Peter and Cornelius
Pktib opens the door of admission to the Gentiles. Citt of Cjebarea. Cornelius sends to Joppa for Peter. Peter’s
TRANCE AND VISION. HlS VISIT TO GdSSAREA, AND ITS RE-SULTS.
‘Far o’er the glowing western main
His wistful brow was upward raia’d,
Where like an Angel’s train
The burnished water blaz’d.
The saint beside the ocean pray’d,
The soldier in his chosen bower,
Where all bis eye survey’d
Seem’d sacred in that hour.
To each unknown his brother’s prayer,
Tet brethren true in dearest love
Were they — and now they share
Fraternal joys above.”
“The accounts which the second part of the Acts embraces respecting Peter, were not communicated so much to set before us the ministry of Peter, as to shew in what manner the Gospel was first carried to the Gentiles. As T.uke wrote mainly fur Gentile readers, he would naturally feel very solicitous to make it plain to them that this important event was brought about in accordance with God’s purpose.” — Olthutuen on the Act*.
“By a remarkable coincidence of inward revelation, with a chain of outward circumstances, the illumination hitherto wanted was imparted.” — Jfearuler.
and consummation of his ministry” — than by quoting the words of a thoughtful writer. These have reference to another important event in the history of the early Church, but are equally applicable and appropriate to our Apostle and to the occurrences in which he had the most important share.
“On One unseen, and on the counsels of His providence, St Luke would fix our attention: he can never forget that this history is but a continuation of that ’ former treatise f that it is the continued working of the Lord Jesus that he is inspired to reveal to us. The method of that divine working has already been variouply illustrated. We have seen how their unseen Lord was ever acting; guiding the lot, answering the prayer, pouring forth His Spirit in the upper chamber, prompting words that none could withstand, attesting those words with signs of power, touching the hearts of thousands in the Temple, overruling the priests’ counsel in the Sanhedrim, baffling their malice in the prison, restraining persecution till the central Church was consolidated; then, when all was ripe for dispersion, permitting it; guiding them in this inspiration now by an angel’s ministry; ever working with them (such is St Luke’s phrase), with them in the upper chamber, with them in the Temple, with them before rulers, with them in the dungeon, with them in their solitude, with them in the crowd: s*ich has been the Lord’s method of working hitherto, as revealed in St Luke’s narrative — an ever-present power, though unseen. And now a crisis has arrived, and the arm of that Lord whom the heavens had received, must be ’ revealed ’ yet more directly and visibly.”1
The promise of by-past ages, the longing and burden of prophetic song, is now to be fulfilled. The wild olive is to be grafted. The outlying nations of heathendom are to be brought within the fold of the Church, admitted as participants in those spiritual privileges which had for centuries been the exclusive possession and monopoly of the covenant nation.
How is the vast change to be effected? In a sense greater than any we have yet noted, to the Rockman is to be committed “the keys of the kingdom of heaven,” That promised distinction, as we have seen, had its first remarkable realisation ou the day of Pentecost, when the door of salvation was thrown open to the Jew —
1 Canon Norris’ Key to the Acts of the Apostles, “p. 42.
Peter preaching “in demonstration of the Spirit and with power,” the doctrine of the Resurrection. He is now to be privileged to unlock these same gates to the Gentiles, and by doing so, to introduce a new epoch in the history of the Church and of the world. Christianity, indeed, would have very partially and inadequately fulfilled its great mission, had it merely proved a development or expansion of Judaism — had its Lord and Head reigned in the ancient Zion alone, and His Apostleband formed the “satraps” of a privileged territory, while the outlying regions of paganism were left to brood in the darkness of former ages, under the undisputed sway of the God of this world or of his vicegerents, ignorance and superstition. In this case the most elevating strains of Hebrew minstrels might have remained unsung, or rather, these strains Would have resolved themselves into meaningless, unintelligible flights of hyperbole. But “that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.” The irrevocable decree that had gone forth from the lips of Israel’s God was, that He would give the promised Messiah “the heathen for His inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession.”
The importance of the event which is now to claim our thoughts, may be gathered from the narrative of it being twice recorded by the writer of the Acts of the Apostles; and on both these occasions the details are given with unwonted circumstantiality. Like every other great work in God’s Church, this ecclesiastical revolution, if I may so term it, required a season of preparation. The rooted prejudices of ages had to be overcome; the light could only gradually disperse the darkness. Although the disciples had been again and again indoctrinated by their Great Master alike in discourse and parable, with the truth “that many would come from the east and the west and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the new kingdom,” and although the last supreme commission which had the seal of His living lips upon it, and that, too, as recorded in Peter’s own Gospel was, “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature,” yet still they clung for eight long years with fond tenacity to the lost sheep of the house of Israel alone. In this, did they not follow, too, their Lord’s own example? “When He began to teach and preach,” says a writer, “He laboured among the Jews and among the Jews only. His friends were Jews; His disciples Jews: and like a good Pharisee, like a man set apart, He abstained from entering into the Greek cities and declined an invitation to the Golden House.” Even in the course of their Master’s ministry, we find His Apostles ever and anon manifesting a jealousy of their hereditary rights; they were very far themselves innocent of the pride, iliiberality, and prejudice which clung so inveterately to their nation and race. They little dreamt, therefore, of so mighty a meaning of their Lord’s parting command, as that the circle which had Judea for its centre was to have humanity for its circumference. When He spoke of their carrying the Gospel of the Kingdom to the “uttermost parts of the earth,” they might possibly interpret that word, as it might be interpreted, as being synonymous with their own “land/9 or at the most expect, that any who were to sit down at that spiritual banquet with the patriarchs of the nation, would come to Palestine to do so. If they were to share in Gospel privileges it was to be inside, not outside, the sacred frontier. In a word, unless they received some additional and very special tokens of Divine authority, it is questionable if they ever would hare ventured, in their apostolic journeys, beyond the borders of Tyre and Sidon or Caesarea PhilippL Their Christ was the Shiloh of Jacob, “the glory of His people Israel” no more. The idea of preaching amid the heathen crowd at Antioch, or in the theatre of Ephesus, or on the heights of Mars Hill, or in front of the Temples of Corinth, would have seemed an innovation alike dangerous and unauthorised.
We observe, however, the initial step in wider and more comprehensive views of their mission, on occasion of the first great Pentecostal revival, when the Jews of the Dispersion to whom they preached, carried the tidings of the Gospel with them to their distant homes. Peter’s recent pastoral visitation in Samaria, and on the plain and seaboard of Sharon, had doubtless tended further to modify old prejudices. The conversion of the Ethiopian chamberlain, a Jewish proselyte, whose heathen home was two thousand miles away from the Covenant land, yet who had received baptism from the hands of Philip, was an additional startling and significant fact in the development of the Church of the future. Then that memorable fortnight of holy fellowship with Saul? of Tarsus, to which we have recently adverted, and its earnest conversations, must have still farther prepared the mind of our Apostle for the startling revolution at hand. The former had such abundantly clear and manifest revelations given to him as to his world-wide commission,” Depart, for I will send
1 The conversion of the Gentiles was no new idea to Jews or Christians, but it had been universally regarded to take place by their reception into Judaism.” — Alfords Greek Testament. thee far hence unto the Gentiles” that he could hardly fail to have indoctrinated his brother, with his own expansive and comprehensive “churebmanship.”
While, therefore, “beginning at Jerusalem,” and laying the foundation-stone in Zion, the Supreme Disposer of all events had thus prepared His servants step by step, for crossing the frontiers of the chosen race, and bearing the lamp of truth to those sitting in darkness and in the region and shadow of death, Peter is again made the instrument in this all-momentous change in the economy of the Church, and in the removing of Gentile disqualifications. His way, moreover, was made so patent, that, with no hesitation or embarrassment, he is brought to dismiss ail hereditary prejudice, and, with the simplicity of a child, he seems to say, “I will hear what God the Lord will speak.” In publishing that Gospel to the “alien” Gentiles, it was only after receiving the most unmistakable of intimations from on high, “The Lord gave the word.” We may assign approximately the date of the momentous crisis to the year A.D. 42 or 43.
The city of Csesarea, with a mingled population of Jews, Greeks, and Romans, was to have the honour and privilege of being that wherein the first sheaf of the Gentile harvest was to be reaped. This city, originally a fishing hamlet, named “Straton’s Tower,” is now reduced to a few piles of ruin. The writer has not personally seen it; but the most observant of travellers thus describes it — “On a rocky ledge, somewhat resembling that of Ascalon on the south, and Dor on the north, rise the ruins of Caesarea, now the most desolate site in Palestine. Like the vast fragments of St Andrews, in Scotland, they run out into the waves of the Mediterranean Sea, which dashes over the prostrate columns and huge masses of masonry j but, unlike St Andrews — unlike in this respect to most Eastern ruins - — no sign of human habitation is to be found within the circuit of its deserted walls.” 1 At the time of which we write, the cluster of fishing huts were transformed, as with an enchanter’s wand, into another of the magnificent monuments of Herod’s architectural taste and extravagance. “He built it,” says Josephus, “all with white stone, and adorned it with the most splendid palaces.” We have recently spoken of the danger and insecurity of Joppa as a harbour, though geographically the natural seaport of Jerusalem. But this imperial builder resolved on an artificial equivalent for the want of natural breakwaters, by erecting a huge harbour, where vessels might take refuge from the unprotected swell of the Mediterranean when roused by the fury of the westerly winds. It consisted of a semicircular mole, equal in dimensions to the Piraeus at Athens, and composed of stones 50 feet long, sunk in a depth of 60 feet. At the extremity of the mole was a tower called Drusia, named in honour of the Roman Drusus; while the city itself was called after the Emperor, Ccesarea Stbaste. Part of the modern ruins are probably those of the Temple, which crowned the heights of the city and the Sebasteum, and which formed a conspicuous object to those afar off upon the sea. “It was to this Temple that the famous shields, the dedication of which at Jerusalem threw the nation into such a ferment in the time of Pontius Pilate, were, by the command of Tiberius, removed.” 2 The city became
l Sinai and Palestine, p. 259. See woodcut at the head of this chapter. Levin’s St Paul, p. 606. the official residence of the Roman Procurator, and the Herodian family had here* their palatial dwelling. It was thus made, according to Tacitus, the capital of the later Herodian dynasty (caput Judasae). It was free of the defect, which attached to the old inland metropolis, as that where there is “no galley with oars, neither gallant ship, to pass thereby “(Isa. xxiii. 21).” From that sea-girt city, Pontius Pilate came yearly across the plain of Sharon, and up the hills, to keep guard on the Festivals at Jerusalem :M1 it was the Roman amphitheatre of Csesarea which was the scene of Herod Agrippa’s loathsome and appalling death. It would be beyond our purpose to do more than note, that the city has more than one association with the Apostle Paul. The last of these was in the guard-room of the Praetorium, where he was confined by Felix, and where he remained two years in bonds, before his final voyage to Rome. It was also the residence for some years of Philip the Evangelist, whose Christian influence, judging from the fearless zeal with which he prosecuted his mission in the towns of Samaria, could hardly fail to tell with power on its mixed population.2
At the time of which we speak, a cohort of 600 soldiers were stationed in the barracks of this garrison town. They were called “the Italian band,” because composed entirely of native Romans, the levied or provincial troops not being considered so reliable in case of a revolt in the disturbed state of Palestine. Caesarea being, as we have just noted, the residence of the Roman Viceroy, it was needful to have a body-guard on whose allegiance and fidelity he could scrupulously * See Lewin. Also Art. ‘Cuesarea,” Bib. Diet. depend. “The manner in which the Bomans denominated and distinguished their bands and legions was very various. Sometimes it was from the order of places, and so they were called the first and second band, according to their rank and precedency; sometimes from the commanders they were under, as the Augustan and Claudian band, <fcc, because persons of that name led them; sometimes from their own behaviour, as the Victrix, the Ferrea, the Conquering, the Iron Band, <fcc. by reason of the great valour which in some sharp engagements these had shewn; sometimes from the countries they were chiefly quartered in, as the German and Panonian band, &e.; and sometimes from the parts from whence they were gathered, as this is called the Italian band.” 1 The officer at the head of this Praetorian guard was by name Cornelius. Loyal in his allegiance to the ruling Caesar, he was at the same time the faithful subject of a Greater than earthly monarch. He had attained, we know not through what instrumentality, to a knowledge of the true God. He had evidently shared the loftier aspirations of many of his contemporaries, in search of that summum bonum, which neither their philosophy nor religion could supply. Discarding the mythical legends and childish fables of pagan mythology, which had lamentably failed to meet and answer “the long-drawn sigh of humanity,” he, and those of similar mould, had been arrested by the divine simplicity of the Hebrew faith. The writings of Moses and the Prophets, the lofty morality inculcated in psalm and proverb, had been made accessible and familiar to them through the wide-spread language of Greece. The knowledge and
1 Calmet’s Commentary.
2f
450 THE frOOTStERS Off St PETER.
worship of the pure and holy God of Israel presented a calm harbour of refuge amid the Widespread atheism, the restless speculation, the deep and foul corruption of an exceptionally reprobate age. Cornelius had accordingly renounced his national idolatry, and had become a “proselyte of the gate” — worshipping Jehovah, but as a Gentile* remaining uncircumcised. We shall presently find Peter, himself a Jew, appropriately located in the old Jewish port of Joppa* There Was an equal appropriateness, as it has been well remarked, in laying the scene of the admission of the Gentiles in a city so distinctively Roman, with Roman buildings, Roman name, Roman governor Roman troops. “No men could Well be more contrasted with each other than those two, in whom the heathen and Jewish worlds met and were reconciled. We know what Peter Was-^a Galilean fisherman, brought up in the rudest district of an obscure province, with no learning but such as he might have gathered in the synagogue of his native town. And now he wad at Joppa, lodging in the house of Simon the tanner, the Apostle of a religion that was to change the world. *. No name was more honour-. able at Rome than that of the Cornelian Souse. It was the name borne by the Scipios, and by Sulla, and the mother of the Gracchi... Cornelius was, no doubt, a true born Italian. Educated in Rome, or some provincial town, he had entered Upon a soldier’s life, dreaming perhaps of military glory, but dreaming as little of that better glory, which now surrounds the Cornelian name, as Peter dreamt at the Lake of Gennesareth of becoming the chosen companion of the Messiah of Israel, and of throwing open the doors of the Catholic Church to the dwellers in Asia and Africa, to the barbarians on the remote and un visited shores of Europe, and to the undiscovered countries of the West.”1
Yet with equal truth has this ‘devout Roman been designated “the Abraham of the New Dispensation,” 44 holding, as the predecessor of the Gentile convert** a relation to us not dissimilar to that of the great Hebrew ancestor to the Jews. Like him, too, who is called ’ the Father of the Faithful,’ his character is depicted on the inspired page. ». as ’ a devout man;’ a liberal benefactor of the poor; a maintainor, like his prototype, of family religion, and a man of prayer.” 2 “There was a certain man in Csdsarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band. A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway” (Acts x. 1, 2). These prayers were very possibly for an increase of guidance and illumination, specially with reference to the new faith. The supplication of another devout warrior might be his own, ‘* Shew me Thy ways, O Lord; teach me Thy paths. Lead me in Thy truth, and teach me: for Thou art the God of my salvation; on Thee do I wait all the day “(Ps. xxv. 4, 5). He was in due time to obtain the realisation of the sure promise, “The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him” (Lam. iii. 25). We have been led
1 Howson and Conybeare, p. 126. It has been often noted that all tho four centurions whose names occur in sacred story are favourably mentioned. The centurion of the Gospel, who had his servant cured; the ceu turiou who, at the crucifixion, recognised the divinity of Christ; the centurion whose “courteous” conduct to St Paul, on his way a prisoner to Borne, is more than once alluded to in the narrative; and now this honoured soldier in the barracks of Caesar ea.
* Bishop Let on St Peter, p. m. recently to admire in the Christian Lady of Joppa a beautiful example of faith working by love — Christianity in one of its most attractive phases, as the handmaid of all generous ‘deeds. Much more strikingly and impressively are these kindred acts of charity and devotion exemplified, in the case of one surrounded with little calculated to evoke and nurture the tenderer sympathies; who had been trained in the stern, terrible school of Roman warfare, with its code of cruelty and revenge; habituated from his infancy, and especially in the dark times in which his lot was cast, to selfishness and oppression; familiarised in the capital, not with the asylum for the indigent and distressed, the sickly and destitute, but rather with the exhibition of a savage delight in the blood and tortures of Coliseum and amphitheatre. The law of an exceptional kindness, however, was not only in this man’s heart, but it had its outcome in munificent generosity. Many a poor outcast on the wharves of the gorgeous sea-capital, or amid the slums that were already clustering around its palatial homes, owned him as their benefactor. Nobler than any warlike insignia that adorned his breast, was the invisible record, engraven on suffering hearts and poverty-stricken dwellings, “He delivered the needy when he cried; the poor also, and him that hath no helper.,,
Cornelius could not possibly be in ignorance of the Person, teaching, miracles, and lofty claims of the Christ of Nazareth. On the contrary, from the circumstances in which he was placed, with these he must have been abundantly conversant. As a Jewish proselyte, and familiar with the writings of their prophets and psalmists, he must have shared in the ardent long-PETER AXD CORNELIUS.
45?
ings of the Hebrew people for the advent of the predicted Messiah. The footsteps of Jesus, indeed, had not been nearer Caesarea than when He visited “the borders of Tyre and Sidon; “but we have reason to believe that, at all events shortly after His ascension, He had disciples and followers in the Roman city. In all probability, too, Philip the Evangelist had been prosecuting his labours in the Herodian capital, and had deepened the already awakened interest of the devout and teachable Roman. In the case of the latter the promise was doubtless realised,” Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord — “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine.” The “prayers and fastings” of this “seeker after God” .would seem to indicate, that with a far deeper meaning than the words conveyed to the Psalmist, he was looking wistfully for those Divine beams to visit his own heart which had already broke over the Hebrew mountains: — “My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning” (Ps. cxxx. 6). “He knew,” to quote the words of Lange, “the history of Jesus, so far as it was spread abroad; he knew that no small part of the Jews recognised Him as the Messiah, and that a division upon this question agitated his co-religionists; and probably his own soul was agitated by the same inquiry, and he longed after a true solution from above.”
At the same time, however, it must be borne in mind, as that which gives its highest meaning and significance to the whole transaction, that this Roman officer, with all his Messianic aspirations, — his devoutness, and goodness, and noble self-sacrificing generosity, — was, on the ground of his being a Gentile, looked down upon — to use a Row an term, “ostracised” — by the Jewish race. They might admire his natural virtues, and strive to emulate his beneficence, but he was debarred from holding equal social intercourse with them. He could not meet with them at table, eat out of the same platter, or drink from the same vessel. Being un circumcised, he was under the ban of separation, and deemed “common and unclean.” If, then, he were desirous, over and above his present acknowledgment of the God of Israel, to enrol himself among the disciples of Jesus-^to attach himself to the Founder of that new system which professed itself to be a fulfilling and perfectiipg of the Jewish dispensation — an all-important question with him must have been, could he do so on the simple footing of being a “proselyte of the gate,” or would it be needful so far to surrender his nationality, the proud privileges of a Roman citizen, by submitting to the Abrahamic rite 1 Must he cease to be a Roman, and become a Jew, before he cau participate in the blessings of the Gospel? Must he put on the galling fetters of the Mosaic law, before he can exult in the liberty and freedom of the Christian f
One afternoon, at the ninth hour of the day, the hour of evening prayer, when the sun was beginning to decline above “the western wave,” while Cornelius was engaged in his wonted devotions, a bright vision appeared to him. A messenger from the heavenlyworld addressed him by name. Brave soldier as he was, accustomed to face .serried ranks with unflinching courage, he was for the moment unmanned by the unexpected apparition.
PETER AND CORNEUTJ&
What is it, sir?” he asked with trembling lip, us he confronted face to face this shining angel.
The rejoinder was, that his prayers and his alms, acting according to the light he possessed, had been accepted at the heavenly mereyaeat ,:~r-M Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before, GocL” “In the Levitical law, the incense burnt before the Lord, and the handful of fine flour for a sin-offer ing, which the priests threw into the fire of the altar, are both termed a memorial. By applying the same designation to the prayers and aims of Cornelius, the angel signified that they were spiritual sacrifices, with which God was well pleased. Cornelius believed in the true God, and this faith rendered his religious services acceptable.” 2
The assurance given him by the angel, was followed by the startling and peremptory order to despatch some messengers to the seaport of Joppa, and request the immediate attendance of Peter at Caesarea, who, on his arriTal, would be the medium of some important communication. The specification is most minute as to where the Apostle was sojourning — the city, the house, its locality, its humble owner, and that owner’s occupation. “One fact suggested,” says Dr Macleod in his “Eastward,”” remains for our strength and comfort that our angel brothers who minister to the heirs of salvation are not strangers to our earth and its inhabitants, nor to the situation of our lowly homes, or the nature of our ’ honest trades for the angel who com-
1 Not as in our version, “What is it, Lord t” for we have no reason to imagine that he considered the person addressing him as Divine. It was the natural expression of surprise at the unexpected appearance of a mysterious visitor.
* Professor Pick on the Acts, p. 106. manded Cornelius to send for Peter knew this old town of Jaffa, and knew also the name, the house, and tha trade of Simon.”
The angel-visit was brief, but his message was at once clear and imperative. Accordingly Cornelius, with military promptitude, summoned two of his household servants and an attendant soldier; and, after narrating to them the supernatural interview, gave them orders to hasten to Joppa, and request without delay the presence of the Jewish Apostle. We may here only note, in passing, that while the employment of angelic agency, on the one hand, betokened the momentous nature of the transaction which was imminent, yet a signal honour is, at the same time, put upon human instrumentality. The opening of the gates of the Gentile world might have been by the “disposition of angels.” This delegate from the ministering seraphim, who had appeared to the Roman soldier, might at once have intimated the approaching crisis in God’s dealings with His Church. It might indeed, in one sense, have given greater impressiveness and solemnity to the incident, and tended more promptly and effectually to disarm all doubt or objection on the part of the Jews. But the Divine Being here, as elsewhere, desired to magnify the office of the earthly ambassador. The great revolution about to be effected was to be entrusted to an “earthen vessel.” And in Peter’s subsequent description of the vision, when he rehearsed the matter to the Apostles and brethren in Jerusalem, narrating circumstantially the angelic message, he brings out more specifically the high honour and prerogatives conferred on those who have thus committed to them “the ministry of reconciliation.” “Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter, who shall tell thee words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved” (Acts xi. 13, 14).
Nor can the fact be overlooked that, among the varied human instruments who might have been employed in this memorable embassage, special selection was made of Peter. Philip was then, we have every reason to suppose, resident at Caesarea, a faithful minister and evangelist John, James, and other distinguished brethren, were at Jerusalem. But it was for him to whom, eight years before, the Lord had given” the keys of the kingdom of heaven/* that the privilege and distinction were reserved of first unfolding the charter of Gentile freedom — opening the long-locked gates of the outside world. As in the first, so was he to be chief actor in this second Pentecost — this Gentile Whitsuntide.
The messengers were accordingly despatched probably towards the afternoon, spending the night, it has been surmised, at Appolonia, and completing their journey in the cool of the next morning.
While Cornelius and his household were thus prepared for some communication of extraordinary interest and importance, the Lord of angels and men was preparing His Apostle at Joppa for what, next to companionship with Himself on earth, was the greatest distinction of Peter’s life.
The writer of these pages, as in the case of all travellers in the Holy Laud, was conducted after landing at Jaffa, to the reputed “house of Simon the Tanner.” Whether the dwelling now shewn be the veritable locality or no, the site at all events is appropriate and impressive, and enables one to carry away a faithful mental picture. On reaching the summit of the house, you look, as is shewn in the accompanying engraving, over the flat roofs of the modern city; and far as the eye can reach in the northern distance is the stretch of yellow sand on the way to Csesarea, the outer fringe of the plain of Sharon washed by the blue waves of the Great Sea — the direction certainly, and probably too the very line of road, by which the three delegates were now hastening to the temporary home of the Jewish fisherman. “The house is close on the sea-shore; the waves beat against the low wall of its courtyard. In the courtyard is a spring of fresh water, suck as must always have been needed for the purposes of tanning, and which, though no longer so used, is authentically reported to have been so used in a tradition which describes the premises to have, been long employed as a tannery.... The rude staircase to the roof of the modern house, flat now as of old, leads us to the view which gives all that is needed for the accompaniments of the hour. There is the wide noonday heaven above; in front is the long bright sweep of the Mediterranean, its nearer waves broken by the reefs famous in ancient Gentile legends as the rocks of Andromeda. Fishermen are standing and wading amongst them, such as might have been thereof old, recalling to the Apostle his long- forgotten nets by the lake of Gennesareth, the first promise of his future call to be c a fisher of men.’ “l Through that same arched gateway, “the Jerusalem gate,,, by which the stream of commerce still surges, and which forms the one entrance to the town, the Caesarea messengers probably passed. The fountain inside, now adorned with Sara-JAFFA, FROM THE SUPPOSED HOUSE OF SIMON THE TANNER. (Page 458.)
Digitized” PETER AND CORNELIUS. cemc devices and marble trough, determines what must have been in every age the principal approach. Even the elders of ancient times, sitting at the gate for judgment, have their modern successors, though of degenerate type and squalid mien.
Although then, we may still be disposed to place the modern dwelling at Jaffa shewn as Peter’s, in the category of tradition, yet somewhere, doubtless, it must have been nigh to that very building whither we were led by our dragoman, that eighteen centuries ago, at the sixth hour of the day, the sultry hour of noon, the Apostle went up as was his wont to the roof of Simon’s house to perform his devotions. The roofs of the eastern houses were utilised for a variety of purposes quite unknown to the western world. “For purposes of exercise, of sleeping in summer, of conference, of mourning, erecting booths at the feast of tabernacles, and other religious celebrations; — for observation, and for any process requiring fresh air and sun.“1 Morning and evening were the two appointed” canonical “hours for Hebrew prayer; but the more devout among the nation, as. in the case of Daniel in the city of his exile, added another at the time of ‘’siesta’” — before the mid-day meal. We can even, without drawing on imagination, picture the very attitude and position of the apostolic suppliant As the Prophet we have just named, when he knelt in his chamber in Babylon had his face turned towards the Temple of Jerusalem, so would it be with the “Saint beside the ocean,” With his back to the waters of the Great Sea — the sea which laved the far-off shores of the “Isles of Chittim,” he would have his eyes directed towards the same hallowed spot which had to him mingled, indeed, but still consecrated memories.
It was, then, before the ordinary time of forenoon refreshment, and when the cravings of hunger were upon him, that Peter fell into a trance or reverie. His senses, being abstracted from outward objects and rapt in a supernatural state, a vision was revealed to his inner soul, engrossing and absorbing all his tbought.and attention. The heavens appeared to be opened; and a great white sheet, knit by the four corners, appeared to be let down from a cleft in the blue sky. Might not this be intended in the first instance to assure him, that whatever truth was about to be revealed, it had its. origin in heaven and God? This sheet contained a collection of varied animals, doubtless those most familiar to him in imagination as haunting hill and valley, rock and gorge, reed and sedge, bordering his native lake. Quadrupeds, reptiles, fowls tame and wild, were mingled indiscriminately; both “clean and unclean.” A voice was at the same moment heard issuing the command, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat.”
His whole nature seemed fastidiously to rebel against an injunction so repugnant to a Jew. To obey the voice would be to run counter to the express prohibition of the Levitical law, which forbade, on severest penalties, the partaking of the food of animals ceremonially unclean. We see an illustration jdi how rigid this prohibition was, in Daniel and his companions rather submitting to live on pulse, than to contract defilement by partaking of meat from the royal table (Dan. i. 8); while the uncanouical historical books tell of the dreadful privations to which the Jews submitted in the time of the Maccabees in preference to polluting themselves with forbidden meats; accepting slow death rather than violate their law. In obedience, therefore, to the promptings of his Jewish nature, he did not hesitate for a moment to reject the proposal. Indeed, probably imagining at first that it was intended simply as a test of his loyal adhesion to stringent laws which had never been abrogated, he instinctively replies, “Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” The same mysterious voice conveyed in reply a gentle rebuke ;-~at the same time indicating on whose authority and sanction the command had been given. The announcement embodied in brief the whole principle at issue, and formed the groundwork and reason of the new apostolic manifesto — “What God hath cleansed that call not thou common” The revelation was not only repeated but it occurred three times, in order to make a deeper impression on Peter’s mind; to show that it was no phantom of the braiu — no mere ordinary dream destitute of any special significance — but like that of Pharaoh which was “doubled,” “because the tbiug was established by God, and God would shortly bring it to pass.” Then the sheet with its multitudinous contents again rose at the bidding of some unseen power to the heaven whence it issued; and the entranced Apostle woke up to the realities of the scene around him.
He was at first in a state of strange bewilderment. What could this vision mean 1 Was he to accept at once its symbolic teaching as a distinct exponent and authentic revelation of the Divine will? he unhesitatingly to accept the lesson of an acted parable, and feel that the distinction between meats and animals, clean and unclean, belonged, not as he had supposed to
462 THE FOOTSTEPS Ot ST PffTER.
a permanent, but to a temporary dispensation; that the Divine legislator had rescinded His own law; and, as one necessary result, that pollution would no longer be contracted by attending a Gentile banquet, eating with the uncircumcised 1 Could he fail to remember, and be staggered at the remembrance of the strong words of his great Master on the one solitary occasion, when, crossing the frontiers of Judseism, He came into actual contact with the Gentile world —” It is riot meet to take the children’s bread and to cast it to dogs V
He was not left long in his perplexity. The providence of God, like another Daniel, was to read the dream and the interpretation thereof. His musings were broken by an announcement made to him “by the Spirit” (in what way we know not), that three men — strangers — one a soldier and the other two civilians, were standing at the humble door of his entertainer wishing to hold audience with him. The Divine voice further enjoined him to go down to those who thus “sought him” without delay or hesitation, and accord with their request whatever it was, for it had the stamp and sanction of Divine authority. “Behold,” he said to the three travellers, as descending from the house roof by the outside stair, he stood before them at the gate, “I am he whom ye seek.” He requested at the same time to know their errand.
They told, in brief simple words, how their Roman master, “A just man, fearing God” (and adding, to disarm Peter s hesitation), “of good report among the Jews,” had been divinely warned “by an holy angel to send for thee into his house and to hear words of thee.”
He had no doubt in his mind that the thing, whatever it was, “proceeded from the Lord.” In the four coruered white sheet, as Neander suggests, he may have symbolically seen the intimation that men from north, south, east, and west, were now accounted clean before God and were called to share in His kingdom. With the express injunction received, “Go, nothing doubting,” any scruples he might have had were dismissed. He resolved to accompany them in the unprecedented mission. Meanwhile, with wonted Jewish hospitality, he invites the three travellers within. They share his humble fare and lodging for the night; and next morning, joined by other six of his converts ,in Joppa (Acts xii. 12), the little company proceed along the thirty miles of seaboard to the Romau capital of Palestiue. The reason of his taking these six companions with him, though not specified, is made obvious at a subsequent stage. Peter was evidently so far prepared for a new and startling crisis in the Church’s “development.” Moreover, as his conduct in the sudden emergency might possibly be liable to doubt, misconstruction, it might even be, vehement opposition, with a wise policy and prudent foresight he selects a few reliable Christian brethren who might afterwards be called to give corroborative testimony as to the Divine will and dealings. The long route occupied them more than a day, for it was on the following morning, we are told, they reached the house of Cornelius.
Cornelius, securely calculating on Peter’s arrival, was already waiting for him We might have expected that in the first instance he would have desired and- preferred a private audience to reveal his scruples and perplexities. On the contrary, however, he made it the occasion of a public reception; for his kinsmen and near friends were also there to welcome the distinguished stranger. Doubtless among that assembly were many anxious souls, brought together by no mere vague curiosity, but who, sharing the religious aspirations of Cornelius, were longing to hear with deep yearning of heart what Divine communication was to be made to them by Jehovah’s accredited messenger.
The first meeting of the Roman soldier and the Jewish fisherman was remarkable. Cornelius, though accustomed not to obey but to command, seemed to be overcome with a feeling of veneration for God’s honoured servant. He probably had heard of the miracles in the performance of which Peter had been the main instrument in Jerusalem, and more recently at Lydda and Joppa. On the impulse of the moment, as the Apostle entered his house, the centurion fell down in homage at his feet This action was not necessarily, as some think, simply the oriental mode of showing deference and profound respect to a superior, but rather the outcome and expression of the religious faith and habits in which, as a Roman, he had been from his earliest years moulded. The Jew and the Pagan were at the opposite poles of thought regarding the fundamental truth of revealed religion. The former tenaciously held by the first article of his Covenant charter, “The Lord our God is one Lord.” With him there were no lords many or gods many. This in startling contradistinction to the polytheism of Greece and Rome, whose whole mythological system was composed of groups of divine beings or personages invested with godlike attributes, most of them too in human shape; — from the wielder of Olympian thunderbolts down to the more familiar deity presiding over wood or cavern or grove. Accordingly, when the Apostle of Christ on whom his Master had conferred superhuman powers, was announced, it was only obeying a natural and national instinct, even though in his case supplanted by a better creed, that Cornelius flung himself in an act of reverence at Peter’s feet. He who, as a soldier and born a heathen Roman, had been in the habit of deifying heroes, was not unlikely to regard as something godlike or divine, the man who had been pointed out to him by an angel. Promptly, however, was the obeisance repudiated. Peter reminded him that he was neither God nor demi-god, but a child of humanity like himself. “Stand up; I myself also am a man!” (We may say in a parenthesis, How do the indignant words ring in the ears of those who have seen the ignorant crowd in the Great Sanctuary in Rome, touch with their foreheads and lips the foot of the pseudo image, to which, by a strange misnomer, the name of the Apostle has been given! Equally strange to hear the boasted successor of this “Prince of Apostles 99 arrogating the title and prerogative of the Most High — asserting the claim — not” I also am a man but “I also am as God.”)
Peter, with the outspoken and generous manliness of his nature, tells Cornelius what induced him to respond so readily to his solicitation. He, alludes in the first instance to the barriers separating Jew from Gentile, which hitherto were deemed insuperable, and specially precluding the former from accepting the hospitality of the latter, on account of the meats proscribed by the Hebrew law. But he now informs him that his scruples had, by the clear voice and intimation of heaven, been removed. Cornelius, in his turn, briefly rehearsed the story of the heavenly visitant, by whose express com-
2G mand it was he had ventured to ask the Apostle to undertake that long journey of thirty miles from Joppa.
If Peter had any wavering or hesitation before, as to the path of duty, he has none now. We may feebly imagine his emotions in that hour of joyous marvel; how his whole soul must have kindled into rapture. No, not even at Pentecost amid its startling supernatural prodigies would he feel so thrilled, as when about to have the privilege of making the glad announcement that the Gentiles were henceforth to become personal recipients of the great salvation. He gives vent at once to a rush of unpremeditated words; — one of those noble epigrammatic addresses or discourses, attempting to paraphrase which, would betospoiland mutilate — “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him. The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ (He is Lord of all): that word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judaea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with Him. And we are witnesses of all things which He did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew, and hanged on a tree: Him God raised up the third day, and shewed Him openly; not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from the dead. And He commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is He which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead. To Him give all the prophets witness, that, through His name, whosoever belie veth in Him shall receive remission of sins 99 (Acts x. 34-43).
While the inspired Preacher was still speaking, the Holy Ghost descended on all present. There was no violent agitation indeed; none of the bitter tears and self-reproaches which on the former occasion characterised the scene, as the murderers of Calvary were smitten with the awful consciousness of their enormous crime. Cornelius and his family had no such upbraidings, guiltless as they were of the blood of the Prince of Life. But the old and well-remembered symbols of Pentecost were probably both seen and heard — the mighty wind and the tongues of fire — the conjoint evidences of the Divine presence, approval, and blessing. “They of the circumcision v who had accompanied Peter from Joppa, were specially filled with astonishment. They beheld sights strange to Jewish eyes. They listened to sounds strange to Jewish ears. Gentiles, heathens, crowned with Pentecostal flame, speaking with tongues, and in utterances of holy exultation magnifying the God of Israel. What proof more was needed? “On the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.”
Amid that scene of profound interest, Peter’s voice again interposed. He saw his way to put still further the seal of Apostleship on the transaction; and that way surely must have been clearly made plain, when he acted entirely on his own responsibility without asking the advice or co-operation of his colleagues in Jerusalem. With the thing signified so palpably before him, bow could he hesitate for a moment to add the sign itself t God had baptized with fire, surely he, His servant, may not be hindered from baptizing with water] “Can any forbid the water” (it is in the original, not simply water as in our authorised version). It b the complement to “the Spirit” in the close of the sentence — “Can any forbid the water that these should not be baptized who have received the Spirit?” It is, moreover, worthy of note, that though the reality was granted, this did not supersede the employment of the symbol. It was the reversal indeed of the usual order and sequence. On other occasions, the rite of baptism preceded the visible gift of the Spirit. In the present case, the miraculous token came first. It was probably «o appointed to remove any lingering hesitation in the mind of Peter, whether baptism could be administered and Church fellowship enjoyed without first the rite of circumcision; “teaching us too, that as the Holy Spirit dispensed, once and for all with the necessity of circumcision in the flesh, so can He also when it pleases Him, with the necessity of water-baptism; and warning the Christian Church not to put baptism itself in the place which circumcision once held.”1
Nor is it without significance that the Apostle was not himself the dispenser of the initiatory rite to Cornelius and his friends. He assigned the duty to others. “He commanded them to be baptized.” It is remarkable that such too formed a special characteristic in the ministry a lie of his Divine Lord and of the chiefest of all the Apostles. “J esus baptized not.” “I baptized,” says Paul,” none of you save Crispus and Gaius. Christ
1 i Alford’s Greek Test., in loco.
Stent me not to baptize but to preach the Gospel. n And here, the “Coryphaeus of the apostolic choir “delegates the administration of this Christian Sacrament to the hands of others. Does not this impressively tell us — was it not surely designed impressively to tell us, — that there is no virtue or efficacy in the mere dispenser of the rite. Can we forget, as suggested by Peter’s conduct here, that his” beloved brother Paul “was himself baptized, not by any Apostle either in Damascus or Jerusalem, but by the hands of a humble unknown disciple of the faith — ‘* one Ananias 1”
The scene now presented to the eye of Peter, must have seemed the renewal or rather the fulfilment of One of the old prophetic voices: “It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou’ may est be my salvation unto the end of the earth” (Isa. xlix. 6). Strange and marvellous scene! the Gospel of Salvation — the religion of the despised and rejected Nazarene — proclaimed by a Jew and joyfully accepted by a representative Gentile! — the first fusion and amalgamation of the heathen and the Hebrew elements. Old things are indeed passing away and all things are becoming new.
The company assembled in the house of Cornelius were forthwith baptized in the name of the Lord; and as if to strengthen them in their adopted faith, and to vindicate his own honourable office as through them the opener of the kingdom of heaven to the Gentile nations, the Apostle responded to their wish to tarry with them for some days.
We shall not furth r linger on this great crisis-hour in Peter’s history, however tempted to do so. The exclusive Jewish ritual with its galling restraints was repealed — the burdensome yoke of the ceremonial law for ever removed — the stranger and foreigner made a fellow-citizen with the “saints and of the household of God.” It was, of all incidents in apostolic story, that which was most momentous in its bearing and results to us. It was the birthday of European Christendom* The members of the vast human family, hand linked in hand, could now say, “He is our peace who hath made both one; and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.” At that ocean city could the anthem first arise, “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.” Peter had the honour and privilege of preparing the way for the- world-wide mission of him who, par excellence, was “Apostle of the Gentiles.” Thus “by revelation God made known the mystery which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it was now revealed unto His holy Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the GospeL”
More than one writer has ingeniously pointed out, the close resemblance existing between the cases of the conversion of Paul and the call of Cornelius. Both had been simultaneously prepared by visions for the coming of those who had been instructed to comfort and enlighten them — Ananias in the case of the future Apostle, Peter in the case of Cornelius. Both the divinely-appointed messengers exhibited at first reluctance and hesitation in obeying the call — Ananias pleading the hostile repu-1 tation of the persecutor, the “much evil “he had done to the saints; the other, the stringent ritual obligation and prohibition — Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean: n — the Divine answer in both cases repelling the objection, — to the one,” Go thy way to the other, “What God hath cleansed that call not thou common:” upon this declaration of the Divine will, both giving instant and unhesitating compliance. Farther, in both cases, prayer preceded the blessing. Paul was on his knees when Ananias was sent to him — “Behold, he prayeth.” Cornelius was also engaged in his devotions when the angel appeared to him, “Cornelius, thy prayer is heard.” Even the minute description of their respective places of abode is remarkable. In the one case “the house of Judas in the street called Straight,” the great thoroughfare of the Syrian city. In the other the house of Simon the tanner by the seaside.
We can imagine what surprise, consternation, and at first in some cases, displeasure, these occurrences produced in the Church at Jerusalem. What a shock to their feelings to hear that the alien Gentile had been welcomed into the company of believers, and that, too, by their acknowledged head and leader; — that Peter had baptized not only Cornelius but his kinsmen, broken bread in their house and thereby contracted defilement! Some might perhaps recall the impulses of former days, and attribute this rash act to the old ineradicable, impetuous nature — the man of wayward feeling to the last. If so, they did him injustice. The Apostle who walked on the stormy lake, had now, by the grace of God in his soul, lost all the fitful instability of earlier life. The reed shaken by the wind and tossed, had
* See Howson and Conybeare in loco, also Canon N orris* Key to Acts.” grown into the cedar of God, its roots moored in the* Rock of Ages. And knowing, as his most trusted friends did, the strength of his new-born character — the least likely of any of the Apostolate to be warped and perverted by mere sentiment, they would be the more startled by his prompt and decided action in what was assuredly antagonistic to his traditional predilections. Some influence greatly more than human, must have dominated and determined him to abandon the fondlyclung to idea of national exclusive!) ess, and use his symbolic “key” to throw open the Temple gates of the spiritual Zion, making it “a house of prayer for all people.”
Peter resolves, without delay, to go up to the company of the Paithful in Jerusalem, by whom, as he had every reason to expect, his conduct had been at once arraigned and challenged. And their specific charge demands specially to be noted. The offence is not that he had preached the Gospel to the Gentiles in Caesarea, but “thou wen test in to men uncircumcised and didst eat with them.” This charge may have included not only associating in their ordinary meals, but possibljr partaking with them in the Lord’s Supper, the sign and seal of their brotherhood and union. “The Church in Jerusalem,” remarks Dean Alford, “seems to have heard the fact, without any circumstantial detail, and from the charge in verse 3 — from some reporter, who gave the objectionable part of it, as is common in such cases, all prominence.” They were probably moreover- in ignorance of the well-known Pentecostal signs which had accompanied and attested the event. Peter’s conduct in the trying circumstances in which he was placed, and all the more so, knowing as we do his constitutional frailties, is much to be admired and commended. He might not unnaturally have presumed on his position as ecclesiastical leader; and standing on his apostolic authority, have repudiated interference on the part of the Jerusalem brethren. Confident of having the Divine sanction on his side, he might even have refused to satisfy the objections and prejudices of others. On the contrary, he seems voluntarily to have undertaken the long journey to remove the not unnatural doubts and scruples of the mother Church, and by a calm statement of facts to have at once disarmed opposition, and for the time at least obtained hearty approval of his procedure. Even anticipating, as has been already noted, thus being called in question, he had prudently taken with him “brethren from Joppa” to Caesarea, in order that they might be able, as witnesses, to give their independent testimony. Nor can we resist to note in passing, that if the claim set up by the Church of Koine could be substantiated for the primacy and infallibility of “the Prince of the Apostles,” never was there a more befitting opportunity than the present for Peter peremptorily declining submission to “Church judicatories” — boldly asserting this alleged pre-eminence his Lord had assigned him. If Christ had given him as His Vicar in the Romanist sense, “the keys of the kingdom,” what cause had he voluntarily to sist himself, as he does now, at the bar of his ecclesiastical subordinates, and acknowledge his responsibility by pleading before them in vindication of his conduct; all the more so, as he had just reason to fear that they would approach the question with minds unreasonably biased and prejudiced 1 But there are no such prerogatives, no such hierarchal claims preferred. On the contrary, with a spirit of beautiful meekness, gentleness, forbearance, he appears as a brother in the midst of his brethren; in a simple narration, devoid of all self-assertion, he explains how unmistakably the treasure had been committed to him as an earthen vessel, while he took care to make equally plain, that the excellency and the power were altogether of God.
Thus put on his defence before “the Apostles and elders,” Peter frankly and circumstantially related aH particulars — unfolded to his hearers the clear and distinct leadings of Providence in the matter, and ended ’ his rehearsal with the words — “Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as He did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ: what was I,” that I could withstand God ¥” (Acts xi. 17)..
With Christian fairness and magnanimity the assembled council at once withdraw their doubts, and acquiesce in the Divine settlement of the question — “They held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life “(Acts xi. 18). The contrast has been noted between the wild tumultuous interruption which assailed the speech of the holy Stephen, when they gnashed upon him with their teeth; and the outburst of unrestraiuable praise — songs of joy and thankfulness, which broke in u|K>n the close of the Apostle’s speech, when with kindling eye he uttered the challenge, “What was I that I could withstand God If There could not fail to be many in that assembly, composed as it was not of believers in Jerusalem only, but also of the “brethren in Judea” (Acts xi. 1), who with the love of Christ in their hearts and imbued with the unselfish spirit of the new dispensation, must, on the .first impulse, have welcorned the intelligence, that the glad tidings which had cheered their own souls, were now to be made the contmou property of Jew ancf Greek, Barbarian,* Scythian, bond and free. We have said, however, “on the first impulse,” for although we need do no more at present than allude to the fact, this catholicity of spirit, genuine as was the expression of its enthusiasm at the time, was destined to be short-lived, and to be succeeded for a while at least, by poorer and narrower views of Christian liberty and brotherhood. We shall come hereafter to find, that years elapsed before the waves raised by this great revolution in the Church’s economy rocked themselves to rest. It formed the fertile subject of bitter controversy and contention. Only by a violent struggle would many of the converts to Christianity among the favoured people surrender the old monopoly of spiritual privileges; and with equal pertinacity the Gentile converts asserted their right of exemption from the demands of an abrogated dispensation.
We are not farther permitted to trace the future career and history of Cornelius. It is possible that when his garrison duties at Csesarea were over, and he returned with his Italian troops to Home, he may have prepared the way for a similar welcome to another Apostle who, sixteen years later, arrived a weary prisoner in the capital, and had a little congregation gathered around him in “his own hired house,” We might have thought of Cornelius listening to the clank of that chain and helping with his presence and sympathy the illustrious captive. Only had he done so, we cannot suppose that his name would have been omitted in the honoured roll of friends whom Paul mentions in the close of his letters. So that the likelihood is, that the soldier of Caesarea had either been serving his imperial master in some other post of honour in the vast Roman Empire, or had been called previously to inherit the crown of glory which fadeth not away.
1 There Is erery reason to reject the statement of some Latin writers that he was made afterwards Bishop of Osmarea, and there suffered martyrdom, — Sm Whitby * Annotation*.