35. The Conversion of Cornelius by the Apostle Peter. Preaching to the Gentiles in Antioch and the First Church From Among the Gentiles. The Persecution in Jerusalem and the Martyrdom of the Apostle James

After Saul’s conversion, the state of the church enjoyed a temporary lull from outward persecutions, so that “the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria were at peace, building themselves up and walking in the fear of the Lord; and with the comfort of the Holy Spirit they multiplied.” This was in the first half of the reign of the Emperor Gaius Caligula (37–39 AD), and was explained by the fact that at this time the Jewish world was in a state of terrible excitement that diverted its attention from persecuting Christians. The emperor, angered by the Jews, wished to prove his absolute power over them and commanded that his statue be placed in the sanctuary of the Jerusalem temple. This command, threatening the dreadful profanation of the temple by a pagan image, cast the Jews into unspeakable horror, and they devoted all their strength to averting such a calamity somehow. And so, while the most bitter enemies of the church were compelled to exert all their forces to defend the Old Testament temple from profanation by the pagans, the New Testament church “with the comfort of the Holy Spirit multiplied” and opened its doors to the gentiles. The first step in this direction was taken at divine prompting by the Apostle Peter.

Fulfilling his apostolic calling, the Apostle Peter from time to time visited the Christian communities scattered in various places, strengthening them in the faith and preaching the Gospel. His preaching was accompanied by great miracles as well, which showed that the spiritual gifts received by the apostles from their divine Teacher had not weakened. Thus in the city of Lydda the apostle in the name of Jesus Christ healed Aeneas, who had lain bedridden eight years with paralysis, and this miracle led to the conversion to faith not only of all the inhabitants of the city but also of the population of the extensive plain of Sharon. About fourteen miles from Lydda lay the well-known port city of Joppa (present-day Jaffa). There was also a Christian community there, but it was deeply grieved because one of its best-known members, distinguished for her good works and extensive charity, named Tabitha (meaning gazelle—a name given in antiquity for beauty) “fell ill and died.” This great loss cast all the Christians of the city into deep sorrow, and they did not know where to seek comfort. Hearing however that the Apostle Peter was in the neighboring Lydda, the disciples with a glimmer of hope immediately sent for him, asking him to come to them at once. The apostle did indeed come and comforted the weeping community with a great miracle—the raising of Tabitha. Following the example of his divine Teacher (at the raising of Jairus’s daughter), Peter, having been brought into the upper room where the deceased lay, “put them all outside and knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said: ‘Tabitha, rise.’ And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up.” Taking her by the hand, the apostle raised her, and calling together the assembled Christians and especially the widows, who bitterly mourned the loss of one who had been so great a benefactress to them, “he presented her alive. And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.”

The apostle stopped for some time in Joppa, in the house of one Simon the tanner. His house stood on the very shore of the Mediterranean Sea, and from its flat roof there opened a wonderful view of the sea and the whole city. To this roof the Apostle Peter went up daily to pray, and it happened that his prayer coincided with the prayer of a devout man in Caesarea. This was Cornelius, a Roman centurion of the Italian Cohort, which was quartered there to maintain Roman authority. A pagan by birth, he possessed a deeply religious spirit and, not finding satisfaction for his religious need in the dying paganism, had like many of his contemporaries embraced Judaism. Carefully observing the Mosaic laws, he was a man “devout and God-fearing with all his household, giving alms generously to the people and praying constantly to God.” But even Judaism did not satisfy his truth-thirsting spirit, and in his prayers he was visibly asking the Lord to reveal to him the sources of true and perfect knowledge and worship of God. His prayer was heard. Once during prayer an angel appeared to him and revealed that he must summon the Apostle Peter, and that he would open to him the teaching by which one might be saved. Cornelius was greatly frightened by so unusual a vision, but encouraged by the angel did as he had commanded, namely sent for the Apostle Peter in Joppa. And while the messengers were approaching the city, the Apostle Peter received a vision that had precisely prepared him for the work that lay ahead. Specifically, having gone up to the roof of the house about the sixth hour to pray, the apostle felt hungry, and since the meal was not yet ready, he engaged in devout meditation. Under the rays of the scorching sun he fell into something like a trance. Before him heaven was opened, and from it there was descending to earth before the apostle something like a great sheet, held at its four corners by ropes. In it, as in a kind of ark, were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air, and there was a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But hungry as he was—his hunger only intensified by the sight of food—Peter did not forget the rules of his upbringing. Among these animals and creeping things were creatures that did not chew the cud and did not have divided hoofs, which was all clearly forbidden as food by the law. Better to die of hunger than to violate the ordinance of the law and eat what the very thought of it aroused horror in a Jew. It seemed strange to Peter that the voice from heaven commanded him without any qualification to kill and eat creatures among which the unclean were so mingled with the clean. Moreover, the very presence among them of the unclean appeared to defile the entire sheet. Accordingly, with his characteristic quickness and self-assurance, he answered: “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” Then a second time there was a voice to him: “What God has made clean, do not call common.” This happened three times, and then the vision vanished: the sheet was suddenly drawn back up into heaven. The trance ended. Peter was alone with his own thoughts; all was quiet; there was not the slightest whisper from the burning sky; at his feet the gleaming sea spread in silence. While the apostle was wondering what the vision might mean, three pagans appeared in the courtyard who were, to his astonishment, asking specifically for him. In his mind there immediately flashed the thought of the connection between the vision he had just had and the appearance of these pagans, and this was confirmed to him by the latter, who approached him with an invitation from the centurion Cornelius to visit his house and give instruction to him and his household. The apostle, seeing in all this a higher direction, agreed at once, and taking with him six of his fellow Christians, set out for Caesarea, where the devout centurion was waiting for him with impatience and reverence. Learning of the apostle’s approach, Cornelius went out to meet him and fell at his feet. Peter immediately raised the devout soldier and, undoubtedly to the astonishment of the companions accompanying him, perhaps even to his own astonishment, broke with all the traditions of his life as well as with the national customs of many centuries, entering into free conversation with a pagan in the presence of the centurion’s assembled relatives. He did this not from forgetfulness due to some special enthusiasm, but with full awareness that in now doing what had hitherto been considered impious, he was acting in accordance with divine revelation. Cornelius then recounted the reasons that had led him to send for Peter, and the apostle began his solemn address to them with the famous declaration that now he saw with unmistakable certainty that “God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” After this the apostle told the pagans the whole earthly life of the Lord Jesus Christ, of his ministry and how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil; then of the crucifixion and resurrection from the dead, of which the disciples were witnesses, appointed by the voice of their risen Savior to testify that he is the ordained judge of the living and the dead. And while Peter was continuing to explain on the basis of the prophets that all who believe in him must receive forgiveness of sins in his name, suddenly upon these unbaptized pagans, as upon the Jews present, descended that higher inspiration which gave them the gift of tongues as it had given it to the apostles at Pentecost: “The Holy Spirit fell on all.” It meant that Christ did not reject the gentiles either; it meant that the doors of his kingdom were opened to them as well. In that case, what was to prevent them from being baptized? And the apostle did indeed baptize on the spot all who had believed in Christ. And with these newly converted Christians from among the pagans the apostle remained for some days, strengthening them in the faith and guiding them in life. When news of this extraordinary event reached Jerusalem, some of the Christians and even of the apostles there were surprised at Peter’s free association with the unclean pagans, and when he returned they reproached him for it, saying: “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them”—that is, you defiled yourself by fellowship with them. But when Peter told in detail everything that had happened, adding in conclusion: “Who was I that I could withstand God?” the disciples “when they heard these things fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, ‘Then to the gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.’” Thus on the soil of Christianity there was accomplished the merging of two hostile and until then irreconcilable worlds—the Jewish and the pagan. Both alike were called into the church, and the only condition for entry into it was held to be faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world, not belonging to one nation or another, or to one tribe or another. Now representatives of every belief and tribe had been admitted into the church: Jews and Samaritans, an Ethiopian proselyte from the far south and pagans from the very capital of the world—Rome, and this freedom of access to the church for all pagans now received a twofold confirmation: in the person of the Apostle Peter, who received the firstfruits from the pagan world, and in the person of the Apostle Paul, who had received a special commission to evangelize the pagan nations and had already begun his great work in various cities of Syria and Cilicia.

But this was not yet all. News came to Jerusalem that the Gospel had begun to spread successfully in the renowned Greek capital of the east, Antioch, which was destined soon to become the first capital of Christianity as well. Antioch, founded in 300 BC by Seleucus Nicator and named in honor of his father Antiochus, had been the capital of the Greek kings of Syria and subsequently became the residence of the Roman governors of the province of the same name. Situated in the corner formed by the chains of the Lebanon and the Taurus, on the banks of the swift Orontes, Antioch occupied an extremely advantageous position geographically, politically, and commercially, serving as a center to which threads ran from all the surrounding countries. As a result it had a most diverse population and Jews and Greeks came into close contact there. When persecution of Christians began in Jerusalem, some of the fleeing Christians took refuge in Antioch as well, and some of the Hellenists did not fail to address their preaching of the Gospel not only to Jews but to the mixed population of Antioch generally—to the pagans, specifically the Greeks, in whose language they spoke freely, and to their great joy the preaching met with considerable success: “a great number, believing, turned to the Lord.” It is quite possible that these Greeks were in the same spiritual state as Cornelius—that is, thirsting for religious truth, they were “God-fearers” and gladly attended to the good news which was able to heal their spiritual wounds. Since this event apparently took place after the conversion of Cornelius, the apostles, no longer troubled by this circumstance and seeing in it the working of higher Providence, immediately took measures to establish the newly converted. For this purpose they sent to Antioch Barnabas, who as a Levite and at the same time a Hellenist from the island of Cyprus could serve as the best mediator between Jews and pagans on the basis of Christian brotherhood. His arrival in Antioch was accompanied by great benefit to the church. Seeing in all this movement the grace of God, Barnabas rejoiced and by his influential word “exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose.” And the pagans, seeing before them a man so “good and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith,” willingly and in great numbers joined the church. Thus in Antioch the first church from among the pagans was formed. Thanks to the strong movement hence of the population in all directions, Christianity spread from here first of all through all the eastern provinces of the empire, and then passed into Europe as far as Rome itself.

Meanwhile the temporary peace enjoyed by the churches in Judea came to an end. After the violent death of Caligula, the praetorians proclaimed Claudius emperor, and one of the new emperor’s first acts was to reward Herod Agrippa I, who had rendered him important services at his accession to the throne, with the kingdom of Judea. This petty king strove by every means to win popularity with his people, and to this end, being at heart a complete pagan, outwardly observed all the ordinances of the Mosaic law. With the death of Caligula the idea of placing his statue in the sanctuary of the temple was of course abandoned, and the Jews could again freely direct their hostility and hatred against the Christians, whom they regarded not only as fanatics but as apostates who rejected the covenant God had made with their forefathers. Not neglecting any means, Herod Agrippa decided to exploit this very hatred in order to display his pretended zeal for the law in a particularly conspicuous way and to curry favor with the powerful Pharisaic party. Therefore during Passover, when Jewish fanaticism was especially aroused, he “laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church, intending to harm them, and killed James the brother of John with the sword; and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he then proceeded to arrest Peter as well.” With cunning foresight he directed his weapon against the chief leaders of Christianity, and the Apostle James was chosen as the first victim because he was the elder brother of the beloved disciple, one of the foremost among the chosen apostles and in general a man who occupied the most prominent position in Jerusalem. And so this apostle, who had once asked Christ for precedence in his kingdom, now received it and became the first of the twelve apostles to be martyred for the faith.

The Apostle James was destined to fall by the persecutor’s sword before Passover. The universal approval with which this bloody act was greeted by the Jews—which became all the more noticeable because of the presence of the enormous crowds gathered in Jerusalem for the Passover festival—spurred the king, who delighted in the voice of popular approval, to deal an even crueler blow to the Christians, namely by arresting the most famous of the apostles. For this purpose the Apostle Peter was seized, but since before Passover there was no time to complete the trial against him, and the Jews did not want to put him to death themselves during the festival, he was kept in prison until the end of the seven sacred days, so that he might then be put to death with the greatest possible solemnity before a vast gathering of the people. Day after day the apostle remained under close guard, bound by both hands to two soldiers and watched by two other soldiers. Seeing the irreplaceable nature of the loss of so courageous, so devoted, and so gifted with spirit and wisdom an apostle, the Jerusalem Christians poured out their hearts and souls in prayers for his deliverance. But all seemed to be in vain. The last night of the festival arrived: the dawn of the following morning was to announce to Peter the torments of trial and terrible death that awaited him. It seemed that the day had come when, as the Savior had foretold him, another would gird him and lead him where he did not wish to go. But in this final extremity God did not abandon his apostle and his church. On that very last night an angel appeared in the prison and freed him from his bonds, and this deliverance was so sudden, mysterious, and astonishing that to Peter himself, when he had fully satisfied himself of his salvation, it seemed like a vision (Acts 12:9). Having briefly recounted the circumstances of his deliverance to the brethren assembled at the house of Mary the mother of John Mark, he commissioned them to convey the same news to James the Lord’s brother and to the other Christians who were not present there, and withdrew for a time to a place of safety, while Herod was left to pour out his impotent vengeance on the innocent detachment of soldiers who had kept guard at the prison. Struck by so strange an event in his eyes, Herod departed from there to Caesarea, and there at a great festival, during his ceremonial appearance before the people in the theater, the terrible wrath of God overtook him. Struck by a mortal disease, he was eaten by worms and soon died in deserved sufferings.