Nevertheless the centurion believed the master and
the
owner of the ship
Who were either one and the same person, or if two persons, the
one was the owner, whose the ship was, and the other, he that was
at the helm, and steered and directed it; or the one might be the
captain, and the other the pilot. The (kubernhthv) , or "governor", as he is here called
with the ancients, was he who sat on an eminence in the stern of
the ship, at the helm, and had the direction of it; he gave the
orders, which others executed: what qualified him for his post
chiefly lay in three things; in the knowledge of the
constellations, and winds, of the former that he might direct the
course of the ship according to them, and by them foresee future
tempests, and of the latter, that he might be acquainted with the
several points, from whence they blew; also in the knowledge of
ports, and places to put into, and of rocks and sands, that they
might be escaped; likewise in the knowledge of the use of the
helm, and sails F12; for one part of his business, as
F13 Seneca observes, was to give orders
after this manner; so and so move the helm, so and so let down
the sails in every ship there was a governor, and in larger ones
sometimes there were two; F14 Aelianus says, the
Carthaginians had always two governors in a ship: the other word,
(nauklhrov) , is in the
glossary rendered "navicularius", which signifies "the owner" of
the ship; and so we render it; though perhaps he is the same with
the "proreta", who governed the prow or head of the ship, and was
the next in dignity to the governor, and a kind of a
sub-governor; and his business was to observe tempests, to
explore promontories, rocks and sands, and show them to the
governor F15; and so Isidore F16 says,
the owner of the ship is called Naucleros, because the ship is in
his lot, "cleros" signifying lot: and as these best understood
naval affairs, Julius gave more heed to what they said, and
rather believed them,
than those things which were spoken by Paul;
by a spirit of prophecy, which he had no notion of; for though he
treated him civilly as a man, he had no regard to him as a
Christian, or as one endued with the Spirit of God, which he knew
nothing of.