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The Roman Centurion in the Time of Jesus Christ
This lesson explores the Roman Centurion during the time of Jesus of
Nazareth, from his birth in approximately 5 B.C. to his death in 30 A.D. It
seeks to develop a deeper appreciation and understanding of the context of the
Roman Empire in the first century A.D., and how this context would have
affected the crucial interactions documented in the New Testament between
Roman Centurions and Jesus of Nazareth and his disciples. Roman
Centurions play a critical role in three very significant parts of the New
Testament: first, Jesus’s encounter with the Roman Centurion at Capernaum
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The Roman Centurion in the Time of Jesus Christ
following his all-important “Sermon on the Mount”; second, the declaration by
the Centurion upon Jesus’s death by crucifixion; and third, Peter’s conversion
of Cornelius the Centurion to Christianity, the first gentile to be so converted
and clearing the path for billions to follow.
These three episodes are very powerful parts of the New Testament and, I
believe, instrumental to the Christian faith. This lesson will be delivered in
three parts. First, we will explore the rise of the early Roman Republic, its
transition into an empire, and the legionary reforms that gave us the
professional Roman Centurions whom came to know Jesus of Nazareth and his
disciples. Second, we will examine the role of the professionalized Roman
legion in imperial politics from the ascension of Julius Caesar as Rome’s first
Emperor to the time of Jesus’s crucifixion and shortly afterwards. Third, we
will seek to better understand how Jesus’s teachings could have appealed to
Roman Centurions by closely reading the appropriate passages in the New
Testament – specifically the three passages noted above -- within the context of
what we have learned about Roman Centurions and their role within the
Roman Empire of the first Century A.D.
The Rise of Rome
Virgil’s Aeneid, written in the first century A.D. during the reign of
Augustus Caesar, claims that the Trojan captain Aeneas settled southern Italy
after fleeing the sack of Troy by the Greeks. Upon landing in Italy, Aeneas’s
first action was to stake out the dimensions for a fortified base camp. Virgil’s
description of Aeneas constructing a fortified base camp was projecting a
practice of his own time onto the legendary character who initially settled
Rome, symbolizing the importance of the legion and its concentration on field
engineering to Rome’s rise. In fact, Rome was settled by farmers as a small
city-state on the Tiber River in the 8th Century B.C. It was ruled by Etruscan
kings until 509 B.C., at which time the Romans expelled their king for raping
the daughter of a prominent Roman family and became a “Republic.”
The Roman “Republic” was described by Polybius as a delicate balance
between an executive branch and an aristocracy. Two consuls functioned as
the executive branch and commanded the Roman military, which was a citizen
militia. These consuls also controlled public affairs. One consul could veto a
proposal of his partner so power in the executive branch was effectively
checked. The Senate represented the aristocracy and controlled the budget
and foreign affairs. After one year of serving as a consul, these men became a
permanent part of the Senate and were called consulares. The system thus
had effective checks and balances between its executive and senatorial
branches, and worked relatively well. Incidentally, Polybius was our own
Founding Fathers’ favorite author, for the balanced constitution he described
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The Roman Centurion in the Time of Jesus Christ
made a profound impact upon the Founders’ vision for what form of
government could work best in this country.
Invasions by Gallic tribes north of the Po River forced many of the
smaller city-states on the Italian peninsula to form into a “Latin League” for
security. After the Gallic threat subsided, several league members demanded
independence from what they perceived to be an increasingly assertive and
expansionist Rome, but were unable to coordinate their efforts. Rome skillfully
assimilated the tribes who did submit to its authority, however, and the small
Republic continued to expand southwards from 326-290 B.C. Rome’s
expansion southwards eventually caused a small tribe called the Tarentines to
ask for the help of King Pyrrhus of Epirus, a known military genius who at the
time was ruler of the Epirotes.
Pyrrhus deployed his army into Italy and won many victories on the
Italian peninsula against Rome’s citizen militia, but took personnel losses that
he could ill afford. According to Sextus Julius Frontinus, a Roman military
Commander and water engineer officer who wrote in the late first century A.D.,
Pyrrhus also brought with him the tactic of “concentrating an entire army
within the precints of the same entrenchments,” thus showing the Roman army
how to copy the design and employment of this vital technique – base camp
construction. The Romans eventually drove Pyrrhus out of Italy and the term
“Pyrrhic victory” – in which winning a small tactical victory ultimately leads to
a larger strategic defeat – remains with us to this day! These small-scale
conflicts caused the Romans to reform their military organization from the
phalanx derived from the Greeks to their very own legion. The word “legion”
comes from the Latin word legio, literally meaning to levy or recruit.
The Roman legion relied more upon the personal discipline and
individual fighting skills of the legionaries in its ranks than upon the closely
packed mass of the phalanx as each legionary occupied at least one square
yard, enabling the same number of men to create a larger and much more
powerful formation. (This distribution and decentralization of military
formations continues to the present day, placing an ever-greater emphasis on
the skills, personal discipline, and character of the most junior servicemembers in the ranks). The legion consisted of four basic groups: the velites,
the hastati, the principes, and the triarri. The velites were the youngest
legionaries and carried a sword, javelins, and a shield. The hastati came from
the middle class and wore a full panoply of armor while carrying two short
spears called pilums. The principes came next and were similar to the hastati
but were older and more experienced. And finally the triarri had the same
equipment as the principes and brought the most experience to the legion. The
maniple was the most basic sub-unit of the legion and had 120 men, thus
giving the legion the name “manipular legion.”
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The Roman Centurion in the Time of Jesus Christ
Rome’s military strength soon brought it into conflict with the great
African maritime Empire of Carthage, situated across the Mediterranean.
Rome and Carthage fought a series of three brutal wars known as the Punic
Wars from 264 – 146 B.C. The first Punic War was fought due to a conflict
over influence in Sicily and was won by the Romans thanks to an ingenious
engineering device called the corvus. The corvus enabled the Romans to turn
naval battles into “land battles” by leveraging the superior training of their
legionaries, thus negating the Carthaginians’ naval advantage and routing
them at sea.
Roman Corvus
The second Punic War began in 222 B.C. when Hannibal Barca (after
whom Barcelona is named; Cartagena is named after Carthage) assumed
command of Carthage’s forces in Spain and began operating against Rome’s
allies, eventually capturing Saguntum in 218 B.C., a key city allied to Rome.
As the Romans sent a delegation to Carthage to demand the deliverance of
Hannibal for violating the peace treaty that had ended the first Punic War,
Hannibal put a bold plan into action by marching 50,000 soldiers, 9,000
cavalry, and 40 war elephants across the Pyrenees into Gaul. Hannibal’s
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The Roman Centurion in the Time of Jesus Christ
perilous route then took him across the Rhone River, the Alps, and into the Po
River Valley, completely surprising the Romans. While Hannibal was able to
win tremendous military victories by destroying every Roman army that was
sent out to stop him at battles at Trebia, Lake Trasimene, and Cannae, he
could not get the Roman Republic to submit to Carthage’s demands. It is, in
fact, after Polybius describes the complete Roman disaster at Cannae in which
all of Rome’s military forces along with its leadership were destroyed by
Hannibal that he describes the strength of the Roman government and its
constitution, deducing that this was where it derived its tremendous resilience
and strength. As noted above, this part of Polybius made a profound impact on
our Founding Fathers. After Rome had defeated Carthage in the third and final
Punic War in 146 B.C., its legions razed Carthage to the ground and salted the
earth. This was a watershed moment for Rome’s legions as, in hindsight, it
marked the end of the era of the citizen militia and the beginning of an age in
which Rome’s legions would be responsible for regional security in an everexpanding empire
The Punic Wars, 264-146 B.C.
By the beginning of the first century B.C. Rome had thus become a
fledgling imperial power that was stationing legionaries abroad to maintain
security in its vastly expanded territory. The Roman general Gaius Marius, the
uncle of Julius Caesar, ushered in a series of reforms that effectively
“professionalized” the legions in 107 B.C. The most significant of these reforms
was the elimination of the requirement to own property to become a full-fledged
legionary. Faced with a manpower shortage due to the constant crises in Africa
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The Roman Centurion in the Time of Jesus Christ
(Carthage’s old empire), Marius opened up enlistment to the capite censi, which
were men who were counted as part of the census but did not own any
property. Since these men could not afford to arm themselves as the citizen
militia legionaries did, the state paid to arm them. This would change the
equipment the legionaries fought with, how they fought and were trained, and
ultimately why they fought. More significantly, the ethos of the legion
underwent a fundamental transformation as Roman legionaries who had sworn
loyalty to their generals did not go back to civil society when the crisis of the
moment had passed, but instead were deployed out to the frontiers where they
were needed to maintain order. . (In some ways, it is reminiscent of the U.S.
military’s experience after World War II, and the President’s subsequent
decision in 1973 to transition to an all-volunteer force.)
The Cohortal Legion
The other major reform of this period was the evolution of the manipular
legion into the cohortal legion. The cohort consisted of 480 men and replaced
the maniple as the most important sub-unit of the legion. Each legion had
about 6,000 men and 10 cohorts, with each cohort having six 80-man
centuriae commanded by a centurion. The cohortal legion made the old
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distinctions between the velites, the hastati, the principes, and the triarri
obsolete: the backbone of the legion became the 60 centurions it contained.
Because cohorts often operated independently from the legion in the far-flung
border outposts of the Roman Empire, centurions were responsible for teaching
the soldiers the basic skills that would keep them alive. They were also
responsible for enforcing discipline, administering elements of governance,
supervising field engineering projects, and ensuring the Roman state was
properly respected and represented across the empire. While generals still
made the difference between victory and defeat for Roman armies on campaign,
it was up to the centurions to exhibit the daily and personal leadership that
put the theoretical advantages of the cohortal legion into practice.
From Republic to Empire
One of the second-order effects of the Marian Reforms was to provide
ambitious Roman politicians with an instrument to pursue glory and enhance
their own political reputations. The most famous of these in the first Century
B.C. was Julius Caesar. From 58-50 B.C. Julius Caesar, who was viewed as a
somewhat shady and philandering Roman politician at the time, would become
proconsul of Gaul and lead his legions across the Rhine River into Germania
and across the English channel into Brittania in his indefatigable efforts to
secure the north flank of the Roman empire (and to pursue political glory,
according to some of his enemies). In Gaul, Caesar showed himself to be a
general of great skill, audacity, and ruthlessness. He went into Gaul knowing
that the Gauls existed in a permanent state of warfare and had no cohesive
government. These primitive warrior societies would put men into the field
whom would fight Caesar’s legionaries bravely, but they had little discipline,
could not stay in the field for extended periods because they had no logistics
infrastructure, and would frequently try to win everything in one pitched battle,
which worked to the Romans’ advantage.
Caesar began his pronconship of Gaul with only four legions. Frequently
outnumbered and with a vast space to project Roman military power across,
Caesar relied on the psychologically intimidating practice of constructing
fortified base camps at the end of each day. These base camps provided three
major operational advantages: 1) they provided a secure base from which to
operate, 2) they provided entrenchments upon which to retire if they suffered a
setback, and 3) they provided a series of “stepping-stones” to sustain their
relentless advance. And of course, centurions were foundational to
maintaining the discipline and instilling the work ethic necessary in the
legionaries to construct these camps at the end of each and every campaign
day. The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus provides an excellent example of
the systematic rigidity with which these base camps were constructed.
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In 49 B.C., Julius Caesar’s consulship in Gaul was set to expire while his
enemies in the Roman Senate were demanding that he return and stand trial
for war crimes he was alleged to have committed during his Gallic campaigns.
Caesar refused to do so without the protection of his legions, and the Roman
Senate was unwilling to compromise with him on so fundamental an issue.
Caesar thus crossed a small stream called the Rubicon with his XIIIth legion,
starting a series of Roman Civil Wars that would last on and off for the next 18
years, until 31 B.C. During this period, Roman legionaries and centurions
were forced to fight and kill each other with grim regularity, often for no other
reason than that they had sworn allegiance to the wrong general. The Civil
War Caesar started saw battles waged in every part of the expanded Roman
Empire: Africa, Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, and Spain. Caesar finally won the
Roman Civil War in 45 B.C. and had himself declared dictator, only to be
assassinated by his friends in the Senate on 15 March 44 B.C.
The Roman Empire, 30 A.D.
Caesar’s death engendered yet another series of brutal civil wars, first
between Caesar’s adopted son, Octavian, and his ally Marc Antony against the
conspirators who killed Caesar, Marcus Brutus and Cassius Longinus. After
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Brutus and Cassius were defeated, Octavian and Marc Antony warred against
each other for supremacy of the Roman world with Antony allying himself with
Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt. The ill-fated lovers Antony and Cleopatra lost
their navy at the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C. and committed suicide shortly
thereafter, leaving Octavian as the sole ruler of the Roman Empire. To shed
the memory of the terrible things he had had to do in order to keep Rome
together during 15 years of terrible civil strife, Octavian changed his name to
Augustus in 30 B.C. He would remain as the sole ruler of the Roman world
until he died in 14 A.D., after which his depraved and formerly disgraced stepson, Tiberius, became Emperor.
Jesus Christ and the Roman Centurions
Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem in the province of Judea in
approximately 5 B.C., during the reign of Augustus Caesar. During Augustus’s
reign and that of his successor, Tiberius, Rome had 25 cohortal legions
deployed across the Roman Empire, stationed as follows:
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3
2
2
4
4
2
Legions
Legions
Legions
Legions
Legions
Legions
Legions
25
Total
on the Rhine
in Spain
in Africa
in Egypt
in Syria (including Judea)
along the Danube (Moesia and Pannonia)
in Dalmatia
As noted above, Roman Centurions had become the backbone of the
legion during this time. Becoming a centurion was not a “rank” as we have in
the current U.S. military, but rather a type of officer – like a Staff
Noncommissioned Officer, for example – who had attained a certain elevated
status within the legion due to their performance. From what we can tell, there
were three pathways to becoming a centurion: first, through outstanding
service in the ranks for 15-20 years; second; through service on Caesar’s
Praetorian Guard as he wanted to have officers loyal to him in key posts
throughout the Empire; and third, through direct commissions due to
patronage or wealth, although these were not as likely. Centurions had to be
well educated, literate, physically fit, brave, adaptive, and resourceful to
accomplish difficult missions in far-flung frontier posts. The Centurions’
exalted role in the effectiveness of the legion and in the administration of the
Roman Empire are important backdrops to their appearance in the New
Testament. In almost all cases, these hardy men had either fought for Caesar
and proven themselves in fierce combat on the frontiers, or had served him
directly as part of his personal imperial bodyguard.
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Moreover, the Roman Imperial Court at the time of Jesus Christ’s
teaching was not a happy place. The Emperor Tiberius Caesar had
degenerated into a depraved monster, due largely to the loss of his first wife,
the death of his son, his humiliation by his second wife, Julia (Augustus
Caesar’s daughter), and his own paranoia, distrust, and increasing hatred of all
people. Tiberius chose not even to live in Rome he hated it so much, but rather
ruled from an isolated island fortress on Capri, where he and his depraved
nephew, Caligula, could indulge their grossest cruelties and perversions
without public scrutiny. The Roman Provincial Governors, generals, and
soldiers who served Tiberius Caesar during this time lived a very precarious
existence. A summons from Tiberius would often mean relief, exile, or even
death. Tiberius’s new appointment to be the Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate,
knew that his livelihood and indeed life were at stake, for if either unrest or
religious disturbances were reported to Tiberius, especially from the Sanhedrin
– whom the Emperor had a degree of respect for – his career and possibly life
would be over.
With this as context, let’s explore what happens outside of Capernaum in
28 B.C. between Jesus and the Centurion in charge there. First, let’s explore
the first part of Jesus’s “Sermon on the Mount”: (Please turn to Matthew: 5,
page 525)
The Beatitudes
And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven,
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall
be satisfied,
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy,
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God,
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’s sake, for theirs
is the kingdom of Heaven,
Blessed are you when others revile and persecute you and utter all kinds
of evil against you on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great
in Heaven, for they so persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
This passage warrants careful reading. One could make a compelling
argument that “the peacemakers” of the Roman Empire in the first Century
A.D. were the centurions, stationed as they were at far-flung frontier outposts
amidst constantly warring factions and tribes. I believe the context of this
period, in which Centurions were relied upon to maintain imperial order in
distant provinces while serving an increasingly degenerate and depraved
Caesar and other corrupt public officials of Rome, would have caused Jesus’s
message to particularly resonate with the sturdy, courageous, and practical
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soldiers who had become and served as centurions. What happens next is
even more remarkable, but makes sense with this backdrop.
As the Nazarene came down from his “Sermon on the Mount,” he
encountered a leper and healed him, next meeting the Roman Centurion at
Capernaum: (Matthew: 8:5, page 527)
“When he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him,
appealing to him, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering
terribly.” And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.” But the
centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my
roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I, too, am
a man 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 servant,
“Do this,” and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said
to those who followed him, Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I
found such faith. I tell you, many will come from the east and west and
recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of
heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer
darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have
believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment.”
(Turn to Mark: 15:33, page 554)
The next mention of a centurion is at the crucifixion of Jesus, witnessed
by Mary his mother, Mary Magdalene, and the disciples. It is a Roman
centurion – probably the one in command of the soldiers who had carried out
the execution of Jesus – who loudly declares Jesus as The Christ:
“And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole
land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud
voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, My God,
why have you forsaken me?” And some of the bystanders hearing it said,
“Behold, he is calling Elijah.” And someone ran and filled a sponge with
sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let
us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” And Jesus uttered a
loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in
two, from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood facing him,
saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was
the Son of God!”
Yet again, it is a centurion having the moral courage to take a great
personal risk at Golgotha by declaring Jesus to be the Christ. Finally, let us
explore Simon Peter’s conversion of Cornelius the Centurion from the Book of
Acts. (Turn to Acts: 10, page 597)
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The Roman Centurion in the Time of Jesus Christ
“At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was
known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his
household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to
God. About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel
of God come in and say to him, “Cornelius,” And he stared at him terror
and said, “What is it, Lord?” And he said to him, “Your prayers and your
alms have ascended as a memorial before God. And now send men to
Joppa and bring me Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging with one
Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea. When the angel who spoke
to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier
from among those who attended him, and having related everything to
them, sent them to Joppa.”
And then, after delivering his sermon to Cornelius and his family… (Acts: page
598)
“Then Peter declared, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these
people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” And he
commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And he
remained with them for some days.”
This is extraordinary. The moral courage of these two men – Cornelius,
for choosing to accept Jesus Christ as his Savior by sending for Peter, and
Peter, for converting not only a gentile but also a Roman Centurion – would
change the course of history. Peter’s conversion of Cornelius the Centurion to
Christianity, right in Caesarea at the seat of the Roman Provincial Governor,
was a watershed moment in Christianity because it opened up the faith to
millions of people across the Empire.
In conclusion, this lesson has sought to provide you with a deeper
understanding of the context of the Roman Empire in the first Century A.D.
and also why the Roman Centurions of the New Testament are portrayed in a
relatively positive light: Jesus Christ’s message appealed to them. It is also
significant that Jesus foresaw all of this, especially from Simon Peter. In
closing, let us turn to Matthew: 16:15, page 533:
“He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied,
“You are Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him,
“Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not
revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you
are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of
heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and
whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then he strictly
charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.”
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Jesus tells Peter (Petra), “The Rock,” that he would build his church upon him,
and that he would also give him the keys to the kingdom of heaven and that
what he did on this earth would be bound in heaven. And Peter would do just
that, as the Nazarene had foreseen, because the first “rock” he put in place was
that of a devout and courageous man – a Roman Centurion!
Questions
1. Consider the below quote from Will and Ariel Durant’s Caesar and Christ:
"in summary, the typical educated early Roman was orderly,
conservative, loyal, sober, reverent, tenacious, severe, practical.
He enjoyed discipline and would have no nonsense about liberty.
He obeyed as a training for command. He took it for granted that
the government had a right to inquire into his morals as well as his
income, and to value him purely according to his services to the
state.
He distrusted individuality and genius. He had none of the charm,
vivacity, and unstable fluency of the Attic Greek. He admired
character and will as the Greek admired freedom and intellect; and
organization was his forte.
He lacked imagination, even to make a mythology of his own. He
could with some effort love beauty, but he could seldom create it.
He had no use for pure science and was suspicious of philosophy
as a devilish dissolvent of ancient beliefs and ways.
He could not, for the life of him, understand Plato or Archimedes
or Christ.
Do you believe the Roman Centurion of the 1st Century A.D. fit this
description? Could he understand Christ?
2. Do we live in an age of spiritual longing similar to that of the Roman
Empire in the first Century A.D., in which the American mind is ready
for a renewal of Christianity?
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