Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/192

 armies of his country must have improved by the combined advantages of a traveler and a disciplined warrior. Of his moral and religious character such an account is given, as proves that his principles, probably implanted in early life, had been of such firmness as to withstand the numerous temptations of a soldier's life, and to secure him in a course of most uncommon rectitude in his duties towards God and towards man. In the merciful exercise of his power over the people whose safety and quiet he came to maintain, and, moreover, in the generous use of his pecuniary advantages, he passed his blameless life; and the high motive of this noble conduct, is discovered in the steady, pure devotion, in which he employed many hours of daily retirement, and in which he caused his whole family publicly to join, on proper occasions. Thus is he briefly and strongly characterized by the sacred historian: "devout, and fearing God with all his house; giving much alms, and praying to God always."

Noble race of patricians.—The gens Cornelia, or "Cornelian race," was unequaled in Rome for the great number of noble families sprung from its stock. The Scipios, the Sullas, the Dolabellas, the Cinnas, the Lentuli, the Cethegi, the Cossi, and many other illustrious branches of this great race, are conspicuous in Roman history; and the Fasti Consulares, record more than sixty of the Cornelian race, who had borne the consular dignity previous to the apostolic era. This is always a family name, and Ainsworth very grossly errs in calling it "the praenomen of several Romans." Every Roman name of the middle and later ages of the commonwealth, had at least three parts, which were the praenomen, marking the individual,—the nomen marking the gens, ("race," "stock,") and he cognomen, marking the family or division of that great stock. Thus in the name "Publius Cornelius Scipio," the last word shows that the person belonged to the Scipio family, which by the second word is seen to be of the great Cornelian stock, while the first shows that this member of the family was distinguished from his relations, by the name of Publius. (See Adams's Roman Antiquities, on Names.) Wherever this name, Cornelius, occurs, if the whole appellation of the man is given, this comes in the middle, as the nomen, marking the race; as is the case with every one of those quoted by Ainsworth, in his blundering account of the word. See also Sallust, (Catil. 47, 55,) in defense of this peculiar limitation of the word to the gens. Not a single instance can be brought of its application to any person not of this noble patrician race, or of its use as a mere individual appellation. I am therefore authorized in concluding that this Cornelius mentioned in the Acts was related to this line of high nobility. It might, perhaps, be conjectured, that he had borrowed this name from that noble race, from having once been in the service of some one of its families, as was common in the case of freedmen, after they had received their liberty; but this supposition is not allowable; for he is expressly particularized as belonging to an Italian division of the army, which fact excludes the idea of that foreign origin which would belong to a slave. The Jews having but one name for each man, seldom gave all of a Roman's name, unless of a very eminent man, as Pontius Pilate, Sergius Paulus, and other official characters; but selecting any one of the three parts which might be most convenient, they made that the sole appellative, whether praenomen, nomen, or cognomen. As in Luke ii. 2: Acts xxiii. 24: xxv. 1: xxvii. 1: xxviii. 7, &c.

The Italian cohort.—The word [Greek: Speira] (Speira) I translate "cohort," rather than "legion," as the older commentators did. Jerome translates it "cohortem," and he must have known the exact technical force of the Greek word, and to what Latin military term it corresponded, from his living in the time when these terms must have been in frequent use. Those who prefer to translate it "legion," are misled by the circumstance, that Tacitus and other writers on Roman affairs, mention a legion