Σαύλου, 59. καὶ ἐλιθοβόλουν τὸν Στέφανον, ἐπικαλούμενον καὶ
λέγοντα, Κύριε ᾿Ιησοῦ, δέξαι τὸ πνεῦμά µου.
his judges, and Dante, Purgatorio, xv., 106 ff., on the dying Stephen): py στήσῃς αὐτοῖς τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ταύτην: the nega- tive expression best corresponds to the positive ἀφιέναι τὴν ἁμαρτίαν (Wendt), cf. 1 Mace. xiii. 38, 39, xv. 5, 8, where the contrast marked between ἱστάναι and ἀφιέναι seems to favour this explanation. Blass takes it as marking a contrast like that between ἱστάναι and ἀναιρεῖν, cf. Heb. x. ο. Weiss lays stress upon ταύτην, and regards the prayer as ask- ing that their present sin might not be weighed out to them in an equivalent punishment, cf. Grotius on the Hebrew
aw, 1 Kings xx. 39, whilst De Wette
(so Felten) takes it as simply ‘reckon it not,” 2.¢., ‘‘ weigh it not,” cf. Zech. xi. 12. Schéttgen sees a reference to the Rab- binical notion “ si quis bonum aut malum opus facit, hoc sequitur eum, et stat juxta eum in mundo futuro,” Rev. xiv. 13,5 and cf. a similar view quoted by Farrar, St. Paul, i., 167. Rendall regards it as a judicial term, as if Stephen appealed to Christ as ¥udge not to impute their sin to the murderers in condemnation (Rom. x. 3). The words of St. Stephen again recail the words of his Master, Luke xxiii. 34, words which (Eusebius, Η. Ε., cf. ii., 20) also formed the dying prayer of James, ‘‘the Lord’s brother”’. In James as in Stephen we may see how the true Christian character, whilst expressing itself in righteous indignation against hypocrisy and wrong, never failed to exhibit as its counterpart the meekness and gentleness of ΟΠεῖδε.---ἐκοιμήθη (cf. 1 Cor. xv. 18), a picture-word of rest and calmness which stands in dramatic con- trast to the rage and violence of the scene. The word is used of death both in LXX and in classical Greek, cf., ¢.g., Isa. xiv. 8, 18, xliii. 17, 1 Kings xi. 43, 2 Macc. xii. 45, etc.; Homer, Π1., xi., 241; Soph., Elect., 509. Blass well says of this word, ‘‘sed nullo loco eque mirandum,” and describes the reference in Homer, κοιµή- gato χάλκεον ὕπνον, as “et simile et dissimile ”: Christians sleep in death, but πο. brazen sleep ” ; they sleep ἐν Ἀριστῷ: simple words which formed the epitaph on many a Christian grave—in Him, Who is Himself ‘‘the Resurrection and the Life’. Page notes the cadence of the word expressing rest and repose, cf. Farrar, St. Paul, i., 167, note, and ἀκωλύτως, xxviii. 31.
60. θεὶς δὲ τὰ γόνατα,
St. Stephen’s Speech.— Many and varied explanations have been given of the drift and purpose of St. Stephen’s address. But the various explanations need not be mutually exclusive, and St. Stephen, like a wise scribe instructed unto the kingdom, might well bring out of his treasury things new and old. It is often said, ¢.g., that the address is no reply to the charges alleged, that it would be more intelligible how the charges were framed from a perversion of the speech, than how the speech could be framed out of the charges; whilst, on the other hand, it is possible to see from the opening to the closing words an implicit repudiation of the charges of blasphemy against God and contempt of the law. The speech opens with a declaration of the divine majesty of Jehovah; it closes with a reference to the divine sanction of the law, and with the condemnation of those who had not kept it. This im- plicit repudiation by Stephen of the charges brought against him is also con- tained in St. Chrysostom’s view of the purpose of the martyr, viz., that he designed to show that the covenant and promises were before the law, and sacri- fice and the law before the temple. This view, which was adopted by Grotius and Calvin, is in some degree retained by Wendt (so also Felten), who sums up the chief aim of the speech as a demonstra- tion that the presence of God is not con- fined to the holy place, the temple, but that long before the temple was built, and before the people had settled in the promised land, God had given to the fathers a share in the proofs of this re- velation, and that too in strange countries (although there is no reason to suppose. that Stephen went so far as to contend that Jew and Gentile were on a precisely equal footing). But Wendt is conscious that this view does not account for the whole of the speech, and that it does not explain the prominence given in it to,the obstinacy of Israel against the revelation of God vouchsafed to Moses, with which the counter accusation against Stephen is so closely connected (see Spitta’s severe criticism, Apostelgeschichte, pp. 111, 112, and Weizsacker’s evident failure to main- tain the position that the climax of the whole address is to be found in the de- claration about Solomon’s temple, which he is obliged to explain as a later thought belonging to a later time, Apostolic Age,