Mangus

• centurion commanding Capernaum garrison; built synagogue

129:1.7Through­out this year Je­sus built boats and con­tin­ued to ob­serve how men lived on earth. Fre­quently he would go down to visit at the car­a­van sta­tion, Ca­per­naum be­ing on the di­rect travel route from Da­mas­cus to the south. Ca­per­naum was a strong Ro­man mil­i­tary post, and the gar­ri­son’s com­mand­ing of­fi­cer was a gen­tile be­liever in Yah­weh, “a de­vout man,” as the Jews were wont to des­ig­nate such pros­e­lytes. This of­fi­cer be­longed to a wealthy Ro­man fam­ily, and he took it upon him­self to build a beau­ti­ful syn­a­gogue in Ca­per­naum, which had been pre­sented to the Jews a short time be­fore Je­sus came to live with Zeb­e­dee. Je­sus con­ducted the ser­vices in this new syn­a­gogue more than half the time this year, and some of the car­a­van peo­ple who chanced to at­tend re­mem­bered him as the car­pen­ter from Naz­a­reth.

• centurion commanding Capernaum garrison; built synagogue

147:1.1On the day be­fore they made ready to go to Je­ru­sa­lem for the feast of the Pass­over, Man­gus, a cen­tu­rion, or cap­tain, of the Ro­man guard sta­tioned at Ca­per­naum, came to the rulers of the syn­a­gogue, say­ing: “My faith­ful or­derly is sick and at the point of death. Would you, there­fore, go to Je­sus in my be­half and be­seech him to heal my ser­vant?” The Ro­man cap­tain did this be­cause he thought the Jew­ish lead­ers would have more in­flu­ence with Je­sus. So the el­ders went to see Je­sus and their spokesman said: “Teacher, we earnestly re­quest you to go over to Ca­per­naum and save the fa­vorite ser­vant of the Ro­man cen­tu­rion, who is wor­thy of your no­tice be­cause he loves our na­tion and even built us the very syn­a­gogue wherein you have so many times spo­ken.”

147:1.2And when Je­sus had heard them, he said, “I will go with you.” And as he went with them over to the cen­tu­rion’s house, and be­fore they had en­tered his yard, the Ro­man sol­dier sent his friends out to greet Je­sus, in­struct­ing them to say: “Lord, trou­ble not your­self to en­ter my house, for I am not wor­thy that you should come un­der my roof. Nei­ther did I think my­self wor­thy to come to you; where­fore I sent the el­ders of your own peo­ple. But I know that you can speak the word where you stand and my ser­vant will be healed. For I am my­self un­der the or­ders of oth­ers, and I have sol­diers un­der me, and I say to this one go, and he goes; to an­other come, and he comes, and to my ser­vants do this or do that, and they do it.”

147:1.3And when Je­sus heard these words, he turned and said to his apos­tles and those who were with them: “I mar­vel at the be­lief of the gen­tile. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Is­rael.” Je­sus, turn­ing from the house, said, “Let us go hence.” And the friends of the cen­tu­rion went into the house and told Man­gus what Je­sus had said. And from that hour the ser­vant be­gan to mend and was even­tu­ally re­stored to his nor­mal health and use­ful­ness.

147:1.4But we never knew just what hap­pened on this oc­ca­sion. This is sim­ply the rec­ord, and as to whether or not in­vis­i­ble be­ings min­is­tered heal­ing to the cen­tu­rion’s ser­vant, was not re­vealed to those who ac­com­pa­nied Je­sus. We only know of the fact of the ser­vant’s com­plete re­cov­ery.