Who Was Cornelius the Centurion?
How a gentile’s conversion expanded the early church
The Vision of the Centurion Cornelius, by Zanobi Rosi (1577–1631). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Luke, the traditionally accepted author of Acts and the gospel bearing his name, often expanded and further developed theology through the story of a named character. In Acts 10–11, he did so with the conversion of Cornelius, a Roman centurion whose story helped the council in Jerusalem accept that salvation now included both Jews and gentiles.
Mentioned by name in the New Testament only in Acts 10, Cornelius is often remembered as the first named gentile convert to “the Way” (as early Christianity was called). However, his conversion and baptism were preceded textually by that of an unnamed official, one called the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26–40). Taken together, the two conversions show that, for Luke, salvation in Jesus extended worldwide to all peoples.
Acts 10 sets the foundation for the slow but steady expansion of Christianity. While the chapter centers on the conversion of a prominent gentile, Cornelius, the apostle Peter and the Holy Spirit also have starring roles. Luke’s exciting, fast-paced narrative unfolds in this chapter through four “interruptions”:
- An angel interrupts Cornelius at prayer
- A vision interrupts Peter’s lunch
- Cornelius’s messengers interrupt Peter’s contemplation over his vision
- The Holy Spirit interrupts Peter’s sermon
Based on material in Acts 12, the events involving Cornelius seemingly took place during the reigns of Roman emperor Claudius (41–54 CE) and Herod Agrippa I, king of Judah (10 BCE–44 CE).
Cornelius Introduced and Described
Luke honors Cornelius via an extensive, positive portrait. Stationed in Caesarea, Cornelius was affiliated with the Italian cohort. Centurions typically oversaw 100 men, a tally giving rise to their designation. Leading the Italian cohort may have been an elite appointment because of its interaction with governing authorities.
Cornelius arguably was a well-recognized and well-respected figure in both Caesarea and Jerusalem. Consequently, as a person of standing in the occupying Roman army, he probably had a domus, a gated, Roman-style house. Public functions took place in what was called the atrium, and the house probably had a peristyle in the back with a fountain in an open courtyard. Because Acts 10 specifically mentions hours and days, the chapter carries a military cadence and tone.
Cornelius, however, was more than his position and prestige. Luke calls him a devout man, one who feared God with all his household, gave alms to the people, and prayed continually (Acts 10:1–2). The text shows he led an open life, hiding neither his rejection of the Roman pantheon nor his adherence to the Jewish God. He may have been married—possibly to a Jewish woman; Acts 10:24 indicates he got along well with his neighbors and relatives. By describing him as one “who feared God with all his household,” Luke indicates that Cornelius—this international, honorable, and unusual man—believed in the Jewish God but was not a convert and was not circumcised.
The First Interruption
As a public, military figure, Cornelius probably was on call 24/7. He kept a known routine, part of which was prayer. The first interruption occurred at 3 p.m. while he was praying. An angel approached this seasoned soldier and he expressed a typical reaction: terror (Luke 2:9–10; Matthew 28:2–5)!
The angel addressed Cornelius by name and commended him: “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God.” The angel then gave an order: “Now send men to Joppa to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter; he is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside” (Acts 10:3–6). Recognizing authority, Cornelius showed his military training and obeyed instantly.
Limewood statuette possibly depicting Peter (c. 1440). Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain.
The Second Interruption
The biblical scene switches to Joppa. The next day around noon, Peter went to the roof of Simon’s house to pray. Hungry, Peter fell into a trance; he saw a great sheet descending from heaven, held at four corners, and filled with animals, reptiles, and birds. A voice said, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat” (Acts 10:9–13).
It seems Peter thought the command represented a test of his obedience to Jewish tradition, for he replied, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.” The voice replied, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” The vision, perhaps for emphasis, occurred three times (Acts 10:12–16).
The Third Interruption
While Peter contemplated the vision’s meaning, Cornelius’s messengers arrived at Simon’s house. The voice told Peter to go down immediately to meet them “because I have sent them” (Acts 10:20). Peter listened to the messengers’ request and invited them in, following the directions given by the voice. However, the gesture ran contrary to the Jewish tradition of social separation from gentiles.
Yet Peter already seemed ready to welcome them, for, after all, he was staying at the home of a tanner, a man working in an unclean profession. Peter’s hospitality to the messengers included table fellowship and overnight accommodation. While there is no direct biblical reference prohibiting Jews from socializing and eating with gentiles, by Peter’s time, Jewish tradition had developed these restrictions.
The next morning, Peter and others identified as “believers from Joppa” left with the messengers for Caesarea. Meanwhile in Caesarea, Cornelius anxiously and eagerly awaited Peter’s arrival the following day. In anticipation, Cornelius invited others to hear Peter’s words (Acts 10:23–24).
Cornelius greeted Peter in a most unusual way. He knelt, fell at his feet, and worshiped him! Peter quickly responded with a correction: “Stand up; I am only a mortal” (Acts 10:25–26). The two conversed as they made their way to a room—quite possibly an atrium—where a large group of Cornelius’s relatives and close friends had gathered.
Peter greeted the assembly—no doubt mainly gentiles—by acknowledging a new revelation: “God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without any objection. Now may I ask why you sent for me?” (Acts 10:27–29). Cornelius replied by recounting the angel’s visitation four days earlier and then by commending Peter for his kindness in coming: “All of us are here in the presence of God to listen to all that the Lord has commanded you to say” (Acts 10:30–33).
Luke then records either a summary of Peter’s talk or a very short sermon. Here are some highlights (Acts 10:34–43):
- God does not show favoritism, and Jesus accepts believers from all nations
- God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power
- Jesus was put to death “by hanging him on a tree”
- God raised him up on the third day
- Peter and the apostles testify that Jesus is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead
- Everyone who believes in Jesus receives forgiveness of sins through his name
The Fourth Interruption
As Peter preached, the Holy Spirit suddenly fell on those assembled. Accepting the interruption, Peter stopped talking. He listened. He heard the gentiles speaking in tongues and extolling God (Acts 10:46). Peter recognized that the gentiles in Cornelius’s home evidently expressed the same characteristics, behavior, and emotions that had happened earlier to him and other Jewish believers on Pentecost (Acts 2:1–16). Luke records the shared reaction of Peter and other Jewish believers upon recognizing that the gentiles also received the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:45): astonishment!
After a while, Peter (probably quite loudly!) called for order by saying, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” (Acts 10:47). He then directed that they be baptized immediately in the name of Jesus Christ. Perhaps Cornelius showed the way to the peristyle and fountain in his courtyard. Afterward, the community invited Peter to stay for several days (Acts 10:48); during that time, he doubtless continued his teaching and stories about Jesus.
Interruptions That Unite
Each of the four interruptions in Acts 10 intersects an established pattern of religious life. These literary junctions, so to speak, are Cornelius’s routine of prayer, Peter’s assumptions about ritual purity, the customary separation between Jews and gentiles, and Peter’s sermon. The interruptions present the good news of the Gospel as something urgent. The interruptions perform, in a literary sense, what they preach. They illustrate a new command or insight; they direct a new but common focus, Jesus; they welcome others to “the Way.”
The interruptions point to Peter’s new understanding—namely that God shows no partiality among believers—and Luke’s tacit invitation to his readers to share this insight. The boundaries that once defined religious separations no longer hold. Acts 10 not only records this consequential shift in the history of the early church but also presents Cornelius—the seeking, devout centurion—as its pivot.
By Acts 11, the next chapter, news of Peter’s sojourn with gentiles had reached Jerusalem. Peter is called before the council. There he explained his vision and the words of the voice—“Do not call anything impure that God has made clean” (Acts 11:9). He apparently shared the events at Cornelius’s house and ended with a question to the council: “So if God gave them the same gift as he gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?” (Acts 11:17).
While Luke’s account omits the first reactions of individual council members, it records their unanimous acceptance: “So then God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life” (Acts 11:18). The council’s response seems filled with wonder and also acknowledges an earlier prophetic word: “Behold, I do a new thing” (Isaiah 43:19).
The following chapters, Acts 11–14, showcase the expanded evangelism of the young church. Locations like Antioch, Cyprus, and Iconium receive particular mention. Barnabas and Paul, two apostles, subsequently tell the council in Jerusalem about the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the gentiles (Acts 15:12).
Saintly depiction of Cornelius the Centurion, by Osip Chirikov (19th century). Osip Semenovich Chirikov, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Other Centurions in the Gospels
The New Testament presents not only Cornelius but also two other unnamed centurions favorably. The first was a centurion stationed at the cross who watched Jesus’s death; he exclaimed, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” (Matthew 27:54).
The second was a centurion early in Jesus’s ministry. Jewish elders approached Jesus as he entered Capernaum (Luke 7:1–10). They spoke on behalf of a centurion whose servant was ill and near death. They relayed the centurion’s request that Jesus come and heal the servant. Stressing how much the centurion had done for the Jewish community in Capernaum, they told Jesus, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us” (Luke 7:5).
Jesus agreed to go with them. But while on the way, a second set of messengers came from the centurion asking Jesus not to trouble himself but to simply say the word and the servant would be healed. The messengers gave the centurion’s reason: “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof” (Luke 7:6–7). Luke records Jesus’s amazement and praise: “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith” (Luke 7:9). Luke summarizes the return of the messengers to the centurion’s house: They found the servant “in good health” (Luke 7:10).
The favorable portrayal of two centurions in Luke and Matthew and Cornelius in Acts is quite likely not accidental. These three demonstrate individual journeys of faith while also portraying God’s people as a new unit. To the gospel writers, these centurions—these unlikely and surprising figures of faith—function together as an early witness to the gospel’s gradual extension to all. The gospel’s message is presented as addressing questions of birth, identity, status, social affiliation, and religious heritage.
Coptic and Orthodox Traditions Regarding Cornelius
Cornelius is not specifically mentioned again in the biblical text after Acts 10. However, two religious traditions continue his story. Coptic tradition recounts that he was ordained as a bishop of Caesarea. The more detailed Orthodox tradition recounts that Cornelius left the military and accompanied Peter on preaching tours. A request for aid came from a congregation in Skepsis, a prominent city in what is now the Troad region of Turkey. Peter, Cornelius, and Titus (another early believer) cast lots to decide whom to send; the lot fell to Cornelius.
When Cornelius preached in Skepsis, he ran into conflict with Demetrius, the provincial governor. When asked why he came, Cornelius replied that he had come to preach the truth. Demetrius threw him in prison. An earthquake occurred. A temple to the Roman gods was destroyed. The voices of the wife and son of Demetrius were heard in the temple rubble; they praised the God of the Christians. Cornelius was released from prison and his prayers are credited with saving the two; the whole family was baptized.
Cornelius Honored
Throughout the centuries, Cornelius, the centurion convert, has captured the imagination and hearts of multiple Christian traditions. He is celebrated on September 13 in the Eastern Orthodox tradition as a Hieromartyr, a bishop and martyr; and on October 20 in the Roman Catholic tradition; and on 23 Hatour (a date in late November) in the Coptic Orthodox tradition.
Robin Gallaher Branch serves as an adjunct professor at Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tennessee. She holds a research appointment at North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa, where she served as a Fulbright scholar in 2002–2003.
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