Acts 11:3

ἀκροβυστίαν ἔχοντας : the expression intimates the bitterness of the opposition. Bengel curiously comments “benigne loquuntur”. On ἀκροβ. see especially Kennedy, Sources of N. T. Greek, p. 111. καὶ συνέφαγες αὐτοῖς : this was the real charge, the violation of the ceremonial law, cf. Acts 10:28; see on the intolerant division between Pharisaical Jews and Gentiles, Weber, Jüdische Theol., pp. 59, 60; Edersheim, Jewish Social Life, pp. 26 28. There is therefore nothing in the statement to justify the objection raised by Zeller and others against the whole narrative of the baptism of Cornelius (so Wendt, edition 1888 and 1899). But if the complaint against Peter was based not upon the fact that he had baptised Cornelius but had eaten with him, then we can see a great difference between the narrative here and that of the Ethiopian eunuch in chap. 8. In the latter case there was no question of the obligations of the ceremonial law the baptism was administered and Philip and the eunuch separated, but here the whole stress of the narrative lies in the fact referred to in Acts 11:3, so that if the eunuch and Cornelius both belonged to the class of “half-proselytes” their cases are not parallel. But even if they were, in other respects there would still remain a distinction between them. It was one thing for the Ethiopian to be received into the Church of Christ by the Hellenist Philip, but it was another thing and a marked advance when the principle asserted by Philip was ratified by the Apostles of the circumcision in the case of Cornelius. Wendt, edition 1899, pp. 181, 198, and Lightfoot, Galatians, p. 300.