“Cornelius the centurion has sent us,” they said. “He is a righteous and God-fearing man with a good reputation among the whole Jewish nation. A holy angel instructed him to request your presence in his home so he could hear a message from you.”
22. Cornelius, a just man. Cornelius’ servants commend their master not ambitiously, or to the end they may flatter him, but that Peter may the less abhor his company. “Ab ejus congressu minus abhorreat,” may be less averse to meet with him. And for this cause they say that he was approved of the Jews, that Peter may know that he was not estranged from true and sincere godliness.
We have here the meeting between Peter the apostle, and Cornelius the centurion. Though Paul was designed to be the apostle of the Gentiles, and to gather in the harvest among them, and Peter to be the apostle of the circumcision, yet it is ordered that Peter shall break the ice, and reap the first-fruits of the Gentiles, that the believing Jews, who retained too...
Commenting on Acts 10:19-33
And they said, Cornelius, the centurion,.... A certain person, by name Cornelius, a Roman or Italian, as his name shows, and by office a "centurion", that was over an hundred soldiers: a just man; before God, and in his sight, through the imputation of Christ's righteousness to him; and who was a new man, created in righteousness and true holiness; and lived soberly, righteously, and...