ABSTRACT
All that is historically certain about Cornelius (KÔÚÓ‹ÏÈÔ˜) is recounted in Acts 10.1 He was the centurion (ëηÙfiÓÙ·Ú¯Ô˜) of a Roman cohort. By disposition he was pious, given to prayer, and munificent to the local Jewish community. This has led to the suggestion that he was a proselyte who retained his military post,2 but St Peter’s remark (Acts 10:28) that it was forbidden for a Jew to enter a foreigner’s house makes this seem unlikely. The visions which led to the centurion’s conversion merited him a place in early Christian hagiography,3 but subsequent embellishments of his legend, unless they derive from oral tradition, are all apocryphal. As biblical exegetes have recognized, the conversion of Cornelius was important to the author of the Acts above all because it authorized the acceptance of Gentiles into the Christian community unburdened by the dictates of the Mosaic law.
