Nov. 11: Julius

The centurion Julius of Acts 27 is not baptized and gives no indication he believes in Psaul’s God. But as a scriptural soldier, the context surrounding him has some interesting implications.

Samaria(n)? Sailor?

Julius is called a centurion of the “Augustan” cohort, but in Greek, the unit is called sebastos. In 6 CE, Herod the Great renamed Samaria, the ancient capital of the Northern Tribes of Israel to Sebastia. Sebastos is the Greek equivalent of the Latin augustus, as a noun it is an object of worship. The unit is either from the area around Sebaste (i.e. Samaria) or it was one of many units bestowed with imperial favor for some reason. As Paul has exercised his right to plead his case in Rome, putting him in the care of a specialized unit makes sense. He also sails from Caesarea, the Roman capital of Judea, but despite Julius’ familiarity with seafaring he probably wasn’t a sailor.

The Roman navy was just the maritime extension of its army. A ship was organized into a century, despite its size or manpower, and its captain was a centurion. But the ship transporting them to Rome has an owner and a pilot, and neither of them is Julius. (v.11) They are hitching a ride on a series of commercial boats, at least two but maybe more. But Julius isn’t what interests me about Acts 27 so much as it is what Psaul does with and for him and his soldiers.

Messiah Ready to Eat

I’ll assume you’re already familiar with the storms that beset the ship, or you can read into it. What catches my eye is right before they are miraculously saved when Psaul leads the soldiers and fellow prisoners in the first eucharist since Jesus at Passover (what Christians call Maundy Thursday). Compare the line from Luke 22:19a with Acts 27:35 (NRSV):

• Luke: “Then [Jesus] took a loaf of bread, and when he had eucharisteō, he broke it and gave it to them”

• Acts: “After [Psaul] had said this, he took bread; and eucharisteō to God in the presence of all, he broke it and began to eat.”

You may recognize them as the Words of “Institution” or “Consecration,” depending on your tradition, said at a high point of the communion liturgy before the mass of believers consumes the bread, Jesus’ body. So, although Julius and his “worshipful” unit neither confess Jesus as Lord nor are baptized into the faith, they participate in a hasty Holy Eucharist with the 13th Apostle. It’s not fancy, but it works: Messiah Ready to Eat.

What’s trippy is that Jesus is the Yom Kippur goat (see #GruntGod chapter 4 for details) who takes away the sins of the world on Passover, combining the two highest Jewish holy days into one Christians call Easter. In Acts, Psaul recreates Jesus’ Passover meal with a bunch of grunts on Yom Kippur for the first post-Pentecost Eucharist. The NIV recognizes the “fast” referred to in Acts 27:9 as Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which served as an autumn counterweight to spring’s Passover.

For Luke-Acts, Psaul’s spur-of-the-moment open communion is the narrative extension of Jesus’ long-awaited fulfillment of God’s salvation through Israel.