Cornelius was a centurion in the
Cohors II Italica Civium Romanorum, mentioned as
Cohors Italica in the
Vulgate. He was stationed in
Caesarea Maritima, the capital of Roman
Iudaea province. He is depicted in the
New Testament as a
God-fearing man who always prayed and was full of good works and deeds of
alms. Cornelius receives a vision in which an
angel of God tells him that his prayers have been heard; he understands that he has been chosen for a higher alternative. The angel then instructs Cornelius to send the men of his household to
Joppa, where they will find
Simon Peter, who is residing with a
tanner by the name of Simon (ff). The
conversion of Cornelius comes after
a separate vision given to Simon Peter (). In the vision, Simon Peter sees all manner of beasts and fowl being lowered from
Heaven in a sheet. A voice commands Simon Peter to eat. When he objects to eating those animals that are
unclean according to Mosaic Law, the voice tells him not to call unclean that which God has cleansed. When Cornelius' men arrive, Simon Peter understands that through this vision the Lord had commanded him to preach the Word of God to the Gentiles. Peter accompanies Cornelius' men back to Caesarea. The controversial aspect of Gentile conversion is taken up later at the
Council of Jerusalem (
Acts 15).
Religious situation of Judea Taking into account that Judea had been within the Hellenic orbit since the conquest of
Alexander the Great, there was time for wise men and philosophers, both Greek and Jewish, to exchange knowledge, thus beginning the syncretism between
Hellenism and
Judaism, a phenomenon that occurred in the rest of his empire. Later with the arrival of the
Romans (already Hellenized), there were no problems of
religious tolerance (except in the case of the
Zealots), since thanks to the
interpretatio graeca exported by the
Macedonians, it was possible to identify
Caelus (Roman god) or
Uranus (his Greek equivalent) and
Yahweh as the Supreme
God, allowing conversion cases like Cornelius. ==Significance==