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This Roman soldier was one that Jewish people would have to count as an exception (compare explicitly in Lk 7:4-5). The slave was probably the centurion's entire "family" (Roman soldiers were not permitted to have legal families during their two decades of military service; A. Jones 1970:155-56). (Matthew's audience may even think of Jewish relatives enslaved by the Romans after Jerusalem's fall in A.D. 70.)