{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-2464","native_reference":{"book_number":510,"chapter_from":10,"chapter_to":10,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":2,"verse_to":2},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: For it is often said, \"He deserved to believe, because he was a good man even before he believed.\" This may be said of Cornelius since his alms were accepted and his prayers heard before he had believed on Christ; and yet without some faith he neither gave alms nor prayed. For how did he call on him on whom he had not believed? But if he could have been saved without the faith of Christ, the apostle Peter would not have been sent as an architect to build him up. For, \"Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it.\" And we are told, faith is of ourselves; other things that pertain to works of righteousness are of the Lord; as if faith did not belong to the building—as if, I say, the foundation did not belong to the building. But if the foundation primarily and especially belongs to the building, he labors in vain who seeks to build up the faith by preaching, unless the Lord in his mercy builds it up from within. Whatever, therefore, of good works Cornelius performed, whether before he believed in Christ or when he believed or after he had believed, all to be ascribed to God. Otherwise, it might be assumed that human initiative is being lifted up.<br/><i>— PREDESTINATION OF THE SAINTS 1.7.12</i></p><p><b>Cyprian</b>: Moreover, those who pray should not come to God with fruitless or naked prayers. Petition is ineffectual when it is a barren entreaty that beseeches God. For as every tree that bringeth not forth fruit is cut down and cast into the fire; assuredly also, words that do not bear fruit cannot deserve anything of God, because they are fruitful in no result. And thus Holy Scripture instructs us, saying, \"Prayer. is good with fasting and almsgiving.\" For He who will give us in the day of judgment a reward for our labours and alms, is even in this life a merciful hearer of one who comes to Him in prayer associated with good works. Thus, for instance, Cornelius the centurion, when he prayed, had a claim to be heard. For he was in the habit of doing many alms-deeds towards the people, and of ever praying to God. To this man, when he prayed about the ninth hour, appeared an angel bearing testimony to his labours, and saying, \"Cornelius, thy prayers and thine alms are gone up in remembrance before God.\"<br/><i>— Treatise IV On the Lord's Prayer</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: \"A devout man,\" he says, \"and one that feared God with all his house\": that you may not imagine that it is because of his high station that these things are done. When Paul was to be brought over, there is no angel, but the Lord Himself: and He does not send him to some great one, but to a very ordinary person: but here, on the contrary, He brings the chief Apostle to these Gentiles, not sends them to him: herein condescending to their weakness, and knowing how such persons need to be treated. As indeed on many occasions we find Christ Himself hasting to such, as being more infirm. Or it may be because Cornelius was not able himself to leave his home.<br/><i>— Homily on Acts 22</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: But here again is a high commendation of alms, just as was there given by means of Tabitha. \"A devout man,\" it says, \"and one that feared God with all his house.\" Let us hear this, whoever of us neglect them of our own house, whereas this man was careful of his soldiers also. \"And that gave alms,\" it says, \"to all the people.\" Both his doctrines and his life were right.<br/><i>— Homily on Acts 22</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: Observe with whom the beginning of the Gentiles is made - with \"a devout man,\" and one proved to be worthy by his works. For if, though the case be so, they are still offended, if this had not been the case, what would not have been the consequence!<br/><i>— Homily on Acts 22</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: Hear, all ye that are in military commands, all ye that stand beside kings. \"A just man,\" it says, \"fearing God; devout; and what is more than all, with all his house. Not as we: that our servants may be afraid of us, do everything, but not that they may be devout.\" And over the domestics too, so. Not so this man; but he was \"one that feared God with all his house,\" for he was as the common father of those with him, and of all the others under his command.<br/><i>— Homily on Acts 22</i></p><p><b>John Chrysostom</b>: See how great the virtue of alms, both in the former discourse, and here! There, it delivered from death temporal; here, from death eternal; and opened the gates of heaven. Such are the pains taken for the bringing of Cornelius to the faith, that both an angel is sent, and the Spirit works, and the chief of the Apostles is fetched to him, and such a vision is shown, and, in short, nothing is left undone. How many centurions were there not besides, and tribunes, and kings, and none of them obtained what this man did!<br/><i>— Homily on Acts 22</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"a8299fbece2f9a15f60eb4b5b13e75a463a2252335dce844bd5ddfdcfa644d37","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":2464,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"df985ae90a2db04b62ba7a5339022da0ca1e94042ab3a5076de1c581496b7f2c","translator":null,"work":null}