Charles Ellicott Commentary Acts 11

And the apostles and brethren that were in Judæa . . .—The context implies that the news travelled, while Peter remained at Cæsarea, first probably to Joppa and Lydda, and afterwards to Jerusalem.

They that were of the circumcision contended with him.—The conversion of the Gentiles at Caesarea had given a new significance to the name of “those of the circumcision.” From this time onward they are a distinct section, often a distinct party, in the Church, and here we have the first symptom of the line which they were about to take. They contended with Peter (the tense implies continuous or repeated discussion) because he had eaten with those who were uncircumcised, and therefore, from the Jewish point of view, unclean.

Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised.—The words cannot properly be translated otherwise, but the Greek (literally, men with a foreskin) is somewhat more expressive of scorn than the merely negative form of the English. The same word is commonly used by St. Paul where he discusses the relation between circumcision and uncircumcision (Romans 2:25–26; Romans 4:9–10; 1 Corinthians 7:18–19, et al.).

But Peter rehearsed the matter from the beginning.—Perhaps a better rendering, since the word “rehearse” has acquired a different shade of meaning, would be began and set forth the matter. The translators seem to have paraphrased the participle “having begun” somewhat more fully than its actual meaning allows. The nearly verbatim repetition of the same narrative as that in Acts 10:0 seems, at first glance, inconsistent with our common standards of compositional skill. The probable explanation for this is that St. Luke obtained the first narrative from the disciples he met at Caesarea and the second from those in Jerusalem. The close agreement between the two accounts then seemed to him—as indeed it was—a confirmation of the truth of each.

It came even to me.—The variations in the narrative are few and of little importance. There is, perhaps, a touch of the vividness of personal recollection in the description of the sheet as coming even to me, as compared with its being let down to the earth in Acts 10:11.