‘And as he talked with him, he went in, and finds many come together,'
Then he talked further with Cornelius and went up to the upper chamber with him, where he found a number of guests gathered. Normally a Jew would wait outside in such a situation, and the Gentile would come out to him, thus preventing the Jew from being defiled by something in the Gentile's house of which the Gentile would be totally unaware. Or in the circumstances of an ‘official request' that he visit, a request that would be difficult sometimes to refuse, he might reluctantly enter knowing that he had no choice but to do so, aware, however, that he would later have to go through whatever cleansing ritual proved necessary. But he would not enter voluntarily. However, the vision that he had had, probably made Peter more willing than usual to enter. Those who were with him lived constantly among Gentiles and were probably a little less particular anyway, and they may well have considered that as he had been summoned by a Centurion he had little choice. There are some people that you do not argue with.
‘Many come together.' Luke continues to emphasise how the word is going out to ‘many'. The intricacy of the story must not hide from us the fact that this is a further example of the spreading and multiplying of the word.