What were the centurion’s words?

Luke: “Certainly this was a righteous man” (xxiii, 47).

Matthew: “Truly this was the Son of God” (xxvii, 54).

We have here the anomaly of a Roman officer—a Pagan—entertaining a Jewish doctrine of a Messiah, and accepting the Christian claim that Jesus was the Messiah. If this be true it is strange that he permitted his soldiers to insult and abuse Jesus.