NOTES for Luk 7:8

In Bishop Cassian's translation, the centurion's words sound like this: "for I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say to one, 'go,' and he goes, and to another, 'come,' and he comes, and to this slave of mine, 'do this,' and he does it". In the Synodal translation, however: "For I too am a man under authority, but having soldiers under me, I say to one: go, and he goes; and to another: come, and he comes; and to my servant: do that, and he does it."

Let us note that in the two cases the pronoun "I" and the conjunction "also" appear in a different order. This difference is not accidental. Something led the authors of the Synodal translation to change the word order, even though it is exactly that way in the original and in all modern and old translations, making the phrase hard to pronounce and unnatural in Russian. It looks very much as if it came to mean "although I too am a man under authority, yet I have under my command..." And we need to understand what this "something" is, the thing Bishop Cassian removed, because it gives a great deal, as we see it, for understanding the text.

If the centurion says, "I also am a man under authority," then he means: I, like someone else. And who is this someone else? He is speaking with Jesus. All these words are addressed to Him... In essence, the centurion is saying this. There is authority over me, and I have subordinates; there is a certain three-level hierarchy of society in which he stands in the middle between the lower and higher levels. And he says to Jesus: just like You. That is, You too have Someone over You, to whom You are subject, just as I am subject to authority. And this Someone is, of course, God. He involuntarily transfers the three-level hierarchy to which he himself is accustomed onto the whole structure of the universe. And he places Jesus in the middle, as though He were a mediator between God and man.

For us this is entirely different. For Jesus is not a mediator, but God Himself. That is precisely why in the Synodal translation these two words were rearranged and this meaning was completely removed from the text. But if we turn to the corrected text...

Yet this must not frighten us in any way; there is nothing terrible here at all. On the contrary, this is not a reason for doubt but for wonder, wonder at our Lord, at His humility, ready to accept being seen merely as a mediator and declaring the centurion's faith better than the faith He had found in Israel. Let us note that only comparative descriptions are used here; the centurion's faith is by no means recognized as the ideal of faith for all times and peoples. But it was already a breakthrough, already a step, to see in Him God's envoy, a Man subject to God; that is already very, very much, and the Lord values this step so highly.

The Lord values every little step of ours in general. Even if we have taken a small step away from a very primitive faith toward understanding something a little more complex, the Lord already values it very, very much and is generous both with praise and with complete help. It seems to us that this text, as we read it in Bishop Cassian, is an amazing witness to the Lord's humility and His ineffable kindness.