As in virtually all of his fascinating trawls through the earlier scriptural record of Christianity Dr Ian Elmer very often ends his commentary by seeking to connect the history to our present situation. As you find today there are some puzzling aspects to Luke's original telling of the story of the conversion of the first Gentile, the Roman Centurion, Cornelius. Why the confusion? Why couldn't the story be told as straight history? What was the point Luke, and the early writers, were trying to make? Dr Elmer draws on the insights of a range of scholars to provide insight into what may have been in the minds of the early chroniclers of the Jesus and Christian story.

The Conversion of Cornelius (Acts 10:1-11:18)...

This week we turn our attention to an episode that is central to the plot of Luke's two-volume history of the early church in his Gospel and Acts and pivotal to later developments in Christianity — the conversion of the first Gentile to Christianity.

The Gentile in question is a Roman centurion of the Italica cohort, the "devout and God-fearing" Cornelius (Acts 10:2) who converts, along with his household, to the Jesus' movement following a series of miraculous events: his own angelophany (10:3-8); Peter's threefold, roof-top vision of unclean animals (10:9-16); and a (second) Pentecost outpouring of the Spirit (10:44-47).

Peter Baptizing the Centurion Cornelius (1709), oil on canvas, by Francesco Trevisani

The story of the conversion of Cornelius figures as the culmination of a series of vignettes in Acts, which serve to move the focus of the Christian story from its Jewish roots in the Jerusalem Church to the Gentile mission in Palestine, Samaria, and Syria.

Not for the first time however, Luke muddies the waters by providing conflicting information about the first Gentile missions, making it incredibly difficult to determine the historicity of the entire Cornelius' story. If it should prove unhistorical, then we are faced with a couple of equally disquieting questions.

Has Luke created this entire story de novo to explain the inexplicable — i.e., how the thoroughly-Jewish sectarian Jesus' movement could so readily become a force in the Gentile world? Or is Luke trying to twist history to attribute this remarkable development to the legitimate authority of Peter, so as to demonstrate an organic development of the Gentile mission out of the Jewish mission?

The Origins of the Gentile Mission...

In the opening verses of Luke's story about the first Gentile conversions, he reports how Peter, during a missionary tour of the coastal towns of Lydda and Joppa (9:32-43; 10:9), accepts an invitation of hospitality from the household of Cornelius, whom he subsequently visits (10:24-28), evangelises (10:34-43) and, following a spontaneous outpouring of the Spirit, baptises (10:44-48).

Returning to Jerusalem, Peter is forced to justify his behaviour by recounting the miraculous events that led to Cornelius' conversion (11:1-18). On hearing Peter's defence, his erstwhile detractors conclude: "So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life" (11:18).

Similarly when Paul and Barnabas travel from Antioch to Jerusalem to consult with the apostolic authorities there, Peter again appeals to his experience with Cornelius to support the legitimacy of the Gentile mission at Antioch (15:7-13).

This threefold recounting emphasises that what is being reported here with the Cornelius incident is not just another conversion story, but the very origins of the Law-free mission to the Gentiles – a subject that will dominate the subsequent chapters of Luke's story. However, the consensus opinion held by commentators on Acts is that the Cornelius story can hardly be historical, at least in present form (Esler, 1989: 95-97).

It has often noted that the Cornelius episode is replete with numerous literary features and legendary motifs that are unique to Luke. F. Watson, who is prepared to dismiss the story as a clear Lukan creation on this basis alone, has catalogued several of these traits:

1. The figure of Cornelius who is but one of a series of devout centurions populating the pages of Luke (7:1-10; 23:47) and Acts (27:1-3, 30-32, 42-44), testament to Luke's concern to demonstrate the generally favourable attitude of the Roman authorities to the new Christian movement.
2. The motif of divine guidance given through the agency of angels and visions is also typical of Luke (Lk 1:11-20, 26-38; 2:9-14; 24:2-7; Acts 1:10-11; 5:19-20; 7:55-56; 8:26; 9:3-6, 10-12; 12:7-11; 16:9-10; 18:9-10; 23:11; 27:23-24).
3. The description of the descent of the Spirit on Cornelius and his household and their subsequent gift of glossolalia is clearly composed to mirror the reports of the events of Pentecost and similar outpourings of the Spirit in Acts (2:1-13; cf. 4:31; 8:14-17; 19:1-7).

On the other hand, it could be argued that despite Luke's creative work, the story of Cornelius' conversion may contain some reliable historical information. Luke may have exaggerated, embellished, and conflated earlier traditions concerning Peter's vision and the conversions of certain individual Gentiles who joined the movement in its initial phase — that is, in the period prior to the advent of the large-scale mission to the Gentiles (Hill, 1992; Dunn, 1991; Wilson, 1963).

Cornelius is described in terms reminiscent of a God-fearer (10:2, 22), which probably refers to that category of Gentiles who had attached themselves to the Jewish synagogue and adopted some Jewish customs and faith-practices. It is often assumed that many if not all the earliest Gentile converts to Christianity were probably either proselytes to Judaism or God-fearers. As individuals with a pre-existing affinity for Judaism and an established relationship with Jewish synagogues, one might see them as the most likely candidates for any mission amongst the Gentiles.

Craig C. Hill makes the point that nowhere in Acts 10:1-11:18 does Luke say that Cornelius and his family joined the community in Jerusalem (Hill, 1991: 123). Cornelius, like other individual Gentiles who converted to the Jesus' movement in its initial stages, were seen as exceptional cases that posed no more threat to the essential Jewish character of the movement than they did formerly as God-fearers and proselytes attached to the Jewish synagogues.

All of this may be true. It does not stretch the bounds of credibility that many Gentile God-fearers would have converted to Christianity. Rodney Stark, in his thought provoking sociological study of The Rise of Christianity (1996), argues that Christianity presented an attractive opportunity to Gentile God-fearers in that it bore all the time-honoured aspects of Judaism — monotheism, morality, antiquity — sans much of its ethnic and cultural peculiarities. However, none of this adequately addresses the real puzzle at the heart of Luke's story – the role of Peter in this affair.

The Role of Peter in the Gentile Mission...

Although Luke makes every attempt to artfully weave the Cornelius story into the fabric of his tale of the beginnings of Christianity, the claim that Peter played the central role in the advent of the gentile mission is a dubious one.

First, it is important to note that Peter accepts Cornelius into the movement without first insisting that he and the other male members of his household submit to circumcision. The whole thrust of the Lukan account of Peter's vision and the miraculous outpouring of the Spirit on the Gentile converts, as well as Peter's later problems with the circumcised brothers of Judea, serves to stress this point. If Gentile God-fearers were admitted on an ad hoc basis, it is unlikely that they would have been admitted under conditions that differed from those that continued to keep them from becoming Jewish proselytes — circumcision and the Jewish dietary laws.

Second, as we noted above, Luke's purpose is not just to note the extraordinary character of this event, but to signal the initiation of the Law-free Gentile mission per se. Cornelius is presented by Luke, not as the exception to the Jerusalem's current Law-observant faith-practice, but as the first instance of a new Law-free policy on the part of the Jerusalem church with regard to the Gentile converts (Acts 11:18; cf. 15:7-11), which will later be ratified at the Jerusalem Council (15:13-29).

Moreover, Cornelius' conversion represents a radical departure from the pastoral practice of the thoroughly Jewish Jerusalem church as described in the early chapters of Acts. If Luke's earlier take on the Law-observant Jerusalem community is correct, then we must assume that any change of policy that allowed the admission of uncircumcised Gentiles would have been unthinkable, particularly at this early stage in the development of what appears to be a thoroughly Jewish movement.

Finally, this incredible development is one that appears even more improbable if we are to accept that Peter was the primary advocate for this change of policy. Any line of argument that credits Peter with initiating a mission to the Gentiles, or even playing a part in admitting individual, uncircumcised Gentiles to the movement, seems unlikely when we consider all that we know of Peter and the Jerusalem church in both Acts and the letters of Paul. Most importantly, the notion that Peter would have taken the revolutionary step of admitting an uncircumcised Gentile to the movement stands in contradiction to the primary evidence of Paul in Galatians (2:1-10).

While Paul admits that Peter and the other "Pillars" James and John were not opposed to the Gentile mission, he mentions nothing of Peter's prior engagement with that mission. In point of fact, Paul asserts that it was widely accepted that Peter was commissioned to exercise his apostolic ministry exclusively amongst the Jews (2:7-8). The import of this statement cannot be blunted even if we contend that Luke has simply placed the Cornelius story too early in the chronology of events, prior to rather than after the Apostolic Council.

There is no indication in Galatians (2:1-10) that, as result of Paul's consultation with the Pillars at Jerusalem, there was to be any modification of procedure in the future. Paul seems to have understood the agreement forged at Jerusalem in terms of a strict demarcation of the mission field. He would go to the Gentiles, while Peter and by extension the Jerusalem church would continue as before to focus on the Jews in Palestine. Any attempt to argue for an historical core to the Cornelius story by affirming a role for Peter in the Gentile mission, albeit limited, ultimately founders on the evidence in Galatians 2:1-10 (Esler, 1989; Watson, 1986).

With this observation and the other points noted above in mind, we can only concur with the conclusion of F. Watson that Luke has probably created the Cornelius story, as it presently stands, de novo. It may be true that some Gentiles, even a Roman centurion called Cornelius, were admitted to the Jesus' movement before the first full-scale Gentile mission began. But it seems unlikely that Peter would have been the agent of such conversions or that such were conducted on a Law-free basis. But what would be Luke's intention?

Luke's Intentions...

There is little doubt that Luke does have access to reliable information about developments in the early Church. But it is equally obvious that he has taken these genuine historical reminiscences and woven them into whole fabric that presents a very orderly picture of Jesus movement emerging in Jerusalem and spreading outwards "to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8; cf. 13:47). All new developments are presented as deriving from the Jerusalem community in general, and Peter in particular. This is precisely what appears to be happening with the Cornelius' story.

Surprisingly, Luke provides an alternative and much more plausible explanation of the origins of the Law-free mission to the Gentiles in his subsequent narrative on the Hellenists in Antioch (Acts 11:19-16). At this point (11:19) Luke again picks up the thread of the "Hellenists Story Cycle", describing how those who had been scattered following the death of Stephen carried the Christian message as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Syrian Antioch. In the ensuing verse, he relates that in Antioch the Hellenists focused initially on the Jewish community. But certain men from Cyprus and Cyrene eventually took the next step and approached the "Greeks" (11:20).

The implication here is that this was the first time that the Christian message was addressed to Gentiles. This clearly contradicts his previous account of the conversion of Cornelius and probably, therefore, indicates that Luke has drawn this information from an independent source. If we are correct in arguing that the entire Cornelius story is a creation of Luke, then it is likely that this source was a reliable one.

This record of the Antiochene mission picks up neatly from the stories found in the chapters preceding the Cornelius episode, which began with the dispute between the Hebrews and Hellenists (Acts 6:1-6) and the ensuing the martyrdom of the Hellenists' leader, Stephen (6:7-8:4). From Acts 8:4 onwards we are told how the Hellenists, now dispersed to Samaria and to other cities and villages in Palestine, establish communities devoted to aggressive missionary efforts. In these, they spread their conviction that following Jesus no longer necessarily entailed acknowledging the validity of the Temple cult in Jerusalem and adhering to the Laws of Moses — a deviation that led to the death of Stephen.

Through a series of narrative vignettes, Acts advances the story of the Hellenists in such a way that it is not difficult to picture how Stephen's companions steadily began to realise the full implications of their divorce from the Temple and its cult. Via the agency of these refugees and others from Jerusalem, the Hellenistic kerygma is carried first to Jewish communities outside Jerusalem (8:1b), and beyond Judea (11:19).

Thence, it travels to the Samaritans (8:4-25), to an Ethiopian Eunuch on the Gaza Road (8:26-39), and eventually to the Gentiles in Syrian Antioch (11:19-21). With each step, the mission moves progressively beyond the original principles of the original Christian Jewish foundation in Jerusalem. Ultimately, this sequence of events climaxes with the admission of the Gentiles, signalling the emergence of these new, multi-cultural congregations as an identifiably distinct Law-Free Christianity in Antioch (11:26). It is in Antioch that Paul, the soon-to-become Apostle to Gentiles, earns his missionary stripes.

It is likely, therefore, that Luke inserted the Cornelius' story into the Hellenists' story cycle to vindicate the Gentile mission by bringing it under the apostolic authority of Peter and the Jerusalem church, rather than attributing it to the questionable authority of Paul or, more importantly at this stage, the Hellenists.

Final Reflections...

Luke's work on the Gentile mission presents us with one of the first steps towards centralising authority in Christianity under the Petrine banner. Acts is what the Germans call a "unionsdokument" in that it seeks to unite the various stories pertaining to the beginnings of Christianity into a single, connected, narrative plot that places Peter (and later Paul as Peter's subordinate) as the central character.

Acts represents one our earliest examples of the later ecclesiological adage attributed to St Ambrose: Ubi Petrus ibi Ecclesia ("As Peter, so the Church" or "Where Peter is, there is the Church"). As such, Acts testifies to the fact that the papacy was not a new "invention" of the later Church.

It might be true that some stories underpinning Peter's authority may be legendary — the Cornelius' story is a case in point. However, the discussion of this story above suggests that this hagiographical process with regard to Peter appeared very early in the development of the Christian scriptures, with good reason. From its most primitive strata of our New Testament traditions, the figure of Peter seems to have emerged as a touchstone of orthodoxy. And the reason for this is that, historically speaking, Peter did enjoy a pre-eminence by virtue of being the first leader of the Jerusalem Church and, then, later in Antioch (cf. Gal 2:10-14). Later stories of his missionary activities were most likely shaped to reflect this fact.

The questions that may prove food for discussion in our forums are around the application of these observations to today's Church and particularly the ecumenical dialogue between Christian denominations. How can we preserve the very ancient tradition of Petrine primacy, while pursuing reform within the Catholic Church and cooperation between Catholics and other Christians?

Bibliography and Further Reading:
Dunn, J. D. G. (1991), The Partings of the Ways between Christianity and Judaism and Their Significance for the Character of Christianity. London: SCM Press.
Elmer, I.J. (2005), "Between Jerusalem and Antioch: the advent of the Gentile mission", Australian Ejournal of Theology 6 (2005) URL: http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/research/theology/ejournal/aejt_6/elmer.htm
Esler, P. F. (1989), Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts: The Social and Political Motivations of Lukan Theology. SNTSMS 57; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hill, C. C. (1992), Hellenists and Hebrews: Reappraising Division within the Early Church. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.
Stark, R. (1996), The Rise of Christianity.Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Watson, F. (1986), Paul, Judaism and the Gentiles: A Sociological Approach. SNTSMS 56; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wilson, S. G. (1973), The Gentiles and the Gentile Mission in Luke-Acts. SNTSMS 23; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Photo Credits:
Clicking on the photos used in the body of the commentary will take you to the original source. The image of a Roman Centurion (not Cornelius specifically) is from a stained glass window at Holy Trinity, Marham, Norfolk in the UK according to the source at: www.flickr.com/photos/norfolkodyssey/3727540910/.

[Index of Commentaries by Ian Elmer]