Article

Journal for the Study of

the New Testament
‘Rise, Kill, and Eat’: Animals 2019, Vol. 42(1) 3­–17
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Visionary Literature and DOI: 10.1177/0142064X19855564
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Acts 10

Jason A. Staples
Department of Philosophy and Religion, North Carolina State University, USA

Abstract
Peter’s vision in Acts 10 ostensibly concerns dietary laws but is interpreted within
the narrative as a revelation of God’s mercy towards the Gentiles, culminating in the
baptism of Cornelius’ household. How this vision pertains to the immediately following
events has remained a problem in scholarship on Acts. This article argues that the vision
depends on earlier apocalyptic Jewish depictions of various nations as animals (and
empires as hybrid beasts) and allegorical explanations of the food laws familiar in the
Second Temple period in which the forbidden animals are understood as representing
those peoples with whom Israel must not mix. What seems on the surface to refer to
food is therefore naturally understood within this genre as a reference to nations and
peoples. Acts 10 thus makes use of standard Jewish apocalyptic tropes familiar to its
audience but less familiar to modern readers.

Keywords
Apocalyptic visions, food laws, Gentiles, ritual purity, table fellowship

Acts 10 tells the story of the conversion of the god-fearing Roman centurion
Cornelius and his household, an episode serving as the Gentile counterpart to the
outpouring of the spirit at Pentecost, opening the door for the expansion of the

Corresponding author:
Jason A. Staples, Department of Philosophy and Religion, North Carolina State University, 340 Withers
Hall, CB #8103, Raleigh, NC 27695-8103, USA.
Email: jasonastaples@gmail.com
4 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 42(1)

gospel to the Gentiles.1 The episode opens with a corresponding pair of visions.2
In the first (10.1-9) an angel visits Cornelius, instructing him to invite Simon
Peter to his house. In the second (10.9-16) Peter himself has a vision of a sheet-
like vessel descending from heaven and containing all sorts of animals, from
which he is instructed to ‘slaughter and eat’ (10.13). Peter objects to this instruc-
tion on the basis of the food being ‘common and unclean’ (10.14), only to be
thrice corrected by the heavenly voice, which tells him, ‘What God has cleansed,
do not consider common’ (10.15). Peter is left perplexed, at which point the mes-
sengers from Cornelius arrive with the invitation to the centurion’s home, setting
the rest of the narrative in motion.
Since as early as Origen, interpreters have noted a disconnect between Peter’s
vision, which discusses animals and food, and its application in the surrounding
narrative, which applies the vision to people.3 The vision is itself enigmatic, lack-
ing a clear internal interpretation. Without the vision, the narrative – complete
with the spirit leading Peter to accept the centurion’s invitation – neatly addresses
the themes of Gentile inclusion and divine impartiality. Without the narrative, the
vision, though still allusive and enigmatic, seems to deal rather straightforwardly
with the question of dietary restrictions.4 When put together, the picture is murk-
ier. Mark Plunkett (1985: 466) summarizes the problem as follows:

Almost all interpreters point out that Peter’s vision, despite the reference to food, is
used to discuss distinctions among people. What is not clear is why Luke takes such
a roundabout way of discussing the acceptability of social contact between Jews and
Gentiles. Why bring up clean and unclean animals if what you really want to discuss
is social contact with Gentiles?

Beginning with Dibelius (2004: 142-43), many have suggested that the appar-
ent disconnect between the vision and the narrative is the result of redaction:

1. Acts labels Cornelius a ‘god-fearer’ (ϕοβούμενος τὸν θεόν), which many interpreters have
regarded as a technical term for an uncircumcised near-proselyte, but Acts’ varied terminol-
ogy (e.g., the variation between ϕοβούμενοι and σεβὀμενοι τὸν θεόν) and the external evidence
militates against such a precise interpretation. For more discussion on the godfearers, see
Lake 1920; Feldman 1950; Marcus 1952; Kuhn and Stegemann 1962; Wilcox 1981; Kraabel
1981; MacLennan and Kraabel 1986; Reynolds and Tannenbaum 1987; Overman 1988;
Feldman 1989; Bonz 1994; Kraemer 2014.
2. On such ‘double-dreams’, see Moxon 2017: 270-338, 457-507, and the sources cited there.
3. ‘Does not the apostle Peter [in Acts 10:2Sb] seem to you to have transposed onto humanity
[what is said about] all these quadrupeds, reptiles, and birds with great clarity?’ (Hom. Lev.
7.4).
4. E.g., Bovon 2009: 119: ‘The vision of Peter (Acts 10:9-16), by itself and apart from the con-
text, indicates, in my opinion, only one possible meaning. By this strange appearance, God
orders Peter, and through him all Christians, to pass over the dietary prescriptions of the Law
(Lev. 11) and to no longer distinguish pure animals from impure’.
Staples 5

Acts has placed an earlier visionary account into a new context, transforming
what was originally a revelation about clean and unclean food into a message
about clean and unclean people, specifically the incorporation of Gentiles into
the community.5 Conzelmann (1987: 80), for example, asserts that although ‘the
original intention of the vision does not conform with Luke’s use of it … Luke
could incorporate it because at his time the two themes (Jews and Gentiles,
foods) were already mixed together’. That is, these previously discrete subjects
were related in the Christian community by the time Acts was written, so the
author naturally situated a vision about clean and unclean food in a story about
the incorporation of and social contact with Gentiles.
Dibelius’ redactional solution has not gone without objection,6 but the same
interpretive questions apply even if the vision was composed as part of the larger
narrative in Acts 10. Does Acts here indicate that the dietary laws have been
abrogated (something he does not elsewhere claim; note 15.20, 29) or merely
that the gospel should be extended to Gentiles? Are Jews and Gentiles to be
incorporated together in a ‘dual identity’ model, or are they to be assimilated
together by Jews giving up their dietary and purity strictures?7 And why is a
vision about animals and food so naturally understood as addressing human rela-
tionships in the narrative?
This article proposes another way forward in the discussion, starting from the
observation that, throughout early Jewish visionary literature, to have a vision of
animals was to see the nations in symbolic form. As John Goldingay (1989: 185)
explains of Dan. 7, ‘The use of animal symbols already suggests that it is the
history of nations that unfolds before us’.8 Moreover, this visionary trope is also
regularly connected to allegorical understandings of the food laws, which func-
tioned to maintain the distinction between Jews and other nations. In Acts, there-
fore, the vision is not – as many have argued – disconnected from its proper
food-oriented context, but symbolically demonstrates that the fulfillment of the
prophetic promises regarding the transformation of the nations has begun. The
connection between animals, food, and nations was thus not an innovation by the

5. See Hanson 1978; Plunkett 1985; Conzelmann 1987: 80-82; Bovon 2009.
6. Haenchen 1977: 306-307, for example, argued that Luke composed this vision himself with
10.28b in mind, setting up the point that no one is common or unclean. For other arguments
that the vision is dependent on its context in Acts 10 and is therefore unlikely to have been a
prior tradition, see Löning 1974; Haacker 1980; Moxon 2011, 2017.
7. In the ‘dual identity’ model, Jews and Gentiles are saved together but operate under different
behavior codes, with Jews continuing their traditional practices and Gentiles not required to
do so. Cf. Jervell 1972.
8. The contrast between Goldingay’s casual observation and the perplexity displayed by NT
interpreters concerning the juxtaposition between a vision of animals and its application to
people is a signal example of the disconnect that so often exists between NT scholarship and
scholarship on the Hebrew Bible or early Judaism.
6 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 42(1)

author of Acts (or the early Jesus movement) but rather participates in a symbolic
world predating Acts by centuries.

Animals as Nations in Early Jewish Visionary Literature

Peter’s vision certainly borrows from imagery and motifs familiar from earlier
Jewish literature, though John Moxon has recently argued against ‘making an
overly strong connection to so-called “apocalyptic ideas”’ (2017: 119), arguing
that the vision is better understood as ‘didactic’ or ‘halakhic’:

Although the opened heaven is often said to be an apocalyptic motif, these creatures
are not mythical beasts but recognisable animals with an essentially didactic purpose.
This may also mean that the descent from heaven might be a halakhic rather than an
apocalyptic device. (2017: 70)9

This is an artificial distinction, however, as it is unclear how ancient readers

would have distinguished between the modern scholarly category of ‘apocalyp-
tic’ and other visionary literature.10 Moreover, nothing precludes apocalyptic lit-
erature from having a halakhic or didactic function; a halakhic vision is still
revelatory – the very definition of the word ‘apocalyptic’.11 Finally, apocalyptic
literature is by no means limited to mythical beasts (or where to find them) but
rather regularly features recognizable, mundane animals.
Indeed, the nations-as-animals trope is perhaps most obvious in the Animal
Apocalypse of 1 Enoch, an allegorical retelling of the history of the world (focus-
ing on the story of Israel) with human individuals and nations represented by
recognizable animals, while heavenly figures are depicted in human form.12 The
patriarchs are portrayed as white bulls, with Israel represented as sheep. Of spe-
cial interest for our purposes, however, is that the various nations neighboring

9. Further: ‘The heavenly voice and the descent of the sheet may constitute humorous glances in
the direction of apocalyptic, but are no more than this; rather the tone is didactic’ (Moxon
2017: 266).
10. ‘Apocalyptic’ remains difficult to define, despite the best efforts of several working groups
over the past few decades, including especially the Apocalypse Group of the SBL Genres
Project (Collins 1979) and the SBL Early Christian Apocalypticism Seminar (Yarbro Collins
1986). See also Hanson et al. 1992; Grabbe and Haak 2003; Nickelsburg 2005. For the pur-
poses of this article, I will use the term ‘apocalyptic’ as describing a general category of litera-
ture in which heavenly revelation is received.
11. ‘Apocalypse’, of course, derives from the Greek word for ‘revelation’ or ‘unveiling’, so any
revelatory experience or heavenly instruction could be understood as falling under the rubric
of ‘apocalyptic’.
12. For more on how the nations are represented in the Animal Apocalypse and its relationship to
the food laws, see Bryan 1995: 98-185. Cf. also Goldingay 1989: 186: ‘Where animals sym-
bolize nations, human beings often symbolize heavenly beings’.
Staples 7

Israel are depicted as Levitically unclean animals (cf. Tiller 1993: 28-29).13 The
Ishmaelites and Midianites are depicted as wild asses (surely deriving from Gen.
16.12), the Egyptians as wolves,14 Edom and Amelek (Esau’s descendants) as
wild boars, Ammon as foxes, the Babylonians as lions, the Assyrians as tigers/
leopards, the Arameans as hyenas, and the several types of Greeks as various
birds of prey (cf. Olson 2013: 129-43).
The book of Daniel offers perhaps the best-known animal imagery to depict
nations and empires in its visionary material and better parallels Peter’s vision
than Moxon (2017: 118) allows, as Daniel similarly embeds discrete visions
within a larger narrative framework. It is true that the beasts of Dan. 7 are hor-
rifying hybrids rather than typical animals, but this does not rule out their
significance for Acts or the connection of such symbolism to ritual purity. On the
contrary, these beasts are grotesque hybrids because they represent empires that
have incorporated and absorbed many nations. These beasts displaying the char-
acteristics of multiple animals thus aptly represent the frightening and ambigu-
ous mixture of empires, which break down the distinctions between the nations.
Daniel presents these beasts as emerging from the sea, which is often used to
represent agitated peoples in such literature (cf. Montgomery 1927: 265; see also
Isa. 17.12-13; Jer. 46.7-8; Rev. 17.15). Thus, as David Bryan (1995: 234-56)
observes, the Mischwesen (hybrid beasts) are ‘the product of the kosher mental-
ity’ (1995: 234),15 further strengthening their application to a vision like that
found in Acts 10, which directly addresses this ‘kosher mentality’. Significantly,
the second beast of Dan. 7.5 was instructed to ‘rise [and] consume much flesh’,
an instruction resembling that of Peter’s vision (10.13), a connection to which
we will return further below.
The use of grotesque beasts to represent empires carries on in later Jewish
literature, appearing in 4 Ezra 11.1–12.39, which explicitly cites Daniel’s vision
in 12.11. Testament of Naphtali 5.6-8 also includes similar symbolism for the
nations that will ‘possess the twelve tribes of Israel in captivity’, citing ‘the writ-
ing of Enoch’ (4.1) as foretelling these things. Such symbolism is likewise
well-known in the book of Revelation, which builds on Daniel’s hybrid beasts by
combining all four of the beasts from Dan. 7 into one, representing this new

13. Were this the only place such imagery occurred, it could be considered coincidental, but the
Animal Apocalypse is itself drawing its imagery from a wealth of other sources, most notably
from Ezek. 34, where the ‘beasts of the field’ (that is, wild animals) prey on the sheep of
Israel, and Ezek. 39.17-18, where the birds and ‘beasts of the field’ are invited to feast on
human beings as though they were cattle or flocks (cf. Nickelsburg 2001: 377).
14. Aram. ‫דביא‬, either dûbaʾ (‘bear’; preferred by Tiller [1993]) or dêbaʾ (‘wolf’; preferred by
Nickelsburg [2001: 378] and Olson [2013: 123]). Eth. translates as ‘hyena’ but uses a differ-
ent form than the hyenas mentioned further down the list.
15. Bryan, however, does not observe the direct connection between multi-ethnic empires and the
hybridity of these beasts.
8 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 42(1)

empire’s absorption of the prior empires and the totality of its rule (cf. Aune
1997: 734).16
The use of animal imagery to represent nations in early Jewish literature is not
limited to what would today be categorized as apocalyptic literature, as there are
numerous examples of similar metaphorical usage outside of the apocalyptic
genre (some of it surely derived from known apocalyptic depictions). For exam-
ple, Isa. 65.25 says, ‘the wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will
eat straw like the ox’ (cf. Isa. 11.6). This proclamation occurs in the context of a
promise of Israel’s restoration under David’s descendants, to be accompanied by
a divine peace. In this context, it is unlikely this proclamation should be under-
stood as a statement about wildlife but rather as the application of familiar depic-
tions of various nations as a way of depicting international peace.
Jeremiah 5.6 appropriates the same animals as Isa. 11 (wolf, leopard, lion) to
describe the various threats to Jerusalem as a result of Judah’s rebellion against
YHWH. Intriguingly, the Animal Apocalypse associates these animals with
Egypt, Assyria/Aram, and Babylon, respectively – entirely appropriate for
Jeremiah’s context and perhaps suggesting that there may have been some con-
sistency for which animals represented which nations or empires. At the very
least, Israel is consistently depicted as cattle or sheep.17 This may be, as Jonathan
Klawans (2006: 58-62) has noted, because, like these animals, Israel is domesti-
cated and looked after by YHWH, as opposed to the other nations, which are
wild and carnivorous.
Recognition of this traditional background for animal imagery opens some
intriguing possibilities in the NT as well. For example, since dogs represent the
Philistines and connected sea peoples in the Animal Apocalypse, Jesus’ reference
to the Syrophoenician woman in Mark as a ‘dog’ would thus connect her to the
ancient enemies of Israel dwelling by the sea.18 (Nevertheless, this ‘dog’ is
rewarded for her faith.) On a less positive side, Paul’s reference to his circumci-
sion-party opponents as ‘dogs’ may also be the symbolic equivalent of calling
them uncircumcised Philistines.

16. Strangely, although Aune observes that Revelation’s beast is ‘a single beast from characteris-
tics of three of the four beasts in Daniel’, he expresses some confusion over the seven heads:
‘The seven heads of the beast in 13:1 have no direct correspondence in the beasts described
in Dan. 7:1-8, though the third leopardlike beast is described as having four heads’ (1997:
734). But if Revelation’s beast is truly a combination of all four of Daniel’s beasts – one of
which has four heads – the beast should be expected to have seven heads.
17. That said, it should be noted that Israel’s twelve tribes were also identified with the signs of
the Zodiac, meaning that some of the tribes (e.g., Dan = serpent, Judah = lion) are also
identified with ritually unclean animals in that context.
18. The redaction of this passage in Mt. 15.22 is equally interesting, as Matthew calls her a
‘Canaanite’, appropriating biblical language depicting an enemy of Israel from within the
Land in much the way that 1 Maccabees does.
Staples 9

These are only a few examples, but the number of passages symbolically rep-
resenting nations or peoples as animals in early Jewish literature is immense,
from Ishmael as a ‘wild ass’ (Gen. 16.12) to representations of the individual
tribes themselves. Even the statement that YHWH has given ‘the beasts of the
field’ to serve Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. 27.6; Dan. 7) seems to have this symbolic
understanding attached to it, indicating that YHWH has ordained the complete
subjugation of the nations to Babylon.

Food Legislation and Contact with the Nations

We now return to the question of the food laws and how they might relate to this
discussion in the context of Acts. The symbolic relationship between diet (that is,
clean and unclean animals) and identity is already linked in Lev. 20.25-26, a con-
nection upon which the Animal Apocalypse vividly builds (cf. Bryan 1995: 130-
84). We have other evidence in addition to the depiction of animals in visionary
literature that the food laws were understood as symbolically representing
nations or people from which Israel was to be separate. Our earliest source that
clearly makes the move towards allegorical interpretation of animals and food
laws is the Letter of Aristeas, which explains the food laws as follows:

Our Lawgiver … fortified us with unbreakable barricades and walls of iron, in order
that we might not mingle at all with any of the other nations but remain pure in body
and soul, free from all empty imaginations, worshiping the one almighty God above
the whole creation … Therefore, lest we be corrupted by any abomination, or our lives
be perverted by evil communications, he hedged us round on all sides by rules of
purity, affective alike what we eat, or drink, or touch, or hear, or see. (139, 142)

For you must not fall into the degrading idea that it was out of regard to mice and
weasels and other such things that Moses drew up his laws with such exceeding care.
All these ordinances were made for the sake of justice, to aid the quest for virtue and
the perfecting of character. (144)

Thus concerning meats and unclean things, creeping things, and wild beasts, the
whole system aims at justice and just relationships between human and human. (169)

Aristeas’ explanation likely derives from Lev. 20.25-26, where the distinction
between clean and unclean animals is presented as a means by which ‘you are to
be holy to me’ and ‘set apart from the peoples to be mine’ (20.26). The distinction
between clean and unclean animals is thus ‘presented as an analogy for the [Israel]/
gentile divide’ in Leviticus (Moxon 2017: 55-56), with the result of observing
these distinctions that Israel will be distinct from the nations (that is, holy).
The explanation of the food laws in the Epistle of Barnabas continues along
the same trajectory as Aristeas, as Barnabas assures its readers that the food laws
10 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 42(1)

were never expected to be understood literally but ‘spiritually’, that is, as com-
mands not to associate with or become like those people who share the negative
characteristics of the unclean animals. With this argument, which could just as
easily have come from the allegorizing but not Torah-keeping Jews about whom
Philo complains in Laws 2–11, Barnabas thereby appropriates the standard anti-
Gentile perspective of allegorical Jewish interpretation for a Christian
context.19
Not only were the food laws often understood as allegorically representing
people, but other passages involving animals were also interpreted in like man-
ner as fundamentally addressing relationships between humans. Paul, for exam-
ple, applies the command not to muzzle the ox while it is threshing (Deut. 25.4)
to human wages (1 Cor. 9.9). He similarly interprets the injunction, ‘You will not
plow with an ox and a donkey together’ (Deut. 22.10; 2 Cor. 6.14), as about
being ‘unequally yoked’ together with unbelievers. In Paul’s words, ‘God is not
concerned about oxen, is he?’ (1 Cor. 9.9).

The Taming of the Wild Beasts

Several texts also intriguingly suggest that at least some of the nations repre-
sented by unclean or predatory beasts (that is, Gentile enemies of Israel) will not
only be ‘tamed’ at the eschaton but will live peacefully together with Israel. For
example, Isaiah’s declaration that the wolf will cohabit with the lamb involves
not only peace between predator and prey but also (perhaps more significantly
for Acts 10) a community of clean and unclean animals. Jeremiah’s assertion that
one day YHWH ‘will sow the house of Israel and Judah with the seed of man and
the seed of beast’ could be taken even further on this reading, with Gentiles (=
beasts) not only tamed but envisioned as somehow incorporated into the people
of God (Israel and Judah).
The Animal Apocalypse contains an even clearer representation of a transfor-
mation of the unclean beasts representing non-Israelite nations. In that vision,
the original white bulls of the patriarchs eventually give way to sheep (Israel)
and all sorts of unclean animals, but everything changes at the end of the vision,
when ‘all their generations [= genealogical relationships?] were transformed,
and they all became white bulls’ (91.38). The end time thus restores not only
Israel but the whole world to a state of order as at the creation. As George
Nickelsburg (2001: 406) explains,

19. The use of animal imagery to teach ethical lessons or symbolize human qualities is also well
attested in Greek literature, such as in Aesop’s fables and Aristotle’s Historia Animalia, a
tradition that surely influenced the move toward allegorical interpretation in the Jewish and
eventually Christian traditions reflected by such passages in the Letter of Aristeas and
Barnabas. Thanks to Susan Harvey for reminding me of this connection.
Staples 11

For this author, complete resolution of the plot requires that in the end all the species
representing the diversity of nations and people return to the primordial unity from
which they diverged. Such a notion is present in other strata of 1 Enoch. In both
10:21–11:2 and 91:14, certain of the Gentiles ‘become righteous’ and are the recipients
of eschatological blessing. So also here, in the peculiar idiom of the Vision, a great
white bull is born (v 37), and then all the species are transformed into white bulls.

This vision thus includes identifiable animals, including both clean and
unclean species, who are all transformed into ritually clean animals, which in
each case clearly represent nations. Is it then such a stretch to imagine that Peter’s
vision would naturally be understood as referring to people rather than strictly to
animals or food? Given the typical meaning of animals in visionary literature,
the trend toward allegorical interpretation of food laws, and the existence of a
stream of apocalyptic thought that looked forward to an eschatological transfor-
mation of the nations, it is difficult to imagine an apocalyptically minded Jew
who believed the messiah had already come interpreting this vision as about
anything but the relationship between Jews and Gentiles.

Contributions of Peter’s Vision to the Narrative:

Pure/Impure and Holy/Common
In light of the consistent depictions of nations in the form of animals in earlier
visionary literature, the alleged disconnect between the content and interpreta-
tion of Peter’s dream seems more the result of modern NT interpreters’ over-lit-
eralism and difficulties in inhabiting the same sort of apocalyptically informed
symbolic space that was occupied by many early Jews and Christians. Within
that symbolic space, what may seem on the surface to refer to animals or food is
naturally understood as a reference to nations and peoples.
Daniel’s second beast was told to ‘rise [and] devour much flesh’ (7.5), a com-
mand resembling that given to Peter in Acts 10.13. In the context of Daniel, that
action symbolizes the hybrid imperial beast attacking and incorporating other
nations into itself (cf. Collins 1993: 298). In the context of Peter’s vision, this
action could be understood as the incorporation of Gentiles into the ἐκκλησία,
particularly when understood in the context of full members of the community
sharing in the Eucharist and common table fellowship (e.g., the ‘one bread …
one body’ of 1 Cor. 10.17).20

20. Note also that the Syrophoenician woman asked to ‘feed on the children’s crumbs under the
table’ (Mk 7.28). As Bovon (2009: 120 n. 43) warns, there is some danger that this under-
standing could serve as a means of ‘falling into the allegory of Augustine (the Church must
kill the Gentiles for their sins and incorporate them for a better life, Comm. Ps. 3:7; 13:4;
etc.)’.
12 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 42(1)

Nevertheless, it is still worth asking why Acts includes the vision at all, given
that the events of the Cornelius narrative would seem to work well enough to sup-
port the inclusion of Gentiles without the vision. In light of the connection between
food/purity regulations and restrictions on fellowship with Gentiles, the payoff
may have to do with the matter of full community membership and table fellow-
ship for Gentile believers. That is, should believing Gentiles be incorporated
within the community as an intermediate class of righteous persons without full
equality with Jews or may they be incorporated with equal status? This question
is closely related to matters of ritual purity and food legislation.
In this respect, several subtle details of the vision are important, most notably
that Peter is not instructed to violate Torah restrictions and eat (= incorporate)
unclean animals, as is often assumed (e.g., Hanson 1978; Plunkett 1985;
Conzelmann 1987; Wilson 2001; Dibelius 2004; Bovon 2009). Instead, the sheet
contains a mixed group of all kinds (πάντα) of animals, and Peter’s protest in
Acts 10.15 implies two categories, the ‘common’ (κοινόν) and ‘unclean’ or
‘impure’ (ἀκάθαρτον), though he treats them as equally inappropriate for con-
sumption. Most scholars have followed Peter’s judgment in conflating these two
categories, concluding that ‘to call something “common” is another way to speak
of impurity. Thus there seems to be no real distinction between the terms here’
(Moffitt 2016: 559 n. 37).
But these two terms tend to refer to separate domains defined by the opposing
categories of pure/impure (or clean/unclean) on the one hand and holy/common
on the other (see Moxon 2017: 54-67).21 The categories do overlap in that ritual
purity is a ‘prerequisite for encountering the sacred’ (Klawans 2006: 171), and,
as such, impure food cannot be holy, but clean food can be either common (=
unsacred) or holy. The potential combinations are as follows: unclean/common,
clean/common, and clean/holy (see Figure 1).
Sacrificial food is both clean and holy, but an ordinary, non-sacred meal for
Jewish laypersons by definition falls into the clean/common category, though the
Pharisees and some other groups seem to have extended the purity expectations
required for sacrificial (clean/holy) food to ordinary (clean/common) food (cf.
m. Hag. 2.5; t. Dem. 2.2, 20-22; Harrington 1995), effectively treating that food as
though it were holy.22 Meat from a clean animal could also be rendered illicit

21. See Moxon 2017: 54-67. That ‘common’ (like its Greek analogue) can also mean ‘shared’ in
addition to ‘profane’ or ‘ordinary’ further complicates matters.
22. The connection of such purity regulations for ostensibly ‘common’ food with especially scru-
pulous observance of tithing regulations may suggest that some groups regarded properly
tithed food as itself having been sanctified by virtue of having properly observed the tithe.
Such a greater state of holiness than untithed produce, though not of equal holiness with the
removed portion (much like the Holiness Code), presumes the holiness of Israel vis-à-vis the
other nations, though the priests have special holiness within Israel. Such a view would accord
with one popular interpretation of Rom. 11.16a as suggesting that the whole lump of dough is
sanctified through the practice of setting aside the firstfruits, though Gordon (2016) has
Staples 13

Figure 1. Domains of Purity and Holiness.

through idol-sacrifice, and the result of eating such defiled food would be to ‘make
oneself common’ (cf. 4 Macc. 7.6) as opposed to holy, effectively eliminating one’s
distinction from the idolatrous nations. Such language of profanation in connection
with idolatry – along with similar terminological overlap with the moral category
– seems to have contributed to the especially scrupulous decision to reject ‘com-
mon’ food in favor of that regarded as having a higher degree of sacredness (cf.
Moxon 2017: 59-67). As such, some refrained from eating not only with the uncir-
cumcised but with fellow Jews whose tithing practices they deemed inadequate.
Indeed, Peter’s rejection of the common as equivalent to unclean is precisely
what the heavenly voice rebukes, declaring, ‘What God has purified (ἐκαθάρισεν),
do not call common’ (Acts 10.15).23 This is quite different from an admonition
against reckoning what has been cleansed as unclean, which would be an out-
right contradiction and as such would seem less likely to occur. Modern schol-
arly conflation of the two categories in this passage is especially ironic in this
light, as interpreters have straightforwardly shared Peter’s assumptions rather
than heeding the heavenly voice. By the end of the narrative, Peter – having been
thrice admonished by the heavenly voice – no longer lumps the two concepts

persuasively demonstrated that this Pauline halakhic statement is better understood as referring
to how common foodstuff is sanctified by coming into contact with the holy portion.
23. See Wahlen 2005, building on the arguments of House 1983. In this respect, the observation
of Haenchen (1977: 307), to the effect that Peter could have killed and eaten a pure animal
from among those in the sheet, hits close to the mark and does not, as Dibelius (2004: 98 n. 2)
and Bovon (2009: 120 n. 43) object, press the image too far.
14 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 42(1)

together as in 10.14 (‘common and unclean’) but rather distinguishes them as

two disparate categories: ‘common or unclean’ (10.28; 11.8).24
Applied in this context, the vision simultaneously addresses the question of
Gentile incorporation (via a common visionary symbolic trope) and a question of
diet that would potentially keep uncircumcised believers from having full access to
table fellowship. With respect to diet, what was previously regarded as ‘common’
and therefore potentially dubious should be received without concern, obviating
concerns about ‘common’ (albeit clean) food that might otherwise rule out eating
with the uncircumcised for those especially scrupulous about such matters.
The vision therefore makes an important supplementary point in the context of
the larger narrative. Whereas ‘God’s act of giving the Spirit [even upon the uncir-
cumcised] is retrospective and irrefutable proof that those who receive the Spirit
have been purified’ (Moffitt 2016: 561), the fact of their purification does not
directly address their status on the common/holy scale, a question not directly
answered in the surrounding narrative. The vision, however, supplies that answer:
those whom God has cleansed, God has also sanctified.25 If God has cleansed the
uncircumcised, they are not only pure (καθαρός) but have also been reckoned holy
(ἅγιος) and are therefore worthy of full fellowship and incorporation with the rest
of the ἐκκλησία.
We can therefore conclude that, although Acts could have chosen to address the
questions of Gentile inclusion and dietary restrictions more directly, Peter’s vision
fits well within the standard symbolic space of apocalyptic/visionary Jewish texts
known from this period and earlier. This is not a case of Acts shoehorning a vision
about one thing (food) into a wholly other meaning (Gentiles). Rather, Acts makes
use of a trope common to the Jewish visionary tradition to simultaneously make a
fine-grained point about both Gentile inclusion in the community and table fellow-
ship with said Gentiles. In the process, Acts 10 sets the table for the final apostolic
decision of Acts 15, which does not abrogate food laws for Jews but rather estab-
lishes full table-fellowship with those Gentiles whose hearts have been cleansed
(cf. καθαρῖσας in 15.9). Such Gentiles are no longer to be regarded as common or
potentially polluting – God has made them both clean and holy.26

24. Cf. Parsons 2000. Pace Wahlen (2005: 511 n. 28), who sees the different terms as merely a
stylistic variation.
25. For more on the connection in Acts between Jesus’ exaltation, the giving of the spirit, and the
purification of God’s people – both Jews and the uncircumcised – see Moffitt 2016.
26. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Southeastern Commission for the Study of
Religion (SECSOR) meeting in Atlanta, GA, 2 March 2012, and in the Book of Acts Section
of the AAR/SBL Annual Meeting in Chicago, 18 November 2012. I am indebted to Bill
Lyons, Michael Satlow, Susan Harvey, and Saul Olyan for their feedback on an early draft,
and I am especially grateful for the critiques of the anonymous reviewer(s) from JSNT, whose
incisive suggestions helped to improve the final product substantially. All remaining errors
are of course my own.
Staples 15

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