STEPHEN. — Of Stephen we know nothing beyond the short notice of him contained in the two chapters (6 and 7) of Acts. He is said by Epiphanius (Hmr. xx. 4) to have been one of the Seventy; but such a statement has little weight. All we can say for certain is that, when elected to be one of the Seven, he was a man of ])osition both within and without the Christian community (Ac 6'). The office to wliich he was appointed was that of administering alms to the widows of
Hellenists (i.e. Greek-speaking Jews) who con- sidered themselves overlooked in the daily distribu- tion from the common fund of food or money. Ihit to this work Stephen, like others of the Seven, notably Philip, by no means restricted himself. He was 'full of grace and power' (6'), and was inilielleil to engage in controversy with members of the Hellenistic .synagogues estal)lished in .Jeru- salem, and 'they were not able to withstand the wisdom and the Spirit by which he sp.ike' (6'"). It is generally supjjosed that, as be devoted him.self to the members of these Hellenistic synagogues, he was himself a Hellenist. The inference, not unreasonable in itself, is confirmed by his name, and by the familiiirity which be seems to show with tlie LXX version of the Scriptures, i>erhaps even by what seems to have been the tenor of his teaching. To the Hellenist Jews with whom he argued that tenor must have been unmistakable, even from the outset. He was .at once accused of undermining the authority of the Law of Mose.s, denying the perm.anent sanctity even of the Temple (6'*- ">).
Those who brought these charges are called false witnes.ses. False witnesses they undoubtedly were, as they interpreted the words of warning ami of insight which he uttered as threats thrown out against the Temple and the Law. In this it was with Stephen as it had been previously with our Lord. Our Lord Himself had said that He was to become the world's temple in the future, and was condemned for blasphemy for s|)eaking ill words against tlie Temple in Jerusalem ; Stejihen pro- claimed th.at Temple and Law b.ad done their work and were to give place in time to a more spiritual temple, a more universal law, and was denounced for bhispliemy. The speech which be delivers when summoned before the Sanhedrin iu;d<es it jilain that this was his position ; and the fullness with which the speech is given, .as a sort of intro- duction to the section of the Acts which traces the gradu.al reception of the Gentiles into the Christian Church, makes it obvious tliat this is the right construction to be put upon his words.
The s]ieech itself contains three lines of thought, sometimes kept separate, but oflener interlaced, all leading up to one and the same comdnsion. The first line is this — that the original covenant made between God and Israel was concliuled not with Moses l)ut long before with Abrah;uu and the patriarchs, and, since the Mosaic covenant had been thus preceded by an earlier and more spiritual one, it might also be followed by a later and luoic spiritu.al one ('A coveniint confirmed bcforebaiul by God, the law, which came four hundred and thirty years after, doth not disannul, so as to make the promise of noneefi'ect' (Gal 3"). Secondly, there is the suggestion that since God was wor- shipped acceptably long before temple or even tabernacle (after which the Temple was modelled, tlie tiibern.acle itself being but a copy of the heavenly tabernacde seen on the mount) was built, and again since God was acceptably worshi])ped in spots far removed from the land of Canaan, and Solomon, at the very moment of building the Temple, declared that God dwells not in ' houses made with hands' (Ac '■"), it is at least jiossible that God may be worshijiped, and worshipped acceptably, elsewhere than in the Temple. Thirdly, the speech ends with the warning to which all the earlier part — the fate of Joseph, the fate of Moses — had led up : ' Ye stifi'necked and uncircunicised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost : as your fathers did, so do ye ' (7"). It was this last lesson so emphatically driven home that immediately produced th.at outbreak of rage in the Saidicdrin which brought about Steiihen's death. Its members condemned him to be guilty of bias-
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phemy : lie liad justified, not denied or even softened down, his previous utterances; they ruslied upon him, and, when he stated tliat he saw the heavens opened and Jesus standing to welcome hira on tlie right hand of God, the vision did, in this view, hut increase tlie blasphemy, so they dragged him out of tlie city and stoned liim. Saul, then a young man, presided at the stoning and gave hearty assent and approval to his death (7™ 81).
Two questions relating to this stoning have to be answered: (1) How did it take place at all, seeing that the Jews had not the power of life and death? (2) What was the date at which it occurred ? As to the first point, the actual martyr- dom of Stephen seems to have been something of the nature of a tumultuous outbreak. It was a sudden tit of rage that brought it about, similar to that through which St. Paul so nearly lost his life had he not been rescued by the Roman soldiers (0223ff.) j^^ (^Q jiig second question, it has been suggested that this outbreak took place during a temporary vacancy in the provincial authority, which will not, however, lix the date, as the Roman governors were frequently changed during this jjeriod ; or, as some have thought, it may have occurred during a vacancy in the Imperial throne. Tiberius died and Claius became Emperor early in A.D. 37, and Stephen's martyrdom has been put at this time. This is almost the latest date assigned, and there is more, perhaps, to be said for an earlier date such as Ramsay suggests — A.D. 32 or 33 {St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, p. 376). All that we can gather with fair certainty is that St. Paul's conversion followed soon after ; but the date of this event is itself involved in much obscurity, dejjending, as it does, on whether we identify the visit to Jerusalem mentioned in Gal 11 with the visit of Paul and Barnabas described in Ac 11 and 12 or with that de.seribed in Ac 15. As Harnack, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 29, concludes, it is impossible to .settle this point with certainty, because .St. Luke, probably having himself no exact date to rely upon, has left the chronology of this section of the Acts in intentional ob.scurity.