Acts 10:22

Acts 10:22. Cornelius the centurion. The correct translation is ‘a centurion.' St. Peter as yet knew nothing of Cornelius; and there were in Palestine many officers of the same military rank.

A just man, and one that feareth God, and of good report among all the nation of the Jews. Here, through the testimony of the messengers, certain new elements' of the character of Cornelius come to view, and in the most interesting way. It is very instructive to observe how judiciously the messengers discharge their errand. Besides being one who ‘feared God,' Cornelius was a ‘just' man, a man of rectitude; and he was beloved, trusted, and respected, not merely by the Gentiles, but by ‘the Jews,' and not only by some partial members of the Jewish community whom he had served, but by ‘all the Jews.' It was conciliatory on the part of the messengers to mention these things, and good policy to lay stress on them: and this, too, is the most natural place in the narrative for such testimony to appear. It is worth while to observe here that the word used by these men for ‘nation' is ἔθνος. The natural word for Jews to have employed would have been λαός.

Warned from God. The words ‘from God' do not strictly and literally appear in the original: but their sense is implied in the verb, which is the same that Heathens would employ for the communication of a Divine oracle.

An holy angel. This is put in a form which would be acceptable to Peter and the other Jews.

To send for thee. There seems here to be an apologetic explanation of the fact that Cornelius had not come himself.

To hear words of thee. We have seen that the equivalent words in Acts 10:6 of the Authorised Version are spurious. The same remark may be made of the phrase before us here, and the equivalent phrase in Acts 10:32. But words to the same effect and more full are found in St. Peter's own account before the apostles and elders (Acts 11:14). And there is no doubt that a communication to this effect was made by the angel to Cornelius. The ‘word of hearing' (Romans 10:17; Galatians 3:2; Galatians 3:5) was the instrumentality used for the saving of his soul, and for the instruction of the world through his conversion.