This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 edition. Excerpt: ... how he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit."1 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 1 xi. 16. 5 Mt. iii. 11, Mk. i. 8, Luke iii. 16, John i. 26, 33. a i. 5. 4 Zeller, Die Apostelgesch., p. 184...