Acts 11:17Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

To stop their mouths more firmly, he said: "He gave them the same gift." Do you see how he establishes that those who suddenly believed received no less than they had? "God gave them the same gift as He gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ." Therefore He Himself cleansed them. Peter does not say "to you," but "to us," softening his speech in this way. Why, then, are you indignant when we count them as fellow partakers of the same gift? I told Cornelius that God had sent me, but even after this I did not baptize on my own. Again, God did everything. Therefore God baptized them, not I. He did not say: after all that had happened, was it not finally necessary to use water?

What we had, he says, they also received. “If therefore God gave them the equal gift as He gave us.” To stop their mouths, he says, “the equal gift.”

God does not allow them to have less, he says, if He has given an equal gift to those who believed. He does not say, “as also to you,” but “as also to us.”

What do you find unworthy when we call them our fellow-partakers? “Who was I, that I could withstand God?” In defending himself against his accusers, he strongly and severely puts them to shame. I could not, he says, forbid this.

The news of the event in Cornelius's house quickly spread among the Christians and reached, among others, the Church of Jerusalem. There it stirred up serious misunderstandings. Christians from among the circumcised were perplexed and even indignant, above all because the Apostle Peter had allowed himself to go into the house of uncircumcised men and eat with them. Therefore, when Peter came to Jerusalem, they reproached him for what they regarded as defiling himself through fellowship with Gentiles. But the Apostle Peter's detailed account of all the extraordinary circumstances, in which God's will concerning the Gentiles was expressed, completely calmed their minds. All the Christians glorified God, saying that it was evident God had also granted the Gentiles repentance unto life.

"And as I began to speak." From this it is clear that Peter intended to say more than he did. But the sudden descent of the Holy Spirit upon those who listened made a fuller catechesis of the newly believing unnecessary for the time being. "As on us at the beginning," that is, on the day of Pentecost. Peter points to this with special insistence, repeating it further in verse 17: "the same gift as He gave to us when we believed." By this, of course, he chiefly means the gift of speaking in new and different tongues.

At the conclusion of his defensive account, the Apostle Peter says that, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Cornelius and those with him, he remembered the Lord's words about their baptism with the Holy Spirit (see Acts 1:5). By this, then, he explained the descent of the Holy Spirit before their visible baptism. Twice he likened it to the descent of the Holy Spirit upon themselves at the beginning, that is, on the day of Pentecost. It came with the same distinctive gift, namely tongues. Finally, he characteristically says: who was I, that I could withstand God, Who had done all this? According to blessed Theophylact, "in defending himself against his accusers, Peter strongly and severely puts them to shame. I could not, he says, forbid this.