Caesarea and the Mission of God

7/27/2019 Caesarea and the Mission of God

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Abstract

The article explores the theological significance of a location, what is today the

impressive archeological site of Caesarea Maritima. In the Book of Acts, Caesarea, as the

primary setting for the story of Peter and Cornelius, becomes a criticalpivot in Lukes

unfolding story both of the movement of the Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome and of the

transformation of the latter-days community of Messiah from a Jewish-only movement

into a multi-ethnic family, a Jew-Gentile New Creation. The article emphasizes the

literary patterns and devices Luke uses to present and reinforce the message of the

universal Kingdom, especially in the Cornelius story. As the apostles proclaim the

crucified-and-risen Jewish Messiah across boundaries of election, religion, ethnicity, and

history, the Kingdom of God comes and the healing of a primordially fractured world

begins.

According to ancient prophecy, though contrary to the expectations of many, the

cosmic promises to Abraham, the enacting of a new covenant, and the emergence of a

New Creation are actively realized when not only Jews, but also Gentiles, are incorporated

as one chosen people of God in Christ. In the New Testament, this culturally, even

spiritually, jarring transformation is central to the story of salvation, even to the eternal

design of God. Peters experience in Caesarea is a microcosm of that reality; Caesareabecomes the site of a key breakthrough, if only in kernel form, in the expansion of the

Good News and the eschatological reign of Jesus into the nations, to the ends of the earth.

Keywords

Caesarea / Cornelius / early church / Gentile inclusion / Luke-Acts / narrative design /

Peter / Salvation-History / typology

Note from Author

Thanks are due to Drs. David King, Alex Miller and Stephen Louy for comments

on this paper and to Eloise Neely for editorial assistance. All errors are mine alone.


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Acts 10: Caesarea and the Mission of God

Marys Well Occasional Papers 2:3 August 2013

Nazareth Evangelical Theological Seminary Nazareth, Israel

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1. The Confluence of Place and Text

Certain geographic locations seem to carry a special spiritual or scriptural

resonance for the believer. I am not thinking primarily of an ineffable emotive response

associated with these locations. I certainly do not have in mind either esoteric notions ofspecific places as dynamic nodes of spiritual energy or portals to a numinous realm.1

Nonetheless, there are those places in the lands of the Bible in which various streams of

significance for the history of our faith seem to converge; or, to switch metaphors, places

which serve as milestones in the history of salvation. Many of these theologically

significant spaces are prominent in both biblical history and the later story of pilgrimage.

Jerusalem would be the obvious example, but there are other sites less celebrated for their

spiritual history which also capture the imagination; their stones, too, exhort us.

In my opinion, Caesarea Maritima is one such place. The breathtaking setting, 50

km. up the coast from Tel Aviv, with its lovely shoreline and nicely restored antiquities, is

truly a jewel of Israels coast. Between the mammoth (and mostly submerged) man-made

harbor, the 4000 seat theater, the impressive amphitheater/hippodrome, remnants of

coastal villas, the tiled mosaics of the Roman baths, the Pontius Pilate inscription, the

likely place in which Paul the Apostle would have made his legal defense (Acts 24-26),

and the foundations of an Augustan temple, there is no lack of attractionshistoric,

biblical, and archeological. From Herods megalomaniacal architectural grandeur2 to late

Roman sarcophagi with legible inscriptions, Caesarea can keep the curious visitor

engrossed for hours.

Even more compelling from a theological vantage point are the ways in which

Caesarea becomes an intersection in biblical history, a junction for crucial, destiny-altering

moves in the story of Gods work in our world. The city would, of course, go on to host

multiple layers of civilization from Crusaders to Mamluks, from the Ottomans to the

British.3 Major figures in Christian history would also leave their mark (think of Origen in

the third century, and Eusebius in the fourth). But our concern here is the first century of

the Jesus movement. As the book of Acts recounts the spreading proclamation of Jesus as

Lord, Caesarea is presented as a key port-of-call as the Message wends its way from the

theological epicenter of Jerusalem to the civil and political capital, Rome. In the events in

Caesarea in Acts 10 and following, the Gospel gains significant propulsion on its

international trajectory.


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The following pages will feature reflections streaming mainly from two sources,

the Greco-Roman cultural backdrop of the city (and larger empire) and the literary setting

of the story of Peter and Cornelius as recounted in Acts 10-11 (and briefly in chapter 15).

Our attention will focus first on this city of mixed population and, more specifically, on

Jewish-Gentile relations in the Roman world at large. That becomes the framework for an

examination of the Cornelius episode as paradigmatic for the unveiling of Gods purposes

for the world: as the apostles proclaim the crucified-and-risen Jewish Messiah across

boundaries of election, religion, ethnicity, and history, the Kingdom of God comes and the

healing of a primordially fractured world begins. We will give attention to some of the

artistic ways in which Luke presents this kerygma in the Cornelius story and throughout

Acts by means of literary structuring, inter-textual allusion to the OT, and the highlighting

of select themes. We conclude by tying Lukes agenda in Acts, and the Cornelius episode,

to the calling of Abraham to bless all the families of the earth, a calling foundational to the

redemption story running through Old and New Covenants.

According to ancient prophecy, though contrary to the expectations of many, the

promises to Abraham, the renewal of Gods covenant by means of a new covenant (Jer.

31.31f.), and the emergence of a New Creation are actively realized when not only Jews,

but also Gentiles, are incorporated as one new people of God in Christ. In the New

Testament this culturally, even spiritually, jarring transformation is central to the story of

salvation, even to the very mission of God. Peters experience in Caesarea is a

foreshadowing and microcosm of that reality; Caesarea becomes the site of a key

breakthrough, if only in kernel form, in the expansion of the Good News and the

eschatological reign of Jesus into the nations, to the ends of the earth.4

2. The Drama of LocationCaesarea, which began its life as King Herods grand development of an outpost

called Strabos Tower, boasted an impressive man-made harbor for ships plying the routes

between Rome and Alexandria.5 The magnificent theater, seaside palace, and

amphitheater are graphic reminders of the splendor of this Greco-Roman city.6 Herod, the

putative Jewish King and the great builder of the Jerusalem Temple, seems never to have

come to terms with the tensions his Hellenizing ways evoked among his more devout


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Jewish populace.7

After Herod, Jerusalem and Judea fell under the aegis of Roman

governors.8 His city, built as a monumental compliment to his patron, Caesar Augustus,

was to become the headquarters of Roman-administered Judea for hundreds of years.

Indeed, from the Greco-Roman design of the city, to the colossal statues (of the Julian

family?) lining the harbor, to the temple to Caesar (and, of course, the name itself),

Caesarea was a projection of pagan Roman power.9

Much of Israels coastal plain, not to mention the Galilee, was populated by

Gentiles in the Second Temple period. The social mixture of various ethnicities, of Jews

and Gentiles, was not always cohesive. In Caesarea itself we find a Jewish minority living

in uneasy balance within a gentile city. At times the balance was lost. Indeed, inter-ethnic

riots and an act of pagan desecration near a synagogue in Caesarea were a catalyzing

factor in the Jewish Revolt of AD 66-73.10 After the long Babylonian exile and a history

of oppression and struggle with idolatrous rulers from Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the 2nd

century BC to the eventual Roman domination, many Jews of the Second Temple era

tended to gather tightly around a national identity reinforced especially by Sabbath

observance, circumcision, and kosher food-laws. The tendency was towards exclusion

and even hostility to the Gentiles who viewed largely as idolatrous and corrupting

oppressors of the chosen people. Not only were the Romans illegitimate overlords in

Gods land, but too close an interaction with them could be a cause of defilement and

ritual impurity--thus a threat to ones standing within the community of Gods elect.11 The

issue was cultural, political, andreligious, all in one. For those Jewish communities

deeply impacted by apocalyptic expectation in the early Common Era, as Israels

redemption was drawing near, it was vital that Gods people purify themselves in

expectation.12

Within the confines of this paper, and against the backdrop of Acts 10-15, I

deliberately emphasize this strain of separation, exclusivism, and purity-based quarantine

when it comes to Jewish-Gentile relations. Of course, in reality the entire picture is

mixed, complex, and would vary greatly over the centuries of the Hellenistic period and

from locale to locale.13 Mitigating trends are part of the larger panorama. These trends

include the facts that throughout the empire(s) there were long peaceful stretches of

coexistence between the Jewish and broader pagan populations; that all Jews (including

the most zealous) were impacted by and even participants in Hellenistic culture; that


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many Jews readily adapted to, partook in, and contributed to the broader culture of the

Roman Empire. An example of someone thoroughly adapted to his Hellenistic

environment, while remaining a faithful member of his Jewish community, is the

celebrated philosopher, Philo of Alexandria (d. ca. 50 AD). His nephew Tiberius Julius

Alexander (governed Judea 46-48 AD) is an example of a Jew who completely capitulated

to the pagan ethos.

Nonetheless, there was often little love lost between the Jewish and Gentile

populations of the empire, especially in occupied Judea. Mistrust and hostility towards

Gentiles was often deeply inculcated, historically reinforced, and religiously validated. To

take but one example as presented by Kenneth Bailey, note the theme of the great

(eschatological) banquet anticipated in Isaiah 25.6-8 in which Israelites and the nations

celebrate together in the New Creation, eating together at the Divine King's table. In some

quarters the understanding of this beautiful vision of the Hebrew prophet had so mutated

such that the Aramaic Targums can say that the banquet will be plague and destruction for

the nations; the book of Enoch14has the oppressors and elite of the nations judged by

the sword of the Lord and themselves turned into a bloody memorial sacrifice while the

elect Israelites feast; and at Qumran the sectarians foresaw the banquet as excluding not

only Gentiles but the rest of the unworthy among the Jewish nation.15 A panorama of

universal redemption and inclusion by God's grace is nationalized and narrowed in tragic

fashion.16

The animus and prejudice was, of course, a two-way street. The Roman writers

Juvenal (Satires 14) and Tacitus cast aspersions on Jews for their "exclusivist" or non-

Roman ways and "laziness" in that they observe Shabbat.17 Tacitus (Hist. Book 5)

describes the Jews as a mixed, lustful horde, hating outsiders, indolent, etc. He

perpetuates the libel of their origins as a leprous people expelled from Egypt.18 Or,

connecting once again with Caesarea, Pilate (the Roman governor of Judea, AD 26-36)

was noted not only for his violence and incompetence, but also his disdain for the Jews.19

Pilate was, of course, only one in a line of Roman governors who all too often dealt with

the Judeans with disdain, incomprehension, and violence.

However, we must emphasize here that also on the gentile side of the equation

there is more to the story; alongside anti-Judaism in the Roman Empire, there are also

many examples of philo-Judaism, of god-fearers attracted to the synagogue, and even of


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conversion to Judaism. Cornelius himself stands as a prime example of a pious, God-

fearing, non-Jew. In the pagan world there was a mixed picture with evidence of great

attraction to the ethics and worship of Judaic monotheism on the part of many outsiders,

not least the so-called god-fearers of Acts.20

3. Constituting the Renewed People of God

When we come to the story of Peter and Cornelius at Caesarea (Acts 9.43-11.18),

perhaps in the late 30s/early 40s AD,21 the Jew-Gentile divide provides the backdrop for

what will soon prove to be a seismic shift in the direction, fortunes, and face of the early

Christian movement. Was the mere fact of Peters presence along the Via Maris in the

suspect gentile zones in and of itself of some importance? Very soon sensitive and

contentious questions about the core identity of the people of God were to burst on the

scene in the early church, questions to which Peters encounter with a centurion would

prove anticipatory and crucial. Who are the actual people of God? How are they

constituted?

For the earliest Christians, themselves Jews, a burning issue would soon be framed

by a question that has an almost surreal ring in modern ears, Can anyone who is nota Jew

be a Christian, a follower of Jesus of Nazareth? For the believers in Peters day, the

ethno-religious tensions noted above were also their reality. It was not as though no one

of disputable pedigree in Israel could be saved and joined to the people of God. After

all, many Samaritans had believed (Acts 8). But, it would have been taken for granted that

anyone coming to faith in Jesus would have some living connection to the nation of Israel.

Certainly a Gentile might come to faith, but generally only as a former Gentile, a

proselyte to Judaism, one who had bound himself to the Jewish people, much like Ruth

had in generations past. After all, Jesus was the risen Messiah of the Jews. He came

according to the promises of the Law and the Prophets, and he came to and for his own

people.22 What could be more obvious? This was not a theological dictum in need of

analysis and defense. In fact, to hold anything else would have been to entertain sheer

novelty and to court heresy. In short, the path to the cross still traversed Mt. Sinai. The

way to Jesus was through Moses.


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For some readers of Acts 9 and 10, Peter's presence in Joppa in the highly Gentile-

populated coastal plane already is an indication of change to come, for in the eyes of more

rigorist compatriots, those mixing so much with the Gentiles were already somewhat

suspect.23 Yes, the early Christian believers were a joyful, renewed, redeemed fellowship

of Israelites upon whom the Day of Salvation had dawned. But, for all intents and

purposes, culturally, sociologically, nationally, they remained exclusively a stream within

ethnic Israel. Until one day, God changed things in Caesarea.

To be sure, Cornelius as he enters the story is no longer simply a pagan, but a true

seeker, with links to the Jewish people and faith (10.1-2, 22). He was a devout man,

and one whofeared God() with all his household,and gave many alms to the [Jewish] people, and prayed to God continually (Acts 10.2

NASB, adjusted). Nonetheless, his patent status as an uncircumcised Gentile and a

Roman centurion, from the Italian cohort, by definition a leader in Caesars war

machine, is front and center, and God is calling Cornelius to himself! (Jesus himself may

be seen as establishing the precedent for this [Mt. 8.5-13; Lk. 7.1-10]. It is, of course,

typical of Luke that both Peter and Paul are portrayed as proceeding in the pattern of their

Lord.24) Luke clearly sees Cornelius as a bridge character opening up the path that would

eventually lead to the Gentile influx.25

Cornelius and company join the ranks of Gods chosen by faith in the Son; the

unclean has been declared clean. The struggle Peter has over the food in the vision,

approximating the struggle he has with an unguarded association with Cornelius gentile

household (10.14, 28; 11.8), indeed, the struggle of many of the Jerusalem church with

Peters easy welcome of Gentiles into the ranks of renewed Israel (Acts 11.1-3)these

are not minor issues to be chalked up to quibbling over a few cultural prejudices or to

squeamishness over diet.

The dominant point in the story clearly is Gods acceptance of the Gentile on terms

of faith, without Jewishness (e.g., kosher observance; circumcision; formal conversion)

as a precondition. The issue of whether the vision itself would legitimate or constitute

abrogation of Torah regulations on food is debatable as any conclusions must be tentative

inferences. However, within the conceptual world of the vision itself, God baldly and

clearly makes cleanfoodwhich had been called common and unclean (10.15). Issues of

food and table fellowship have an innately social quality about them. Table barriers are


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an apt symbol for people barriers.26

Analogical reasoning might imply that Peters

vision strains in the direction of moving past food restrictions (cf. Mk 7.14-20; Rom.

14.14).27 That is, ifpeopleare included by God as is, then food as a boundary marker

would seem to lose its significance. However, there are certainly those who will demur on

this point.28

Matters of ritual purity, historic and national tradition, etc., must not be viewed

through the lens of contemporary, future-oriented individualism. For Peter, a descendant

of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, adherence to the Torah was infused in his bloodstream as it

had been with generations of Israelites before him. His revulsion at the thought of

ingesting impure food was total and real (10.14; 11.8), but not because he was playing

the part of a precious prima donna.29 No, matters of external purity and ritual ortho-praxis

were determinative indicators of his communal-religious commitments and spiritual

identityespecially in a world in which Israel was threatened within and without by

encroaching pagan power and culture.30

I am reminded of some past conversations with Muslims. If engaged in an inter-

religious conversation, my instinct is to focus on matters that I consider of central

theological or soteriological significance (the person of Jesus, sin and atonement, etc.), or

at least matters ethical and spiritual. And yet, with utter concern and sincerity, the

Muslim would often raise issues of ritual religious practice, or perhaps the

permissible/forbidden in society, table habits, family life, etc. My interlocutors first

questions so often focused on things like the consumption of wine or pork by Christians or

the permitted and forbidden in relations between the genders. Questions of external ritual

and practice are spiritual questionspar excellence from within that worldview.31

So, the challenge to Peter to embrace the vision of the non-kosher buffet (10.13-

16) and his gentile brothers (10.19-20, 28, 34; 11.12)32 radically confronted his previous

way of framing identity, belonging, and even standing before God himself. External purity

was no trivial custom, but was rather bound up with obedience to YHWH, to

maintaining and affirming ones place among his chosen and redeemed.33 After all, the

Lord was the author of such passages as Leviticus 11 and 19.34 Whether or not we focus

on the food of the vision, close association with the uncircumcised in their dwellings

and embracing them as actual brothers and sisters of the covenantthese things were


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potential threats to Peters Torah-purity and were certainly theologically revolutionary (cf.

Acts 10.28).

For Peter and the Jerusalem believers, the authenticity and authority of Jesus as

Messiah was not in question, but even with Jesus already taken as a given, continued

Torah-observance also remained a given. Now, it seemed, fundamental answers to Who

are the people of God? and How are they constituted? were being revised wholesale.

(Just as there is no debate here about the Messiahship of Jesus, it may also bear iterating

that a radical revision in the grounds of access into the people of God is not to be read in

the direction of a divine rejection of Jewish people, as has unfortunately been the case in

too many times and places.)

Apparently Peter could have undiluted table fellowship (Acts 11.3) with

uncircumcised (non-kosher?) Gentiles on equal standing before their shared Lord.35 The

grounds of Gentile inclusion in the body of the elect is nothing other than faith in Jesus,

with the new status being ratified by the presence of the Holy Spirit of YHWH himself!

But the open, full embrace of Gentiles who had come to Christ without conversion to

Judaism was a deep and even existential challenge to many Jewish followers of Jesus.

The opposition of some Jerusalem believers (e.g., Acts 11.2-3; 15.1-7) was instinctual and

to be expected. How could Moses be bypassed en route to the Messiah?

In the engrafting of Cornelius by faith in Messiah, what was really being

challenged? It appeared that Torah itself was under threat. However, in a variety of ways,

it would seem that in fact Luke would have us understand that it was the traditional,

nationalist reading and trajectory of Torah that was most at issue. The insistence on the

purity of Israel through non-association with Gentiles (10.28; 11.2-3) was certainly a

possible and common reading of Torah, one fortified by a rigorous and even expanded

regime of Jewish ritual which served the taxonomy of the separation of Israel from the

nations.36 The pharisaic (later, rabbinic) walls around Torah and the Jewish people had

developed in part from bitter experience under the heel of whichever godless empire the

people had languished since the exile, and in part from intra-Jewish struggle. And yet

throughout Acts, God himself is at pains to refract the light of the Law through a lens

other than that of ethnic or ritual distinction; this other lens is that of the unexpectedly

risen Messiah.


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Certainly, Acts and the New Testament as a whole serve to upend the notion of

Torah-observance as key to right standing in Gods community. The conflicts that arose

with the so-called Judaizers tended to center on the issues of ritual observance, with

circumcision being the galvanizing symbol at the center of the conflict (e.g., Galatians).

Years later Peter argues with vigor and brazenness that imposing circumcision and Torah

observance on Gentile believers would be to test God and insist on a yoke that they

themselves had not been able to bear (Acts 15.5, 10-11)! It is difficult to concisely

articulate what was new with respect to Torah in the era of the risen Christ, but we can

note at least two signature shifts: 1. Where the Torah was central to the life of Gods

people, they were now to be constituted around the Son. 2. Where Torah had often been

read as underlining the eternal election of ethnic Israel, with heavy overtones of Gentile

exclusion, it was now seen to point towards climactic redemption in that Son and the

universal inclusion of the nations through him. We shall soon see some of the ways in

which Luke presents this new move of God as precisely the eternal design of the God of

Torah, now unveiled in Messiah.

4. Literary Light on the Universal Mission of God

Many have seen the events in Caesarea in Acts 10 as answering to Acts 2, that is,

as the breakthrough Gentile Pentecost: The Spirit comes upon, and thus endorses, these

outsiders as part of the renewed Israel, and that, in both cases, in the context of Peters

preaching. How pivotal is the Cornelius story in the overall message of Acts and the

universalizing progress of the Gospel? Part of the answer lies in the literary structure of

Luke-Acts, the thematic arrangements, the references and allusions to the Old Testament,

and so forth.37 How monumental is this event for Luke? Well, for one thing, he devotes

major portions of chapter 10 and 11 to it, and it resurfaces again in the critical "Jerusalem

Council" of Acts 15. Within the story line of Actsthis encounter with Cornelius band lays

the groundwork for the big jump of the Gospel into the Gentile world at large,

preeminently through the church at Antioch. Indeed, it is no accident that the story of the

inroads of the Gospel into pagan Antioch are set hard on the heels of this story, and that

the Antioch scene goes on to facilitate the stage-right re-emergence of Paul, apostle to

the nations, into the narrative (11.19-30).


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This is a launch pad for Gods universal mission, a mission which started in

Bethlehem (Lk. 2) and extends all the way to Rome (Acts 28), a mission which, if we can

but see it, has been the divine agenda from the beginning. Evenback at the start of Lukes

Gospel in chapters one and two where we find some of the most Semitic passages in the

NT, steeped in the atmosphere of the Hebrew Bible and Israels groaning for her Davidic

redemption (Lk. 1.15-17, 31-33, 46-55 67-80; 2.14, 29-32, 38), the tone is set: Israels

Lord will not only judge, but also save the nations (Lk. 2.31-32).38 From there his gospel

takes us on a tour of Jesus ministry to the outcasts and marginalized of Israel, and to the

Samaritan and the Phoenician, and even to Roman39 soldiers (Lk. 7.9; cf. 23.47). Then the

risen Lord directs his followers gaze outwards, beyond the boundaries of Israel (Lk.

24.47). From the first outpouring of the Spirit in Jerusalem our eyes are directed to the

nations (Acts 2.9-11); the circles of mission are set to extend ever wider from Judea to

Samaria to the ends of the earth.

Other elements of the narrative also serve to underline the fact that despite the

grinding of the gears of culture, traditional theology, and ethnic privilege, universal

mission is in fact the agenda of God himself. In the prelude leading to Peters address to

Cornelius household, Gods initiative could hardly be more pronounced. Cornelius is

granted a visit from a holy angel (10.3, 22), whom he addresses as Lord (10.4). It may be

of importance that Cornelius is praying at the time of the evening sacrifice, an appointed

Jewish time of prayer (3.1; 10.3). Indeed critical moments of divine intervention by way

of redemption are elsewhere pictured at the time of this tamidoffering, not least the death

of Jesus himself (Mt. 27.46-54; Lk. 23.44f.; cf. 1 Ki. 18.29, 36). In any case, Cornelius

prayers (without his prior full conversion, without temple sacrifice) have ascended to God

as a memorial (10.4; cf. Ps. 141.2). Temple-language is used in communicating Gods

acceptance of this Romans entreaties. Cornelius displayed faith in search of truth. He

was devout and a God-fearer (10.2: ), generous to the

(presumably) Jewish poor. The description of this individual exudes the aroma of a man

approved by God.

As for Peter, he is almost badgered by a thrice-repeated vision from heaven (10.9-

16). And in the follow-up to the vision, should there remain any nagging hesitations, the

Spirit tells Peter to go down and accompany the Gentile messengers to Caesarea (10.19-

20). God is not through, even yet. Not hardly. In a dramatic and externally verifiable


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form the Spirit envelops and endorses this Gentile company, cutting Peters sermon off in

midstream as it were (10.44-47). (The coming of the Spirit may also remind us of the

Spirit of God filling his temple.) The text is making a point that Godwas making a point.

We have already commented on the insular and sensitive nature of some devout

Jewish responses to the threatening pagan world; thus the intense and withering critique

Peter received upon his return to Jerusalem for fraternizing with uncircumcised Gentiles to

the point of table fellowship (11.2-3). A stiff defense being a dire necessity, Peters

response invokes divine sovereignty, the prerogatives of the God of Israel himself. (See

just below on how Peter further bolsters his position in the debate.)

Years later at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) Peter summarizes these very

events in which the Spirit is given and salvation came by faith alone, and puts an even

stronger rejoinder to his traditionalist, Torah-regulated opponents. He rebukes them for

second guessing Gods own choice and characterizes mandating external and ritualized

Torah-observance as testing God and putting a yoke on the Gentile believers, a yoke that

the Jewish believers too had wilted under (15.10). Debate with chutzpah to spare.40

It is remarkable how often this entire Joppa-Caesarea episode is repeated or

summarized in Lukes presentation: throughout the chapters (10, 11, 15) we encounter

either Peters or Cornelius perspective of the events six times. Peters speech in chapter

eleven rehearses againGods short-circuiting of Peters own pedigreed scruples via

revelatory vision and the voice of the Spirit. He underlines the fact that he was not alone

in this endeavor but that six Jewish brothers had accompanied him [Acts 11.12] and that

Gods holy angel had been in the unclean Gentile house wellbefore he had entered it.

Peter is in effect saying, Blame the angel; he rushed in first.41 And finally, God himself,

consulting no one, had baptized the listeners with his own Holy Spirit as Peter preaches.

Both in terms of the content of the story and the repeated elements of the story, the point is

made.

In the baptizing, pouring out, or descending of the Spirit on this gentile band, they

were given the same giftthe Lord Messiah had promised his first Jewish disciples. The

fact that the prominent manifestation of the Spirit in this Gentile Pentecost was

tongues, just as it had been in the beginning in Jerusalem, underscores the dramatic

implications of what God is doing in Caesarea.42 This was after all the Spirit of YHWH

himself, long promised to be poured out on his chosen people.43 Having the Spirit of the


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LORD within and upon them, how much more accepted could any people possibly be?

Who then is Peter, or anyone else, to stand in Gods way (11.17)? Who indeed. The

circumcision party (11.2) did not have a problem with Peter, or even with the Law, but

with God.

5. Peter and Jonah

We have been examining the various literary means by which Luke emphasizes the

barrier-breaking mission of God whereby not only a Jewish remnant, but also repentant

Gentiles, are swept into the Kingdom. So, as we have seen, Luke employs pointed

repetition of narrative elements, the foregrounding of certain characters (like angels or

visions or voices as representative of divine fiat), internal parallels (e.g., two Pentecost

moments), sheer textual space, and so on to make his point. We have just seen that Luke

records the dramatic signs, wonders, and interventions of God which cut across nationalist

and traditional expectation and radically adjust an ethnically-centered Torah theology (cf.

Acts 15.5-19). In communicating the early history of the Good News, Luke has not

simply eliminated Torah, however. Torah, indeed the Law, Prophets, and Writings

altogether, continue to speak throughout Lukes narrative, including the Cornelius story.

Lukes vision of a Jew-Gentile people brought to birth by the Gospel may subvert

the Torah-centric paradigm of the circumcision party, but, again, he does notdispense

with Torah as the revelation of God. To the contrary, in the light of prophecy fulfilled,

Torah is a prism revealing Christ. Frequently, Luke will underline the old-new message of

the Gospel by means of quotations from the Hebrew Bible, especially in his record of the

early preaching of the apostles (see the sermons of chapters 2, 3, 13, etc.). Another means

by which Luke casts theological light on his historical record is by artful allusion to Old

Testament precedent by means of typology or by means of thematic parallels between his

story and Israels previous story.44 This literary technique, in evidence here in the

Cornelius story, serves to drive home the message itself, a message anticipated, expected,

and celebrated already in the Hebrew scripture.45

Arguably, Luke is casting Peters unexpected Gentile mission against the paradigm

of the Jonah story.46 A complex of parallels emerges suggesting the links between Acts 10

and Jonah are intended. Oddly enough, Peter is himself a son of Jonah (bar Jonah).47


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Both stories entail reluctant emissaries (prophet/apostle) from the chosen people to

representatives of godless, pagan empires. Both are told in some fashion to Arise and go

(Jonah 1.2; 3.2; Acts 10.20). In both cases, the messenger departs from Joppa. The

initiative throughout lies with God. In both cases considerable opposition to the Gentile

mission must be overcome, and in both cases the opposition lingers after the execution of

the mission (Jonah 4.1f./Acts 11.2-3; 15.1,5). There is a threefold pattern48 at work as

God overcomes the resistance of his chosen messengers (Jonah 1.17 [MT 2.1]/Acts

10.16).49 In both cases the response of the listening Gentiles to the word of God is

positive, universal, and dramatic (Jonah 3.6f./Acts 10.44f.).50 The Old Testament God

who carried his mission even into hostile, existentially threatening,51 pagan Assyria, was

now, in the age of the Messiah, throwing the very doors to his Kingdom wide open, even

to the Roman pagan oppressors, executioners of the Messiah.

6. Hospitality and an Open Door

Let us note again that the story of Acts is frequently sharpened by the surfacing of

repeated patterns, templates, or themes. As will be obvious by now, food or table

fellowship is a leading theme of the story. Food and community go hand in hand. To

share hospitality (house and meal) is to share identity at some level. In the first-century

Jewish world in particular, food practices were a key identity marker, a sign of ones

loyalty to ones deity and community. In this story the issue of food surfaces at both the

start [kill and eat] and end of the story (Acts 11.5-10f.). Peter is not simply attacked for

proclaiming Torah-free justification, but for staying and eating with the Gentiles

(Acts 10.9f.; 11.3).52 Indeed, table fellowship is a sign of belonging, acceptance, even

covenant loyalty.53Notably, in Peters speech about Jesus, he mentions the disciples

eating and drinking with Jesus after his resurrection (Acts 10.41). This serves to

underline the physical reality of the resurrection, to be sure, but in this context one must

also be struck by the importance of the theme of table fellowship. The first Jewish

disciples had been embraced by their Lord, even eating with him, but now Jesus has

sovereignly claimed the Gentiles too. How then can they not eat and drink together? All

are called to the Lords table.54 God was welcoming the nations into his household!


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The table then may be placed as something of a metonymy for the house. In the

Gospel God extends his hospitality; Jew or Gentile, in Messiah, they truly and equally join

the household of YHWH himself, even to be his temple!55 Perhaps this is part of the

reason that houses/households and entering houses/crossing boundaries play such a

prominent part in Lukes tale (10.17, 23, 25, 48; 11.3, 11-14).56 God had crossed all

boundaries, the greatest boundary, to pitch his tent with us;57 that being so, now all who

receive his Good News are embraced and enveloped in Gods own family.

The Cornelius incident in Caesarea is an important node in Lukes history. It plays

a dramatic role in channeling the outward expansion of the Gospel and in setting the

trajectory for the developing new covenant community, the church, in its earliest stages.

The Word from Bethlehem would be heralded even in Rome, but the itinerary was via

Caesarea.58 Gods mysterious but ancient intention was always to re-gather his broken

and disparate world to himself, from as far back as Genesis 3, or even further (Eph. 1.4; 2

Tim. 1.9). And when all is said and done, God will not play favorites (Acts 10.28, 34; cf.

Rom. 2.11). Mysteriously, Gods sovereign election of a people was not ultimately about

separating, dividing, or excluding, but actually about his universal mission. When he

gathered his lost sheep from the nations, they would all be his chosen, all enter the fold on

one and the same terms (cf. Jn 10.16).

Luke is telling us that the overture to Gentiles might have been a scandal to the

exclusivist strands in Jewish expectation, but was not so to God's original design, not a

scandal to the Hebrew Bible. Conversely, in line with certain strands of Jewish thought

and teaching, some things were indeed expected to change in the Age to Come,59 and in

some Jewish eschatology there was clearly hope for at least the righteous among the

nations. In Acts, that prophesied Age, the "last days," has come (Acts 2.16-17).

7. Conclusion: Caesarea and the Abrahamic Blessing

This story of the Gospels move out into the nations clearly connects seamlessly

with the sweep of the action in Lukes book; it also connects with the sweep of action in

the Book, in the unfolding of redemption in holy history. Weve already noted Peters

insistence that what happened in Caesarea was a sovereign move: the Gentiles too

received the same gift from God, his own Spirit. The pattern with the repentant pagans


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was the same as the pattern with the apostles and then with the Jerusalem crowd of Acts 2:

the one Lord and Messiah is acknowledged, and the very Spirit of the God of Israel

descends on his people.

Once again, we must keep in mind that not only is all this evidence of the

sovereign move of God, it is also in accordance with Gods original design, his ancient

missional intent as revealed in Hebrew scripture; the renewal of covenant, the forgiveness

of sins, the advent of the Savior, the giving of life (resurrection), and the dwelling of God

by his Spirit among his peopleall of these are prophetic promises enshrined for

generations, promises to Israel, now also realized among the nations. The long history of

(Israels) salvation comes to explosive climax as salvation forall in Jesus the Messiah;

this is both ancient prophetic plan andan unexpected apocalypse, the unveiling of a

mystery.60 The Spirit poured out on Israel in the last days is poured out on all who turn to

Israels Lord and Christ.

So, as we look at this micro-story of Peter and Cornelius, as we look at where Acts

has been and where it is going, we surely should be reminded of where God has been

(Genesis) and where his story is pointing us. Peters encounter with this extended

household of non-Jews is actually a window on Gods mission, a signpost to his larger

purposes. Those purposes center on the blessing of the nations as promised to Abraham at

what may be considered the beginning of Israels story in Genesis chapter 12 and

following.61

The call, the promise, the covenant to Abraham (articulated in seed form in

Genesis 12.1-3) represent a narrowing of the biblical storyline from the universal to the

particular. The focus narrows from humanity as a whole to primarily a focus on Israel

throughout the remainder of the Old Testament. But, we must not be misled. Chapter 12

answers to the sorry, sad, sin-fractured story of Adams lineage in chapters 3-11. Gods

eye is still on his broken, rebellious creation, and his intention is to renew and restore a

world now badly gone off the rails. Once again he will dwell with us, and we with him.

So with magnificent and mysterious paradox God calls Abraham out so that through the

One he might reach the Many; through his line, Messiah might come; that in him all

nations will be blessed. He narrows, so as to expand. He excludes, so as to include. He

selects, so as to embrace. Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways.62


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Surely, then, that universal promise to Father Abraham lies in the background to

Peters ministry in Caesarea as well. Direct verbal allusions to the Abrahamic promise are

not foregrounded in the passages we have been considering,63 but a theology of universal

mission springing from the pages of Torah itself is shot through the whole of Lukes

history. More than that, it is fascinating that Peterdoes cite the Abrahamic promises in his

second recorded sermon (Acts 3.13, 25). Amazingly, on this occasion as he proclaims

Messiah to his Judean audience, he highlights the universal scopeof Gods purposes in

calling out their forefather Abraham. Quite clearly, Acts would tell us, the Good News of

Jesus, the promise to Israel, is ultimately the hope of the entire world. That purpose of the

Fathers heart breaks onto the scene with paradigm-shattering force in the Cornelius

incident.

Gods chosen instrument for his salvific ends was Israel and then the ultimate

Israelite, Jesus. His purpose and scope were always universal. The Book of Acts is the

story of the ministry of Jesus after his ascension,64 and in this story Gods purposes were

finally coming on to center stage. The mystery hidden for ages past was now being

revealed in the last days (cf. Eph. 3.9). And so it continues today. Gods reach is

limitless; his intentions are universal; his love is global; he has brought down boundaries

by his grace; let us not re-erect them. As his disciples may we continue on his mission, a

mission whose itinerary takes us by way of Caesarea.

For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles... you

can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to

the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy

apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow

heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus

through the gospel. Eph. 3.1-6, with ellipsis (ESV)

1To the contrary, the whole earthis the Lords and will be filled with his glory (Ps. 24.1; Isa. 11.9; Hab.

2.14).2

Some of the grand stonework and columns have traveled far afield for reuse in Venice and Akko.3

A further lesson the site might impress on us is the tendency of history to repeat itself: Bosnian refugees

were housed here in the 19th

century. The Balkan problems are not new, neither those of the Middle East.

Mute rocks speak to deaf ears.4

Paul also passes this way several times in the narrative of Acts, not least his major imprisonment and

testimony before Festus and Agrippa [I wish that all might become as I, but for these chains! -- Acts

26.29]. From there, of course, Paul makes his way to Rome. Once again, the city becomes the backdrop for

catapulting the news of the Jewish Messiah into the universal domain of the Gentile world: from Caesarea

to the very shadow of Caesar. Dr. David King (in a personal communication) notes Luke's opportunity


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(during the two years of Pauls imprisonment) to interview people and do the research necessary for writinghis gospel and Acts.5

The submerged harbor, breakwater, and causeway is today a leading location for underwater archeologyand site-seeing.6

The remains described so far are in the small portion of the ancient city still visible today; the rest is buried

undersea or underground.7

Witness his ill-fated attempt to affix a Roman eagle to the entrance of the temple (JosephusAntiquities

17.6.2-4 (149-167).8

With the exception of a brief interlude under Agrippa I.9

For more information on the ancient city see J. Murphy-OConnor, The Holy Land(Oxford: OUP, 4th edn,1998, 207-217), a source on which I have relied alongside personal visits to the site.10

Cf. Josephus, War 2.13.7 (266-270); 2.14.4-5 (284-292); 2.18.1 (457-460).11

Of course, the Torah and tradition also provided for purification for those who contracted impurity, but the

point is that an observant Jew would not live casually and carelessly with respect to potential sources of

defilement.12

An outlook that would have been shared, with highly variant refractions, between groups as diverse as the

early Christians, the Qumran community, and likely many Pharisees.13

See, Shaye J.D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987,

chapter two, especially p. 46-59.14

1 Enoch 62.12-15. Cf. 1 Enoch 60.24-25. The basic anti-outsider thrust of these passages is clearenough, but is perhaps less explicit and categorical than the exposition of them provided in the citation in the

note immediately below.15

K. Bailey,Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, Downers Grove: IVP, 2008, 310-311.16

Think also of the hostility to Jesus in Lk. 4.16-30 in Nazareth when he implies God's favored response

came to Gentiles of faith rather than Israelites, or the anger of the Jerusalem crowd when Paul offers his

testimony and arrives at the call to thenations (Acts 22.17-23). The hostility of some of theseeschatological outlooks must be balanced by recognizing the fact that Second Temple Judaisms were notunivocal but represented a spectrum of scriptural and latter-days thought. For example, on the variety of

conceptions of the messianic banquet in this period see D.D. Steffen, The Messianic Banquet and theEschatology of Matthew, online at: http://bible.org/article/messianic-banquet-and-eschatology-matthew(accessed 2-1-2010).17 Juvenal's First Satire (Dryden, trans) shows his prejudice and distaste for the "swarms" of eastern peoples,customs, and depravity that flowed into Rome and (he felt) threatened her virtue:

I hate in Rome a Grecian town to find:

To see the scum of Greece transplanted here,

Received like gods, is what I cannot bear.

Nor Greeks alone, but Syrians here abound,

Obscene Orontes diving under ground,

Conveys his wealth to Tiber's hungry shores,

And fattens Italy with foreign whores

Hither their crooked harps and customs come:

All find receipt in hospitable Rome.

18For Apions libel, see Cohen, From Maccabees to Mishnah, 47. Cohen has very good remarks on thedistinction between ancient anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism (which did not exist as such in the ancient

world, p. 47-49).19

E.g., Josephus, War 2.9.2-4;Antiquities 18.3.2.20

Cohen emphasizes, however, that god-fearers throughout the empire were not necessarily or uniformlymonotheistic (From Maccabees to Mishnah, 55-57).21

Ben Witherington,New TestamentHistory, Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001, 207.22

Ac. 2.36-40; see the thrust of the OT-based sermons in Acts 2, 3, 13, etc.; cf. Rom. 3.21; Rom. 11.23

See J.J. Scott, Jr., The Cornelius Incident in the Light of Its Jewish Setting,JETS34/4, 477. OnCaesarea as a despised outpost of paganism see p. 478.24

The parallel with respect to Roman soldiers was suggested to me by Dr. David King. Peter, Paul, and

Jesus may be set alongside one another in multiple ways (e.g., Jesus and Pauls resolute journey toJerusalem, the fact that all three are involved in raising the dead, all three [literally or metaphorically in


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different cases] come back from the dead in the narrative, the fact that healing happens by mere association

with them [fringe, shadow, or cloths], etc.). On Jesus and Paul as they approach Jerusalem in Luke-Acts, see

Roy Ciampa and Brian Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians (Pillar NT Commentary), Grand Rapids,MI: Eerdmans, 2010, p. 11-12.25

Cf. B. Witherington,New Testament History, 209.

26 See J.J. Scott, Jr., The Cornelius Incident, 480-481.27

This may be similar to qal waomer argumentation. Forqal waomersee K. Snodgrass, The Use of

the Old Testament in the New, in The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts? (G.K. Beale, ed.), GrandRapids: Baker, 1994, 43.28

E.g., See Chris A. Miller [Did Peters Vision in Acts 10 Pertain to Men or the Menu?Bibliotheca Sacra159, 2002: 302-17] who concludes that the vision was about men, not about food. The vision called Peter to

an embrace of the gentile peoples, not specifically to a non-kosher menu. However, the implications of an

unhindered embrace of gentile believers and the soteriology of a completely identical, exclusively faith-

based justification before the God of Israel (Acts 11.17; 15.11; 26.17-18; cf. Rom. 3.19-26) seriously

challenged the typical interactions of observant Jews with Gentiles. Miller points out that it would have

been possible for Peter to keep kosher even while eating in a gentile house (Peters Vision, 307-310), butodds are, to be seen easily fellowshipping with Gentiles was at the very least a severe shock to conservative

Judaic practice. In my opinion, it is hard to see these texts as legitimating or even assuming the imperative

of the food laws, even for Jewish Christians, but all arguments are necessarily inferential.29

A paradigmatic tale of this religious/national conflict centered on tradition, purity, and even food is foundin 2 Maccabees 6. Compare Ezekiels protest in Ezek. 4.14.30

For purity concepts in rabbinic Judaism see Jacob Neusner, Purity and Impurity in Judaism, in TheEncyclopedia of Judaism v. 3, Leiden: Brill, 2000, 1109-1124.31

Endless examples from within Judaism could be explored as well, from regulations about married life and

on divorce to rules for the cohanim to the uses of the mikveh (ritual bath) to purification practices forPesach

where the house is fully swept out and the last of the yeast is ceremonially burnt, etc. For an interestingexample taken from the world of contemporary Samaritanism in which the high priest can only accept fruit

with skin on it (thus, impervious to contamination) as hospitality from a goy, see K. Bailey,Jesus ThroughMiddle Eastern Eyes, 205.32

The equality of people before God without reference to ethnic background is repeatedly emphasized in this

context. It is remarkable how often Luke underscores a point by repetition of the phrase or theme in this

compact narrative. The supernatural experiences of Peter and Cornelius are described to the reader andrepeated by the narrator and the characters in the story several times.33

It is also possible that the threat of pressure or persecution from the religious elites or the pietist elements

in Jerusalem (so in evidence throughout Acts) would become more intense if the early Christians were

perceived to be playing fast and loose with Torah and the traditions of the fathers.34

Indeed in Leviticus 19 in particular we encounter in one mass together laws that we might tend to separate

into various categories such as ritual, legal, religious, civil, moral, etc.35

There is no space to explore a relevant conundrum at this juncture: How does the Peter of Lukes

narrative comport with the critical stance Paul takes towards Peter in the matter of table fellowship inGalatians 2.11-14? Many other key and complex passages related to the New Testament believer and the

Law cannot be explored in this paper (e.g., passages throughout Galatians, Romans, Philippians, 1

Corinthians, Acts 15.20-21, etc.).36

See I. Howard Marshall on Acts 10.28 in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament

(G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson, eds.), Grand Rapids and Nottingham: Baker and Apollos, 2007, 578.37

The question is not one of history vs. literary design or of history vs. theology. They all cohere in the

architecture of Lukes story. We have history, literature, and proclamation. This is history with a very

definite message and agenda, delivered with great artistry and skillful editing. It is no dreary chronology. Of

course, no objective and comprehensive telling of any history has ever been done. A point of view isinevitable, as is editing and selection. Some works are done with more or less skill, some with more or less

integrity. For me it is no problem to accept the Spirits working in all facets of Lukes telling. 38

Luke famously seeks to situate his holy history in the context of the universal, secular history of theRoman world (e.g. Lk. 2.1-2; 3.1-2).39

For our purposes it is not important whether the various cases of Roman soldiers represent actualwarriors from Italy or soldiers serving client kings (e.g. Herod) under Rome.40

Compare the thrust of these quotes from the story of Paul's ministry to the synagogue in Psidian Antioch:


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By this (Jesus) everyone who believes is set free from all those things from which you could not be freed by

the law of Moses.

And, soon thereafter:

We are now turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, I have set you to be a

light for the Gentiles, so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.

(Paul speaking to his kinsman audience in Acts 13.39, 46-47)41

C.A. Miller, Peters Vision, 314.42

See J.J. Scott, Jr., The Cornelius Incident, 479. speaking in tongues [ --10.46] =

the same gift [ --11.17] The notion of the same gift is emphasized more than once, asmany elements of the story are: Acts 10.47; 11.15, 17.43

Num. 11.29; Isa. 32.15; 44.1-5; Jer. 31.33-34; 32.39-40; Ezek. 36-37; Joel 2.28f. [MT 3.1]; etc.; cf. Acts

1.4-8.44

Look for example at the many subtle parallels between the story of Peters liberation from Herod Antipasin Acts 12 and the original Passover/Exodus story (cf. Acts 12.3-4).

45This midrashic 'proof from-prophecy' intends more than commentary; it is the authorization of a Lukanway of looking at God and his work. (R.W. Wall, Peter, Son of Jonah: The Conversion of Cornelius inthe Context of Canon,JSNT29, 1987, 84.)46

For a more detailed argument, more parallels, and a slightly different presentation, see Wall, Peter, Sonof Jonah, 79-90.47

Mt. 16.17. This patronymic is not mentioned by Luke, however.48

R.W. Wall, Peter, Son of Jonah, 83, sees the number three as signifying in some way Jonahs change

of heart, conversion, as was the case for Peter.49

Interestingly, Matthew 12.38-42 makes the connection between Jonahs three days undersea with the threedays between cross and resurrection; the stalwart scribes and Pharisees of Jesus generation receive a

prophetic rebuke by means of contrast with the spiritual receptivity of Jonahs Ninevite audience.50

Peters message certainly is less focused on judgment than is Jonahs, but even so the theme of judgmentis not absent (Acts 10.42).51 For Israel, that is.52

As we have mentioned above, the struggles within the church, and even for Peter, over precisely these

sorts of issues were far from over at this point (cf. Gal. 2.11-14).53

Thus the significance throughout the NT of the Lords supper, culminating in the marriage supper of

the Lamb in the Kingdom of God. Compare references in the next note. Important too are the role ofparties and (proto-messianic) banquets in the ministry of Jesus in the Gospels and in his parables.54

Compare Ex. 24.9-11; Ps. 78.24-25; Isa. 25.6-9; Mt. 8.11-12; 22.1-14; 26.26-29; Lk 14.15-24; Jn 6; Rev.19.6-11.55

Cf. 1 Cor. 3.16; Eph. 2.19-22; 1 Pet. 2.5.56

C.A. Miller, Peters Vision, 311-313.57

Jn 1.14.58

This would, of course, be very much the case again in chapters 23 and onwards.59

See J.J. Scott, Jr., The Cornelius Incident, 481-482.60 On the coalescing of salvation-history and apocalyptic (in Paul), see Ciampa and Rosner, The First Letterto the Corinthians, p. 10f.61

Thanks to Dr. David King for encouraging reflection on the link between the Cornelius story and the

Abrahamic blessing.62

Rom. 11.33.63

Unless one considers the theme of nations (/) present in the Acts 10-11 story and in some ofthe elaborations of the Abrahamic promise/covenant in, for example, Genesis 17 and 22. In Gen. 12.1-3, it

is Abrahams seed that will be a great nation; the others are the families or tribes (/ ) ofthe earth.64

Note the implication of Acts 1.1.

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Caesarea and the Mission of God

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