The Gay Centurion

A Gay Centurion Comes Out to Jesus

For many centuries before Matthew and Luke wrote their Gospels, the Greek word pais was commonly used to refer to the younger partner in a same-sex relationship. The younger partner was often an adult male but was sometimes a teenager.

The use of pais in this social and historical context leads some to believe that the story of the Roman centurion and his pais in Matthew 8 and Luke 7 tells the real story of the day Jesus met and blessed a gay man. Although this understanding of the text is controversial, it is important for us to discuss and understand it in our conversation about the Bible and homosexuality.

As we begin our study of this true story about a gay Centurion, from Matthew 8:5–13 and Luke 7:1–10, it is important to remember that we are two thousand years removed from these events. For that reason, the anti-gay side cannot prove their contention that the centurion and his pais-servant were not same-sex lovers. It is equally impossible to prove to everyone’s satisfaction that this was a gay Centurion and his pais–beloved-gay-lover.

If we cannot prove to everyone’s satisfaction that this story is about a gay Centurion, why bother discussing this controversy? The short answer is that Scripture is important, and what we believe, based on Scripture, is important. For centuries, the organized church has insisted gay people are never presented in the Bible in a positive light.

Many Christians refuse to believe that God would include a positive story about a gay Centurion in the Bible. In recent years, many openly gay Christians have been excluded from the spiritual life of the church. Our goal is to examine the available evidence. If the evidence and a faithful believing approach to Scripture supports the understanding that this story is about a gay Centurion and his pais–same-sex-lover, then that dramatic fact should be public knowledge.

While it may be impossible to prove to the satisfaction of everyone that this is the story of a Centurion who was gay, it is certainly possible to make a principled judgment based on the weight of the evidence.

The Roman Emperor Augustus instituted a ban on heterosexual marriage for serving Roman soldiers, before the birth of Christ. The Roman marriage ban lasted until AD 197, when Septimius Severus ended it. This ban may have sparked same-sex relationships in the first century AD Roman Army.

Is there any evidence of a gay Centurion?

Does cultural, historical and textual evidence support our belief that the Centurion and his pais were lovers in a committed, same-sex partnership? Those who believe that the Centurion’s pais was only a servant and not the same-sex partner of the homosexual Centurion cite Greek lexicons to prove their case. Because Biblical Greek lexicons do not mention “beloved or same-sex lover” as possible meanings of pais, most non-gay Christians insist that “same-sex lover” could not possibly be the meaning of pais.

Is there cultural, historical and linguistic evidence which indicates that “beloved or same-sex lover” is the probable meaning of pais in Matthew and Luke’s story of the Centurion?

What was the meaning of the Greek word pais in the first century context?

Remember, the first century AD is the time frame when pais was used in the Bible. Matthew and Luke, guided by the Holy Spirit, were led to use pais when describing the Centurion's favorite and much beloved servant. Many languages use idiomatic expressions. Pais conveyed the idiomatic meaning of same-sex lover. The idiomatic meaning of words derives from the way a particular culture uses a word. First century Greek and Roman culture often used the word pais with the meaning of “same-sex lover.”

What is an idiom?

An idiom is a way of using words that is natural to native speakers of a language but which does not convey the literal meaning of the words. An idiomatic expression uses a word in a way different than its literal meaning, such as using the word for servant to mean something more than servant, like same-sex lover. Servant is the literal meaning. Same-sex lover is the idiomatic meaning. Some examples follow.

• We say “I’m going to keep tabs on” a person. We don’t mean literally putting tabs on someone. We mean we are going to observe or track the activity of the person.

• We say “get lost!” when we mean “leave me alone,” not literally to become unable to identify one’s location.

• If we’re feeling sick, we say we’re “under the weather,” but this expression for feeling sick has nothing to do with weather.

• If someone dies, we might say he “bought the farm” or “kicked the bucket,” yet dying has nothing to do with a literal farm or a bucket.

Those are idiomatic expressions with meanings that differ from the literal meanings of the words used. Likewise, the Greek word pais carried an idiomatic meaning for native Greek speakers for many centuries prior to Matthew writing his Gospel. The well-known and widely recognized idiomatic meaning of pais was “beloved or same-sex lover.”

That Matthew and Luke possibly used pais with the meaning of same-sex lover raises the interesting possibility that Jesus met and blessed a gay Centurion who was honest enough to come out to Jesus—to tell Jesus he was gay.

Remember that in our story, the Centurion uses the word pais to describe his sick servant. He is an utterly honest man and refuses to insult Jesus by asking for healing under false pretenses.

The gay Centurion openly admits to Jesus that he is a gay Centurion by using the Greek word pais to describe his servant. Matthew and Luke recognize and affirm the Centurion’s honesty by using a different Greek word, pais, to describe his beloved servant.
What would you do if you were in Jesus’s place?

What if you were in Jesus’s place and the gay Centurion came to you, asking for healing for his pais–beloved-partner?

Would you get in his face and tell him, “You’re going to roast in hell like a marshmallow if you don’t stop being gay”?

Would you tell him, “Sure, I’ll heal your partner if both of you promise to join Exodus International and become ex-gay”?

Or would you do like Jesus did and simply heal the beloved partner of the gay Centurion and affirm his remarkable faith in God?

What did the Greek word pais mean to ancient Greek-speaking people?

Thucydides writes of Agathon (445–400 BC), the pais (same-sex lover) of Pausanias, King of Sparta, in History of the Peloponnesian War. Their relationship began when Agathon was 18 and continued for 20 years.

Eupolis, a playwright, 446–411 BC, references Agathon, an exceptionally good-looking man who, in his late teens, was the paidika or pais of Pausanias. Their same-sex relationship continued to flourish when Agathon was in his thirties.

Aeschines (390–314 BC), an Athenian poet, in Against Timarchos, charged rival politician Timarchos with having lived off his relationships with older men. In such relationships, the older man was called the erastes or the lover, and the younger man was called the eromenos or paidika or pais, the boyfriend. Paidika is derived from pais.

Plato, in his Symposium, refers to the beloved and lover relationship, mentioning beloved eighteen times.

“If a state or an army could be formed only of lovers and their beloved, how could any company hope for greater things than these, despising infamy and rivaling each other in honor? Even a few of them, fighting side by side, might well conquer the world.” And again, “Love will make men dare to die for their beloved-love alone.”

Plato’s Symposium was written after the conquest of Athens by Sparta. Sparta was celebrated for its homosexual warriors. This is the historical context Plato addressed as he discussed the meaning of lover-beloved, erastes-pais relationships in the Symposium.

Callimanchus (305–240 BC), a Greek poet and Chief Librarian of the famed Alexandrian library, wrote about the pais as same-sex lover in his literature.

Ancient Alexandria, Egypt was a cosmopolitan city of Jews, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans and a prosperous trade center for East and West. This ancient library encouraged the mingling of different cultures and spiritual traditions. For a time, Alexandria was the greatest center of learning in the ancient world.

Alexandria was also the center of pagan mysticism and the birthplace of schools of Gnosticism. The Alexandrian library was the most famous library of the ancient world. It was part of a complex called the Alexandrian Museum or Temple of the Muses. The library and museum were founded in the third century BC and maintained by a long line of Ptolemies, rulers of ancient Egypt.

An auxiliary library was established about 235 BC in the Serapeum, a temple dedicated to the god Serapis. The Alexandrian library systematically collected the knowledge of the ancient world and at its peak is estimated to have held 400,000 to 700,000 scrolls and papyri. In 272 AD, the Alexandrian museum and main library were destroyed in the civil war under the Roman emperor Aurelian.