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 All that we know
of Cornelius is contained in the Book of Acts (chapters 10 and 11). A
centurion was a Roman army officer, theoretically in charge of a hundred
men. Several centurions are mentioned in the New Testament (Matt 8:5 = Luke
7:2; Matt 27:54 = Luke 23:47; Acts 10:1; 22:25; 23:17,23; 22:23; 27:1), and
they are consistently portrayed favorably.
Cornelius is called a God-fearer--that is to say, he was a monotheist, a
Gentile who worshipped the One God. The Jews traditionally recognized that
such Gentiles had a place in the Family of God, and they are mentioned along
with the priests (House of Aaron), the Levites (House of Levi), and the Jews
or Israelites (House of Israel) in Ps 115:9-13, Ps 118:2-4, and Ps
135:19-20. In New Testament times, an estimated ten per cent of the
population of the Roman Empire consisted of God-fearers, Gentiles who
recognized that the pagan belief in many gods and goddesses, who according
to the myths about them were given to adultery, treachery, intrigue, and the
like, was not a religion for a thoughtful and moral worshipper, and who had
accordingly embraced an ethical monotheism -- belief in One God, who had
created the world, and who was the upholder of the Moral Law. Although only
a few of them took the step of formal conversion to Judaism, undergoing
circumcision and accepting the obligations of keeping the food laws and
ritual laws of Moses and his rabbinical interpreters, most of them attended
synagogue services regularly.
Cornelius, then, was a Roman centurion, and a God-fearing man. One day, as
he was praying, an angel appeared to him and told him to send a messenger to
Joppa and ask Peter to come and preach to him. Peter, meanwhile, was given a
vision that disposed him to go with the messenger. When Peter had preached
to Cornelius and his family and friends, the Holy Spirit fell on them, as on
the first Christians at Pentecost (Acts 2), and they began to speak in other
tongues. Thus, there was ample evidence to convince Jewish Christians who
hesitated to believe that it was the will of God that Gentiles should be
brought into the Church.
Cornelius was the first Gentile converted to Christianity, along with his
household, and Luke, recording this event, clearly regards it as an event of
the utmost importance in the history of the early Church, the beginning of
the Church's decision to admit Gentiles to full and equal fellowship with
Jewish Christians.
Cornelius lived in Caesarea, the political capital of Judea under Herod and
the Romans. (Given that Jerusalem was a holy city to the Jews, it would have
been needlessly provocative for the Romans to establish their headquarters
there.) Although he is not mentioned again, he and his household presumably
formed the nucleus of the Christian community that we find mentioned later
(Acts 8:40; 21:18) in this important city.
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