Acts 11:12

μηδὲν διακρινόμενον, cf. Acts 10:20, but if we read (see critical notes) μ. διακρίναντα, “making no distinction,” R.V. οἱ ἓξ ἀδελφοὶ οὗτοι : who had been with Peter at Cæsarea, and had returned with him to Jerusalem, see Acts 10:45. Hilgenfeld would regard them as constant companions of St. Peter on his Apostolic journeys. Differences such as these between the narrative here and that in Acts 10:23 where the brethren are mentioned without their number constrain Feine to regard Acts 11:1-18 as derived like the earlier narrative in 10 from one and the same source, not as added by a reviser (although he excludes Acts 11:1; Acts 11:18 in 11 from the original narrative). Spitta agrees with Feine in this view of Acts 11:2-17; a forger writing with a “tendency” would have smoothed away any apparent discrepancies, as Zöckler well points out. With regard to the whole Cornelius episode, Spitta and Feine (so Weiss and Wendt), inasmuch as they regard St. Luke's narrative as containing at least a genuine historical kernel, and as marking a special exceptional case, and not a general rule as existing at such an early time, are much less radical than Weizsäcker, Holtzmann, and Clemen. For a good review of the relation of modern criticism to the narrative see Wendt (1899) on Acts 10:1 and Zöckler, Apostelgeschichte, pp. 226, 227 (second edition).