Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Acts 15:14

ἐπὶ omitted before τῷ ὀνόματι with אABCDE. Not represented in Vulg.

14. Συμεών, Symeon. This more Jewish form of the name of the Apostle Peter is found also at the commencement of St Peter’s second Epistle. The Jews after they came to have much intercourse with Gentiles had frequently two forms of name, one of which was employed on religious and solemn occasions, the other in intercourse with non-Jews and in the ordinary transactions of life. Thus in the Apocrypha (1Ma 5:17, &c.) the name of the Maccabean prince is written Simon, though on his coins it stands Symeon (see Gesenius, s.v.).

καθὼς πρῶτον ὁ θεὸς ἐπεσκέψατο, how God did first visit, i.e. the way in which the first Gentile convert was made. It was some time after the mission of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles that Cornelius was converted. ‘At the first’ of the A.V. gives a wrong idea.

λαὸν τῷ ὀνόματι αὐτοῦ, a people for His name. Thus the ‘chosen people’ were no longer to be Jews only, and so those ceremonial ordinances which had hitherto marked out Jews from Gentiles were seen to be no longer necessary.

The force of this dative is best perceived when we remember that God’s ‘name’ is often used for ‘Himself.’ There is no harshness in the case, when the expression is regarded as the equivalent ‘to take for Himself.’

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

Acts 15:14

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