A religious man, and one that feared God. He was not a Jew, yet believed in one God.

Always, that is, frequently praying, and giving alms. In the Rheims Testament we find this note: “Hereby it appeareth, that such works as are done before justification, though they suffice not to salvation, yet are acceptable preparatives for the grace of justification, and such as move God to mercy. ... though all such preparative works come also of grace.” These Douay divines did not hold with the Quenellists that a true faith, or the habit of faith, must needs be the first grace. (Witham)

Cornelius religiously observed the law of nature, and the principal points of the Jewish moral law, though he did not profess Judaism. (Calmet)

He was an admirable example of virtue before his knowledge of Christianity. He feared God, and brought up his family in the same holy fear. He was leader of the first band, and consequently had the eagle, the Roman ensign, carried before him. Four hundred men were under his command. (Tirinus)

“His former goodness could no longer avail him, unless he were, by the bond of Christian society and peace, incorporated with the Church; he is therefore ordered to send unto Peter, that by him he may learn Christ, by him he may be baptized.” (St. Augustine, lib. i. de bap. chap. 8.)

Alms. Nothing is more efficacious than the alms of a man, whose hands have not been defiled by injustice. It is a clear stream, refreshing in the heat of day, and imparting verdure to every plant that is near it. It is a fountain springing to eternal life. It is a tree, whose branches reach even to heaven, and which produces its eternal fruit in abundance, when death has removed from you all that is temporal. Waste not, then, your treasures in selfish gratifications, the fruit of which is sorrow; but feed the poor, and the hungry. Plant and sow in their hands, and your produce will be great; no soil is more fertile. (St. Chrysostom, hic. hom. xxii.)