John 4:47Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

In the case of the centurion in Mt 8, the servant lay paralyzed. In this case the child was in a fever.

There is nothing surprising in his coming and asking Christ with weak faith. Parents, because of their great love for their children, commonly turn not only to physicians whom they fully trust, but even consult those in whom they place little hope, wishing to omit nothing.

Moreover, this man came to Christ only incidentally. When Christ came into Galilee, then he learned of Him.

If he had firmly believed, he would not have been unwilling, when his son was at the point of death, to go to Judea. If he was afraid, this too is inexcusable.

Someone may say, “Is this royal official not the same man as the centurion mentioned in the Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 8:5-15)? For that man too was in Capernaum.”

I think he is not the same man, but another. When Christ wishes to come, the centurion restrains Him, saying, “I am not worthy that You should come under my roof.”

This man urgently calls Jesus to his house. In the former case the servant, that is, the slave, suffered from paralysis. In this case the son had a fever.

There the Lord came to Capernaum after descending from the mountain. Here He comes from Samaria, and not to Capernaum, but to Cana.

By every indication, the former was a centurion, while this man was royal by rank.

“He came again to Cana of Galilee, where He had made the water wine.”

Christ generously bestows benefits upon those who are rightly disposed and readily show recognition and gratitude for the good they receive. He grants an abundant gift of greater blessings.

Therefore He comes to Cana in order to perform miracles. He judges it fitting to bring benefit to its inhabitants, since the signs already performed there had sown beforehand the conviction that He could accomplish all things.

Verses 46-48. “And there was a certain royal official whose son was sick in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and asked Him to come down and heal his son, for he was about to die. Jesus therefore said to him...”

Did the one who was imploring Him believe in Him? What answer do you expect from me? Ask the Lord what He thought of him. For to his request He answered thus: “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe” (Jn 4:48).

“When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and begged Him,” that is, he asked and invited Him, “to come down and heal his son, for he was about to die.”

Having returned to Galilee, Jesus Christ soon visited Cana and there performed the healing, from afar, of the son of the royal official from Capernaum.

That this miracle and the healing from afar of the servant of the centurion of Capernaum (Mt 8:5-13) are two distinct events is clear from the following.

First, there the miracle is performed from Cana, while here it is in Capernaum. Second, there it concerns a son, while here it concerns a servant. Third, here the centurion displays such power of faith that he considers himself unworthy to ask mercy from Christ personally.

He also considers himself unworthy to receive Him in his house, and believes in the possibility of healing from afar. There, however, the royal official only asks Christ to come to him and heal his son.

The appearance in this small town of the man who had performed a miracle known to all could not long remain secret. The report about Him quickly spread to the neighboring cities and villages, and even reached the palace of Herod Antipas in nearby Capernaum. Hearing of this, one of the latter’s royal officials deliberately came to Him in Cana, to ask Him to come to him in Capernaum and heal his dying son (Jn 4:46-54).

“Having heard,” and so forth: as is evident, the report of the Lord as a wonderworker had already spread far through Galilee. “He came to Him”: from Capernaum to Cana, a day’s journey. “He begged Him to come,” and so forth: the royal official, as is clear, believed in the Lord as a wonderworker, and this faith moved him to come to Him with a request. Yet he supposed that the Lord had to be with the sick man in order to heal him. He did not think that His wonderworking power could act even from afar, in absence.

In Galilee, whither Jesus Christ was going, He did not stop in Nazareth, His own city. As He Himself said, a prophet has no honor in his own country. Instead, He visited Cana and Capernaum again.

The people everywhere met Him with enthusiasm, for the report of His miracles in Jerusalem had already reached Galilee.

In Capernaum the Lord Jesus Christ healed the son of the royal official. In order of number, this was the second miracle Jesus Christ performed in Galilee.

The Galileans were despised by the Jerusalem Jews for their association with Gentiles and for not strictly observing the ritual prescriptions of the Law of Moses. They rejoiced that a great teacher and wonderworker had arisen from among them.

Verses 46-47. “Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee, where He had made the water wine.”

Cana lay on the road from Nazareth to Capernaum and the lake of Tiberias. Why did Jesus stop here? To revive by His presence the faith awakened by the first miracle, as Zigabenus says.

“In Capernaum there was a certain royal official whose son was sick.”

He came to Jesus in Cana with a request for his dying son.

The petitioner is called Βασιλικος by the evangelist. The Syriac translator understands this as one serving the king. In the Ethiopic translation it means one serving at the king’s court.

Flavius, in de bello 7, 5.2, calls the ambassadors sent by the Parthian king to Titus Βασιλικοι. He also first calls Herod’s ministers υπηρεται, servants, and then Βασιλικοι (Antiq. 15, 8.4).

The Lord, received by the people of Galilee with love and with the honor due to a great prophet, comes to Cana. There He "performed the beginning of His signs," as John the Evangelist indicates (Jn 2:11). Here also, by His almighty word, He works a second miracle.

The royal official (Βασιλικὸς), that is, a courtier of Herod Antipas the tetrarch, goes to the One of whom the people speak as the Messiah, as the One sent by God. Josephus, for example in De Bell. Iud. 1:11, calls all courtiers or those close to the king βασιλικοί. Herod Antipas the tetrarch was sometimes also called a king, as in Mt 14:9.