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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 622. The Man
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The Man
i. The Roman Soldier
We know very little of his history, but his name indicates that he belonged to one of the noble families of Rome. The Romans knew no more honourable name than that of the Cornelian house; some of their most famous men had sprung from that stock, and doubtless when this descendant of the family entered the army, his dreams would be of achieving on the field of battle still greater glory to add to the lustre of the family name. Little did he think of the kind of fame he was to gain, as little perhaps as Peter thought of becoming a fisher of men those long summer days when he dragged the Lake of Galilee with his fisherman's net.
1. That Cornelius was a soldier was both in favour of and against his becoming a Christian. It was in his favour because he was a man accustomed to discipline.
The world of unregenerate man at the time of our Lord's appearance had become utterly selfish. Discipline of every kind had been flung off. Self-restraint was practically unknown, and the devil and his works flourished in every circle, bringing forth the fruits of wickedness, uncleanness, and impurity in every direction. The army was the only place or region where in those times any kind of discipline or self-restraint was practised. For no army can permit-even if it be an army of atheists-profligacy and drunkenness to rage, flaunting themselves beneath the very eye of the sun. And as the spiritual result we find that this small measure of pagan discipline acted as a preparation for Christianity, and became under Divine guidance the means of fitting men like Cornelius of Cæsarea for the reception of the gospel message of purity and peace.
Why did the Medieval Church initiate orders of sacred knighthood-knights of the temple, knights of St. Mary, knights of St. John? It was because the Medieval Church wanted a section of her sons to be soldiers in spirit and to transfer the qualities of war into the paths of peace. Why has our modern Christianity instituted a Salvation Army? It is because Cornelius is still needed among the Christians-because in peace as well as in war there are wrongs that await redressing. Why does our twentieth century inaugurate in every town a Boys' Brigade? It is because we want Cornelius in the midst of us. It is because we desire that from an early age our youthful generation should learn to associate religion with manliness, to connect the cross of Christ with all that is brave and heroic and noble, and to plant in civil life those very seeds which in the sphere of the warrior made for military glory.1 [Note: G. Matheson, Representative Men of the New Testament, 314.]
2. On the other hand, Cornelius was exposed to all the temptations of a soldier's life. It cannot have been easy for him to maintain his high ideals, to keep true to the God he worshipped, in the atmosphere of a soldier's barracks. His life had been spent in war-in the service of an empire whose aims were not Messianic. He had breathed the atmosphere of the camp rather than the air of Calvary, had heard, not sermons on the mount, but ribald jests on the highway.
A soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth.2 [Note: Shakespeare, As You Like It, ii. vii. 149.]
It was an early dream of F. W. Robertson of Brighton, the son, grandson, and brother of gallant officers in the British army, that he might serve his Lord and Master as a soldier. The temptations to which he would be exposed in the army were strongly set before him, but he could not believe that they were any real barriers against his entrance into it; on the contrary, with his usual desire for some positive outward evil to contend with, he imagined that it was his peculiar vocation to bear witness to God, to set the example of a pure and Christian life in his corps, to be as he said “the Cornelius of his regiment.”3 [Note: S. A. Brooke, Life and Letters of the Rev. F. W. Robertson, 8.]
Cornelius may have at the time counted his lot a hard one when despatched to Palestine as a centurion, for it was a province where, from the nature of the warfare prevalent, there were abundant opportunities of death by assassination at the hands of the Zealots, and but few opportunities of distinction such as might be gained in border warfare with foreign enemies. But the Lord was shaping his career, as He shapes all our careers, with reference to the highest spiritual purposes. He led Cornelius, therefore, to a land and to a town where the pure worship of Jehovah was practised and the elevated morality of Judaism prevailed.
Cornelius is represented to us as “a devout man,” “one that feared God with all his house,” “who gave much alms to the people,” and who “prayed to God always.”
1. He was a devout man, a man of serious and reverent spirit, of an earnest turn of mind, conscientious up to his light, seeking with all his heart to be true to the best within him. By birth and training he must have been a pagan. When he worshipped his father's gods at Rome he was serious in his worship; he bowed down reverently, humbly, and devoutly, and we may be sure that when he embraced the pure worship of God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, he would become not less but more devout. He belonged to the same class of men as Nathanael and Nicodemus. He was conscious of the existence of higher powers, and of the obligation to worship. To him there was mystery in life; there were powers beyond him; and before these he bowed his head and worshipped. May not this have been the secret of his finding out the true God? He lived up to the best he knew; and when Providence placed him in Cæsarea, where he must have found some faithful worshippers, he found the light after which he had been seeking.
He, therefore, is the devout man, who lives no longer to his own will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will of God; who considers God in everything, who serves God in everything, who makes all the parts of his common life parts of piety, by doing everything in the Name of God, and under such rules as are conformable to His glory.1 [Note: William Law.]
2. Cornelius was more than devout: he feared God with all his house. He was one of those men who make the fear of God the basis of all their actions, who make that the touchstone by which they test their conduct, the law by which they regulate their lives, the motive that determines their whole course of action. Like the psalmist he could say, “I have set Jehovah continually before me.”
The fear of the Lord may mean two things. It may mean the fear which springs from dread, the fear which, traced back to its source, is the consequence of guilt, the fear which, were it possible, would make us hide ourselves from God, the fear that Felix felt when Paul reasoned with him of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. Or it may mean the fear which springs from love, the veneration, reverence, obedience a son renders a father, which is mingled with the apprehension of his displeasure incurred by misconduct-a restraining, wholesome, praiseworthy fear.
To Cornelius the fear of God was of the latter kind. It had its origin in a right motive. It was the fear which held in reverence God's holy character, and never would bow before Him without a sense of deep unworthiness and sinfulness, a fear which led him to own God's authority over his life, and to do His will from the heart fervently, ungrudgingly, and willingly. He did not suffer the customs and usages of those around him to determine his conduct; he did not suffer social sanction to usurp the place of Divine. In all things he sought to be well-pleasing unto God, setting himself daily in the light of His law that he might the more easily see his own mistakes and sins; and he was spurred to effort by the fear lest he should lose God's approbation. On this wise and sure foundation he built the house of his life. In this fear of God he exercised all his household. Cornelius had a church in his home. His children, his servants, his guests were all taught the fear of the Lord.
It was the influence of Cornelius himself that brought all that household at Cæsarea under the fear of God. It was his personal influence, his devout, earnest, godly character that wrought the change. He, the master of the house, himself feared God, and so all his house were taught the secret.
The genius of Michael Angelo made the Sibyls splendid on the ceiling of the Sistine from the magnificence of proportion quite as much as from the softness of colour; proportion is the secret of lasting charm. It is holy fear that is the principle of proportion in the relation of the creature-the fallen creature-to his Creator. To see God in suffering is, by grace, to have a proportionate affection; by it we are restrained, by it we are awed and solemnized, by it we act as men should in the felt presence of their Maker, by it we learn, in fact, our proper place.1 [Note: W. J. Knox Little, The Witness of the Passion, 50.]
3. Cornelius was a liberal man: “he gave much alms to the people.” That was the form his liberality took. He had learned the compassion of Christ for the needy, he had learned one of the secrets of Christian living-to give.
“Give,” Christ said, “and it shall be given to you.” What shall be given for giving? Goods, money, material things? No. Jesus knew what He was saying; to give these hoping to receive again is not giving at all. “Do not even the publicans the same?” No, give these if you have them, but first give the willing heart, give yourself, give your love, give your help to a neighbour, be the good Samaritan; spend, hoping to receive nothing again, and great will be your reward in heaven. Cornelius had learned that lesson.
Let us remember always that for a worthy contribution to life, the discipline of the heart is more even than that of the brain. And that is a discipline of which we can all partake. You may take no place in the ranks of learning or of science; none can prevent you entering the lists of love and of service. The learning may in the end prove out of date; love never grows old, never misses its aim. The soul that is fired with faith and hope carries everywhere its instant benediction. It shines in the countenance and radiates health by a glorious contagion. It is like the Alps. The Alps do not know you, never heard your name. But just because they are Alps-their snowy summits catching the sunlight, their glorious air charged with force; their immortal beauty shining in upon the soul-just by being that, what a boon are they, all unknowing, to the fever-worn travellers who look upon them! Oh, for more Alpine souls! The soul never grows for itself; it grows that others may climb on it to the heights. It gives all it receives-gives without knowing it is giving. Yes, we are here to give, and to taste its blessedness. Our contribution may seem of the poorest, but the universe would not be complete without it. No one else can offer it. The Spirit of Holiness, striving in His eternal struggle to shape this rude world into a kingdom of light, looks for our co-operation, for our contribution. Shall we offer aught less than our best?1 [Note: J. Brierley, Religion and To-day, 271.]
4. To his devoutness, godliness, and liberality, the centurion added this other distinguishing mark of a Christian character: he prayed to God alway. It was the secret of all his goodness; he communed with God, he was a man of prayer. Nor was it an occasional exercise. He prayed to God alway, like Job, of whom we read, “Thus did he continually.” It was the root of the whole matter. The prayer of faith brings down God into our lives, and that means the answer to all our needs.
Wherefore if anywise from morn to morn
I can endure a weary faithfulness,
From minute unto minute calling low
On God who once would answer, it may be
He hath a waking for me, and some surprise
Shall from this prison set the captive free
And love from fears and from the flesh the soul.2 [Note: F. W. H. Myers, Poems, 68.]
I labour groaning. Comes a sudden sheen!-
And I am kneeling at my father's knee,
Sighing with joy, and hoping utterly.1 [Note: G. MacDonald, Poetical Works, ii. 265.]
It's not only a great flight of confidence for a man to change his creed and go out of his family for heaven's sake; but the odds are-nay, and the hope is-that, with all this great transition in the eyes of man, he has not changed himself a hairbreadth to the eyes of God.2 [Note: R. L. Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey.]