ἔκραξε φωνῇ µεγάλῃ.! Κύριε, μὴ στήσῃς αὐτοῖς τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ταύτην.
Δ a θε. 2 46 2 και TOUTO εἰιπων εκοιµη η.
αὐτοῦ.
Σαῦλος δὲ ἦν συνευδοκῶν τῇ ἀναιρέσει
1D, Vulg., Gig. (not Fler.) add λεγων, so Blass in B, and Hilg.; prob. assim. to more usual Aeywv after κραζειν where the words are given.
2 εκοιµηθη, Par., Wern., Vulg. add in Domino, but not Blass.
have been discussed in every synagogue, and which the infant Church must have been obliged to face from the first, especi- ally as it took its stand upon the proof that Jesus was the Christ. Stephen in his disputations, vi. 9, must have often faced opponents who thus sought to invalidate the Messianic claims of Jesus; what more natural than that he should now repeat before the whole assembly the proofs which he had before given in the synagogue, where no one could re- sist the spirit and the wisdom with which he spake? In this way Spitta maintains that the charges in vv. 52, 53 occupy ‘their proper place; the Jews had rejected the prophets—Moses and his successors —finally they rejected the Messiah, -whom the prophets had foretold (A postel- geschichte, p. 105 ff.). Whatever stric- tures we may be inclined to pass upon Spitta (see, e.g., Wendt in new edition, 1899, pp- 150, 151), it is not unlikely that he has at all events grasped what others have failed to see, v7z., that in the nature of the case, Stephen in his ἄπο- λογία, or counter-accusation—whichever it was—could not have been unmindful of the Prophet like unto Moses, whom Moses had foretold: his dying prayer revealed the Name, not uttered in the speech, which was enshrined in his in- most heart; Jesus was the Christ—He came ov Katadtoat ἀλλὰ πληρῶσαι, whether that fulfilment was made by a spiritual temple or a spiritual law. In thus keeping the thought of Jesus of Nazareth prominent throughout the speech, whilst not actually uttering His Name, in thus comparing Moses and Christ, Stephen was answering the charges made against him. “ This Nazarene” (so it was said in the charge made against Stephen) ‘“ would destroy this place and change the customs,” etc. —the prophet Moses had given the people living oracles, not a law which should stifle the spirit in the letter; the prophet Isaiah had spoken of a presence of God far transcending that which filled any earthly temple ; and if these prophets had pointed on to the Messiah, and if
the Nazarene were indeed the Christ thus foretold, what wonder that He should reveal a commandment unto life, anda worship of the Father in spirit and in truth? Nor must it be forgotten that if Stephen was interrupted before his speech was concluded, he may well have intended to drive home more closely the manifest fulfilment in Christ of the deliverance dimly foreshadowed in the work of Moses and in the freedom from Egyptian bondage. This was the true parallel between Moses and the Messiah on which the Rabbis were wont to dwell. Thus the Messiah, in com- parison with Moses, was the second, but in comparison with all others the great, deliverer ; as Moses led Israel out of Egypt, so would the Messiah accomplish the final deliverance, and restore Israel to their own land (Weber, Fidische Theo- logie, pp. 359, 364 (1897)). It is to be observed that Spitta warmly supports the historical character of the speech, which he ascribes without interpolations to his source A, although in vv. 55-60 he refers some “insertions” to B. His criticism as against the tendency critics, especially Overbeck, is well worth consulting (pp. 110-123), and he quotes with approval the judgment of Gfrérer—‘“‘I consider this speech unreservedly as the oldest monu- ment of Gospel history”. So too Clemen, pp. 97, 288, allows that the speech is essentially derived, with the exception of ver. 37, as also the whole chapter with the exception of ver. 60, from an old written source, H.H., Historia Hellenistarum ; and amongst more recent writers, McGiffert holds that whilst many maintain that the author of the Acts composed the speech and put it into the mouth of Stephen, its contents are against such a supposition, and that Luke undoubtedly got the substance of the discourse from an early source, and reproduced it with approximate accuracy (p. 89 and note). So Weiss refers the speech to his Jewish-Christian source, and refuses to admit that with its pro- found knowledge of the O.T. it could have been composed by the author of