God respecteth no man's person," [------].(3) The author of the Acts was certainly acquainted with the epistles of Paul, and the very manner in which he represents Peter as employing this expression betrays the application of a sentiment previously in his mind, "Of a truth I perceive," &c. The circumstance confirms what Paul had already said.(4) Then, in the defence of his conduct at Jerusalem, Peter is represented as saying: "And I remembered the word of the Lord, 1 Indeed the reference to this case, supposed to be made by Peter himself, in Paul's presence, excludes the idea of ignorance, if the Acts be treated as historical. 4 Compare further x. 35 ff. with Rom. ii. iii., &o. The sentiments and even the words are Pauline. {199} how he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit."(l) Now these words are by all the Gospels put into the mouth of John the Baptist, and not of Jesus,(2) but the author of the Acts seems to put them into the mouth of Jesus at the beginning of the work,(3) and their repetition here is only an additional proof of the fact that the episode of Cornelius, as it stands before us, is not historical, but is merely his own composition. The whole of this narrative, with its complicated series of miracles, is evidently composed to legitimate the free reception into the Christian Church of Gentile converts and, to emphasize the importance of the divine ratification of their admission, Peter is made to repeat to the Church of Jerusalem the main incidents which had just been fully narrated. On the one hand, the previous Jewish exclusiveness both of Peter and of the Church is displayed, first, in the resistance of the Apostle, which can only be overcome by the vision and the direct order of the Holy Spirit, and by the manifest outpouring of the Spirit upon the Centurion and his household; and second, in the contention of them of the circumcision, which is only overcome by an account of the repeated signs of divine purpose and approval. The universality of the Gospel could not be more broadly proclaimed than in the address of Peter to Cornelius. Not the Jews alone, "but in every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is acceptable to him." Pauline principles are thus anticipated and, as we have pointed out, are expressed almost in the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles.(4) The Jews who go with {200}