
They are thus Englished by one:
Your pain, I know not what, do not fore slow,
To cure with herbs, which whence I do not know.
Place them (well pounc't) I know not where, and then
You shall be perfect whole, I know not, when.
And I say to this man, Go, and he goeth, &c.] King Ferdinand's ambassadors, being conducted into the camp of the Turks, wondered at the perpetual and dumb silence of so great a multitude; the soldiers being so ready and attentive, that they were no otherwise commanded than by the beckoning of the hand or nod of their commanders. Tamerlane, that warlike Scythian, had his men at such great command that no danger was to them more dreadful than his displeasure.
And to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it] Such a servant is every saint to his God; at least in his desire and endeavour. Such a centurion also is he over his own heart, which he hath at his right hand, as Solomon saith; that is, ready pressed to obey God in all parts and points of duty. There were seven sorts of Pharisees; and one was Pharisaeus, Quid debeo facere, et faciam illud: so they would needs be called. But the true Christian only is such a one in good earnest as the Pharisee pretends to be.
a An itinerant quack who from an elevated platform appealed to his audience by means of stories, tricks, magic acts, and the like, in which he was often assisted by a professional clown or fool. ŒD