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To this man was sent the first heavenly call, which ended in
bringing in the Gentiles to the knowledge of the truth revealed by
Jesus. After having fasted all day, he was employed in his regular
devotions, at the usual hour of prayer, (three o’clock in the
afternoon,) when his senses were overwhelmed by a vision, in which
he had a distinct view of a messenger of God, in shining garments,
coming to him; and heard him call him by his name, “Cornelius!”
Looking at him as steadily as he was able in his great alarm,
Cornelius asked, “What is it, Lord?” The heavenly visitant replied, in
words of consolation and high praise, “Thy prayers and thy alms
have come up in remembrance before God. And now send men to
Joppa, and call for a man named Simon Peter, lodging with Simon, a
tanner, whose house is by the sea-side. He, when he comes, shall
tell thee what it is right that thou shouldst do.” When the surprising
messenger had given this charge, he departed; and Cornelius,
without delay, went to fulfil the minute directions he had received. He
called two of his domestics, and a devout soldier of the detachment
then on duty near him, and having related to them all that he had just
seen and heard, he sent them to Joppa, to invite Peter according to
the order. The distance between the two places is about thirty-five
miles, and being too great to be easily traveled in one day, they
journeyed thither during a part of two days, starting immediately
when they received the command, though late in the afternoon.
While they were continuing their journey, the next day, and were now
near to the city of Joppa, Peter, without any idea of the important
task to which he was soon to be summoned, went up, as usual, to
the Alijah, or place of prayer, upon the house-top, at about twelve
o’clock, mid-day. Having, according to the usual custom of the Jews,
fasted for many hours, for the sake of keeping the mind clear from
the effects of gross food on the body, and at length becoming
sensible that he had pushed himself to the utmost limits of safe
abstinence, he wished for food, and ordered his dinner. While the
servants were preparing it, he continued above, in the place of
prayer, where, enfeebled by fasting, and over-wrought by mental
effort, he fell into a state of spiritual excitement, in which the mind is
most susceptible of strong impressions of things beyond the reach of
sense. In this condition, there appeared to him a singular vision,
which subsequent events soon enabled him fully to interpret. It
seemed to him that a great sheet was let down from the sky, to
which it was fastened by the four corners, containing on its vast
surface all sorts of animals that were forbidden as food by the
Mosaic law. While the apostle gazed upon this vast variety of
animals, which education had taught him to consider unclean, there
came a voice to him, calling him by name, and commanding him to
arise, kill, and eat. All his prejudices and early religious impressions
were roused by such a proposal; and, resisting the invisible speaker
as the agent of temptation to him in his bodily exhaustion, he replied,
in all the pride of a scrupulous and unpolluted Jew, “By no means,
Lord, because I have never eaten anything improper or unclean.”
The mysterious voice again said, “What God hath cleansed, do not
thou consider improper.” This impressive scene having been twice
repeated, the whole was withdrawn back into heaven. This
remarkable vision immediately called out all the energies of Peter’s
mind, in its explanation. But before he had time to decide for himself
what was meant by it, the messengers of Caesarea had inquired out
the house of Simon, and, coming to the outside door, they called to
learn whether Simon, who was surnamed Peter, lodged there. And
while the mind of Peter was still intently occupied with the vision, he
received an intimation from the unerring spirit, that his presence was
required elsewhere. “Behold! three men are seeking thee, but rise up
and go with them, without hesitation; for I have sent them.” Thus
urged and encouraged, Peter went directly down to the men sent by
Cornelius, and said, “Behold! I am he whom ye seek. What is your
object in coming here?” They at once unfolded their errand.
“Cornelius, a centurion, a just man, fearing God, and of good repute
among all the Jews, was instructed by a holy messenger, to send for
thee to his house, that he may hear something from thee.” Peter,
already instructed as to the proper reception of the invitation, asked
them in, and hospitably entertained them till the next day, improving
the delay, no doubt, by learning as many of the circumstances of the
case as they could give him. The news of this remarkable call was
also made known to the brethren of the church in Joppa, some of
whom were so highly interested in what they heard that evening, that
they resolved to accompany Peter the next day, with the
messengers, to see and hear for themselves the details of a
business which promised to result so fairly in the glory of Christ’s
name, and the wide enlargement of his kingdom. On the next day,
the whole party set out together, and reached Caesarea, the second
day of their journey; and going straight to the house of Cornelius,
they found quite a large company there, awaiting their arrival. For
Cornelius, expecting them, had invited his relations and his intimate
friends, to hear the extraordinary communications which had been
promised him, from his visitor. The kindred here alluded to were,
perhaps, those of his wife, whom, according to a very common
usage, he may have married in the place where he was stationed;
for it is hardly probable that a Roman captain from Italy could have
had any of his own blood relations about him, unless, perhaps, some
of them might have enlisted with him, and now been serving with him
on this honorable post. His near friends, who completed the
assembly, were probably such of his brother officers as he knew to
possess kindred tastes with himself, and to take an interest in
religious matters. Such was the meeting that Peter found sitting in
expectation of his coming; and so high were the ideas which
Cornelius had formed of the character of his visitor, that, as soon as
he met him on his entrance into the house, he fell down at his feet,
and paid him reverence as a superior being;――an act of
abasement towards the inhabitant of a conquered country, most rare
and remarkable in a Roman officer, and one to which nothing but a
notion of supernatural excellence could ever have brought him, since
this was a position assumed not even by those who approached the
emperor himself. Peter, however, had no desire to be made the
object of a reverence so nearly resembling idolatry. Raising up the
prostrate Roman, he said, “Stand up: for I myself am also a man.”
Entering into familiar discourse with him, he now advanced into the
house, and going with him to the great room, he there found a
numerous company. He addressed them in these words: “You know
how unlawful it is for a Jew to be familiar, or even to visit, with one of
another nation; but God has taught me to call no man vulgar or
unclean. Wherefore, I came at your summons, without hesitation.
Now, then, I ask with what design have you sent for me?” And
Cornelius said, “Four days ago, I was fasting till this hour; and at the
ninth hour I was praying in my house;” and so having gone on to
narrate all the circumstances of his vision, as given above,
concluded in these words, “For this reason I sent for thee, and thou
hast done well in coming, for we are all here, before God, to hear
what has been imparted to thee, from God.” And Peter began
solemnly to speak, and said, “Of a truth, I perceive that God is no
respecter of persons; but that in every nation, he that fears him and
does what is right, is approved by him.” With this solemn profession
of a new view of this important principle of universal religion, as a
beginning, he went on to satisfy their high expectations, by setting
forth to them the sum and substance of the gospel doctrine, of
whose rise and progress they had already, by report, heard a vague
and partial account. The great and solemn truth which the Spirit had
summoned him to proclaim, was that Jesus Christ the crucified was
ordained by God the judge of both living and dead, and that through
him, as all the prophets testified, every one that believed should
have remission of sins. Of his resurrection from the dead, Peter
declared himself the witness, as well as of his labors of good will
towards man, when, anointed with the Spirit of God, he went about
doing good. Thus did Peter discourse, excited by the novel and
divinely appointed occasion, till the same divine influence that moved
his heart and tongue was poured out on his charmed hearers, and
they forthwith manifested the signs of change of heart and devout
faith in Christ, as the Son of God and the judge of the world; and
made known the delight of their new sensations, in words of
miraculous power. At this display of the equal and impartial grace of
God, the Jewish church-members from Joppa, who had
accompanied Peter to Caesarea, were greatly amazed, having never
before imagined it possible for the influences of the divine spirit to be
imparted to any who had not devoutly conformed to all the rituals of
the holy law of old given by God to Moses, whose high authority was
attested amid the smoke and flame and thunder of Sinai. And what
change was this? In the face of this awful sanction, these believing
followers of Moses and Christ saw the outward signs of the inward
action of that Spirit which they had been accustomed to
acknowledge as divine, now moving with the same holy energy the
souls and voices of those born and bred among the heathen, without
the consecrating aid of one of those forms of purification, by which
Moses had ordained their preparation for the enjoyment of the
blessings of God’s holy covenant with his own peculiar people.
Moved by that same mysterious and holy influence, the Gentile
warriors of Rome now lifted up their voices in praise of the God of
Israel and of Abraham,――doubtless too, their God and Father,
though Abraham were ignorant of them, and Israel acknowledged
them not; since through his son Jesus a new covenant had been
sealed in blood, opening and securing the blessings of that merciful
and faithful promise to all nations. On Jehovah they now called as
their Father and Redeemer, whose name was from
everlasting,――known and worshiped long ere Abraham lived.
Never before had the great partition-wall between Jews and Gentiles
been thus broken down, nor had the noble and equal freedom of the
new covenant ever yet been so truly and fully made known. And who
was he that had thus boldly trampled on the legal usages of the
ancient Mosaic covenant, as consecrated by the reverence of ages,
and had imparted the holy signs of the Christian faith to men shut out
from the mysteries of the inner courts of the house of God? It was
not a presumptuous or unauthorized man, nor one thoughtless of the
vastly important consequences of the act. It was the constituted
leader of the apostolic band, who now, in direct execution of his
solemn commission received from his Master, and in the literal
fulfilment of the prophetic charge given therewith at the base of
distant Hermon, opened the gates of the kingdom of heaven to all
nations. Bearing the keys of the kingdom of God on earth, he now, in
the set time of divine appointment, at the call of his Master in
heaven, so signally given to him both directly and indirectly, unlocked
the long-closed door, and with a voice of heavenly charity, bade the
waiting Gentiles enter. This was the mighty commission with which
Jesus had so prophetically honored this chief disciple at Caesarea
Philippi, and here, at Caesarea Augusta, was achieved the glorious
fulfilment of this before mysterious announcement;――Simon Peter
now, in the accomplishment of that divinely appointed task, became
the Rock, on which the church of Christ was, through the course of
ages, reared; and in this act, the first stone of its broad Gentile
foundation was laid.
On duty about him.――This phrase is the just translation of the technical term
προσκαρτερουντων, (proskarterounton,) according to Price, Kuinoel, Bloomfield, &c.
Of all the honors with which his apostolic career was marked,
there is none which equals this,――the revolutionizing of the whole
gospel plan as before understood and advanced by its
devotees,――the enlargement of its scope beyond the widest range
of any merely Jewish charity,――and the disenthralment of its
subjects from the antique formality and cumbrous ritual of the Jewish
worship. And of all the events which the apostolic history records,
there is none which, in its far-reaching and long-lasting effects, can
match the opening of Christ’s kingdom to the Gentiles. What would
have been the rate of its advancement under the management of
those, who, like the apostles hitherto, looked on it as a mere
improvement and spiritualization of the old Mosaic form, to which it
was, in their view, only an appendage, and not a substitute? Think of
what chances there were of its extension under such views to those
far western lands where, ages ago, it reached with its benign
influences the old Teutonic hordes from whom we draw our
race;――or of what possibility there was of ever bringing under the
intolerable yoke of Jewish forms, the hundreds of millions who now,
out of so many lands and kindreds and tongues, bear the light yoke,
and own the simpler faith of Jesus, confessing him Lord, to the glory
of God the Father. Yet hitherto, so far from seeing these things in
their true light, all the followers of Christ had, notwithstanding his
broad and open commission to them, steadily persisted in the notion,
that the observance of the regulations laid down by Moses for
proselytes to his faith, was equally essential for a full conversion to
the faith of Christ. And now too, it required a new and distinctly
repeated summons from above, to bring even the great chief of the
apostles to the just sense of the freedom of the gospel, and to the
practical belief that God was no respecter of persons. But the whole
progress of the event, with all its miraculous attestations, left so little
doubt of the nature of the change, that Peter, after the manifestation
of a holy spirit in the hearts and voices of the Gentile converts,
triumphantly appealed to the Jewish brethren who had accompanied
him from Joppa, and asked them, “Can any one forbid the water for
the baptizing of these, who have received the Holy Spirit as well as
we?” Taking the unanimous suffrage of their silence to his challenge,
as a full consent, he gave directions that the believing Romans
should be baptized in the name of the Lord, as Jesus in his parting
charge had constituted that ordinance for the seal of redemption to
every creature, in all the nations to whom the gospel should be
preached. Having thus formally enrolled the first Gentile converts, as
the free and complete partakers of the blessings of the new
covenant, he stayed among them several days, at their request,
strengthening their faith, and enlarging their knowledge by his
pastoral instruction; which he deemed a task of sufficient importance
to detain him, for a while, from his circuit among the new converts,
scattered about in other places throughout Palestine, and from any
immediate return to his friends and converts at Joppa, where this call
had found him.
herod agrippa.
At this time, the monarch of the Roman world was Caius Caesar,
commonly known by his surname, Caligula. Among the first acts of a
reign, whose outset was deservedly popular for its numerous
manifestations of prudence and benevolence, forming a strange
contrast with subsequent tyranny and folly, was the advancement of
a tried and faithful friend, to the regal honors and power which his
birth entitled him to claim, and from which the neglectful indifference
at first, and afterwards the revengeful spite of the preceding Caesar,
Tiberius, had long excluded him. This was Herod Agrippa, grandson
of that great Herod, who, by the force of his own exalted genius, and
by the favor of the imperial Augustus, rose from the place of a
friendless foreign adventurer, to the kingly sway of all Palestine. This
extensive power he exercised in a manner which was, on the whole,
ultimately advantageous to his subjects; but his whole reign, and the
later years of it more particularly, were marked by cruelties the most
infamous, to which he was led by almost insane fits of the most
causeless jealousy. On none of the subjects of his power, did this
tyrannical fury fall with such frequent and dreadful visitations, as on
his own family; and it was there, that, in his alternate fits of fury and
remorse, he was made the avenger of his own victims. Among these
numerous domestic cruelties, one of the earliest, and the most
distressing, was the murder of the amiable Mariamne, the daughter
of the last remnants of the Asmonaean line,――
Of a time-honored race,”
Herod Agrippa.――All the interesting details of this richly romantic life, are given in a
most delightful style by Josephus. (Antiquities, XVIII. v. 3,‒viii. 9. and XIX. i‒ix.) The same is
more concisely given by the same author in another place. (Jewish War, II. ix. 5,‒xi. 6.) The
prominent events of Petronius’s administration, are also given in the former.
roman tolerance.