Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Acts 7:58
And cast [him] out of the city, and stoned [him]: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.
58. and cast him out of the city, and stoned him ] In accordance with the Law (Lev 24:14) the person to be stoned must be carried without the camp, and to the people of Jerusalem the walls of the city were as the limits of the camp. Though there was much popular excitement exhibited in this proceeding, we are not to think that it was looked upon by those who were actors in it as other than the carrying out of the Law.
There was a place set apart for such punishment. The person to be stoned was placed on an elevation twice the height of a man, from whence with his hands bound he was thrown down, and then a stone as much as two men could carry was rolled down upon him by the witnesses, after which all the people present cast stones upon him.
and the witnesses laid down their clothes ] i.e. their loose outer garments, that they might be more ready for the task which they had to discharge. The law which ordained that the first stone should be thrown by the witnesses was meant to restrain hasty accusation. Men would only bring an accusation for grave reasons when they knew that their own hand must be first upon the condemned person.
at a young man’s feet ] Saul was already of such an age that the authorities could entrust him (Act 9:2) with the duty of going to Damascus to arrest the Christians in that city. The Greek word is applied to persons up to the age of forty. In the Epistle to Philemon (9) St Paul speaks of himself as aged. That Epistle was probably written about a.d. 63, and the death of Stephen took place about a.d. 35, therefore Saul may well have been between 30 and 40 years of age.
whose name was Saul ] Lit. called Saul. The name is the same as that of the first King of Israel, and signifies “one asked for” (i.e. in prayer). This Saul was also of the tribe of Benjamin, and had come from his home at Tarsus in Cilicia to attend on the lessons of the great teacher Gamaliel (Php 3:5-6; Act 22:3).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
And cast him out of the city – This was in accordance with the usual custom. In Lev 24:14, it was directed to bring forth him that had cursed without the camp; and it was not usual, the Jewish writers inform us, to stone in the presence of the Sanhedrin. Though this was a popular tumult, and Stephen was condemned without the regular process of trial, yet some of the forms of law were observed, and he was stoned in the manner directed in the case of blasphemers.
And stoned him – This was the punishment appointed in the case of blasphemy, Lev 24:16. See the notes on Joh 10:31.
And the witnesses – That is, the false witnesses who bore testimony against him, Act 6:13. It was directed in the Law Deu 17:7 that the witnesses in the case should be first in executing the sentence of the Law. This was done to prevent false accusations by the prospect that they must be employed as executioners. After they had commenced the process of execution, all the people joined in it, Deu 17:7; Lev 24:16.
Laid down their clothes – Their outer garments. They were accustomed to lay these aside when they ran or worked. See the notes on Mat 5:40.
At a young mans feet … – That is, they procured him to take care of their garments. This is mentioned solely because Saul, or Paul, afterward became so celebrated, first as a persecutor, and then an apostle. His whole heart was in this persecution of Stephen; and he himself afterward alluded to this circumstance as an evidence of his sinfulness in persecuting the Lord Jesus, Act 22:20.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Act 7:58
And the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young mans feet, whose name was Saul.
Stephen and Saul
I. Stephen. The picture of a dying saint.
1. He enjoys the Divine presence and power (Act 7:55), Full of the Holy Ghost. The power of God was present when His faithful servant was passing through the flood.
2. He is lifted above the consciousness of earthly surroundings, enemies, and gnashing teeth.
3. He enjoys a full view of heavenly glory (Act 7:55). He saw in that hour what many would have given their all to see, the vision of his glorified Redeemer.
4. He shows the spirit of his Master (Act 7:60).
5. He has a peaceful death, though dying by violence. He fell asleep, though the storm of stones was crashing upon him.
6. He leaves a blessed memory (Act 7:2). Though dead he was not forgotten. Godly men mourned him, and many years afterward his name was remembered (Act 22:1-30.). Greater still, his influence endured; for the whole life of Paul was the larger echo of Stephens dying address.
II. Saul. We notice in him the picture of an honest persecutor.
1. His spirit of leadership (Act 7:58). The young man Saul already shows himself as a master of men.
2. His sincerity. Saul was faithful to his conviction, even while in the wrong (Gal 1:13-14; Php 3:4-6).
3. His thoroughness. He must carry out his conviction, even to the bitter end.
4. His failure to check the gospel (Act 7:4). The storm which was intended to destroy the gospel only served to scatter it over new soil and to cause new churches to spring up.
Stephen and Saul
The meeting here described was a memorable event in the Churchs history, and suggests to us some important lessons.
I. Do not think there are any chance meetings in this strange world of ours.
1. It was no accident that Saul was by. This perhaps may be admitted; but never let us think that saints and martyrs live under a different form of Providential government from that of common men. Impiety will sometimes wear the cloak of humility, and talk of worms like ourselves being too insignificant to be watched at every step by the Eye that never sleeps. In such reasoning there is a twofold fallacy,
(1) What is little, and what is great? Take into account the wide domain which stretches from Gods central throne to the farthest limits of creation, and what is our world, and what are the grandest men who move upon its surface? But take into account, on the other hand, responsibility and an immortal nature, and the relation of dependence on an heavenly parent, with all that is involved in the rewards of loyalty and the perils of disobedience; take into account the great redemption, and the universal promise and the inspiriting thought that here Gods purposes are being worked out, and then what about us is mean? which of us all, if bought with precious blood, can be overlooked and forgotten?
(2) Even if some pass for great, and some are reckoned mean, in this strangely varied scene, still the two worlds intermingle at a thousand points. Something that looks little becomes the parent of an evil of portentous magnitude; or a deed, small at first as the mustard-seed, dropped into the ground at a venture, grows into a harvest of blessing by which a nation is enriched. The first link in a chain of events shall be a word spoken at hazard, a journey taken without a motive, a childs whim, a fools false reckoning, but the last shall be a city consumed by conflagration, a kingdom convulsed by civil strife, a generation wasted and half devoured by the aggressions of war; yet the first link and the last were as certainly bound together as if an hours interval only had elapsed between the original movement and its final consequences.
2. Saul and Stephen came together that day for good. And as God guided their steps, so God guides ours. You can tell of meetings, some of you, which have coloured your whole life, meetings which you never planned, meetings, it may be, with one unknown to you before, as the apostle was to the martyr, yet never forgotten, because step by step you can trace the occurrences which have grown out of that single interview, and which have done more, perhaps, to influence your condition or your character than all that you have deliberately planned for your own good through half a life. These thoughts are good for us, because the more we own God everywhere, and look on the common working world as His world, shaped by His wisdom, and brightened by His presence, the more diligently and cheerfully shall we do His will.
II. We must not think that good teaching or example is like wasted seed, because the fruit is not at once apparent. Stephen died, and little thought who saw him die. His dying scene was like the conquerors march; but even then room would have been found for one emphatic burst of thankfulness–to Him who can make the wrath of man to praise Him–if it had been revealed to him that one, who stood within his view, would soon rank as the champion of the Cross, and a master-builder of Christs Church. He did not reap the harvest, nor see it reaped; yet was he sowing for it when he lived and died so well. So we may do good in the world that we never live to see. What is well done for God is never wholly lost; and half of what we fancy to be wasted may ripen and bear fruit when our course is ended. In the morning, then, sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand. The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it.
III. Watchful eyes are upon us at all times, and we may be doing good, or doing harm, unconsciously, to some whom we know not now, and never shall know. St. Stephen thought, perhaps, that the men before him were all alike. He did not know that one in that crowd looked on with more eager interest and with deeper feeling than the rest. Nothing was aimed at Saul; for to St. Stephen he was but one of a hundred spectators, probably all strange to him alike; but every word was heard and remembered: and to a thoughtful, inquiring mind, an end that looked so holy must have seemed a wonder, if the dying man were indeed a profane blasphemer. Surely a lesson like that ought not to be lost upon us. If God has taught us by His Spirit, without going out of our way, or setting ourselves up to be preachers, we may wonderfully help the ignorant and ungodly to understand what living Christianity is. We may expound to them what can hardly be learnt from books, by the persuasive eloquence of a holy, consistent example. In the occupations and engagements of common life we may be testifying for God and preaching Christ, as St. Stephen was when he died. It is a blessed service rendered to the cause of truth and righteousness if we stand the test, and because God helped us to act faithfully, and speak wisely, the man shall trust us more henceforth, and receive our message more willingly. On the other hand, fearful mischief will ensue if the life contradict the lips. Parents, masters, remember this, and all of you who become teachers of others in any sense. Numbers, who are dull-sighted in other things, are sharp-sighted to detect the flaw when there is manifest inconsistency between words and deeds. (J. Hampden Gurney, M. A.)
Stephen and Saul
The Holy Spirit records Stephens martyrdom, but does not enter into details of his sufferings and death, as uninspired recorders would have been so apt to do. The object of the Holy Ghost is not to indulge curiosity nor to harrow the feelings, but to instruct and move to imitation. Note here–
I. A suggested contrast. Stephen and Saul.
1. These were both highly earnest, fearless men, yet at this time they were wide as the poles asunder.
(1) Stephen spiritual; giving in his address great prominence to the spiritual nature of religion, and the comparative insignificance of its externals (verses 48-50). Saul superstitious, worshipping form and ritual, full of reverence for the temple and the priests, and so forth.
(2) Stephen, a humble believer in the Lord Jesus, saved by faith alone. Saul, a self-righteous Pharisee, as proud as he could live.
(3) Stephen, defending and vindicating the gospel of Jesus. Saul, giving his countenance, his vote, his assistance in the persecution of the servant of the Lord Christ.
2. Inquire if a Saul is now present. Call him forth by name.
(1) Have you been a consenting party to the persecution of good men? You do not object to making Christian men the theme of ridicule. You smile when you hear such ridicule.
(2) By your indecision in religion you aid and abet the adversary. In these ways the witnesses lay down their clothes at your feet, and you are their accomplice.
II. A singular introduction to true religion. Many have been brought to God by means somewhat similar. The young man, whose name was Saul, met with the religion of Jesus in the person of Stephen, and thus he saw it with the following surroundings–
1. The vision of a shining face.
2. The hearing of a noble discourse.
3. The sight of a triumphant death.
These did not convert Saul, but they made it harder for him to be unconverted, and were, no doubt, in after days thought of by him. Let us so introduce religion to men, that the memory of its introduction may be worth their retaining.
III. A remarkable instance of the Lords care for His Church. The apostolical succession was preserved in the Church,
1. Stephens death was a terrible blow to the cause; but at that moment his successor was close at hand.
2. That successor was in the ranks of the enemy.
3. That successor was far greater than the martyr, Stephen, himself. There is no fear for the Church: her greatest champions, though as yet concealed among her enemies, will be called in due time. The death of her best advocates may assist in the conversion of others.
IV. A gracious memorial of repented sin. Did not Paul give Luke this information concerning himself, and cause it to be recorded in the Acts of the Apostles? It was well for Paul to remember his sin before conversion. It will be well for us to remember ours.
1. To create and renew feelings of humility.
2. To inflame love and zeal.
3. To deepen our love to the doctrines of sovereign grace.
4. To make us hopeful and zealous for others.
Let dying Stephen be cheered by the hope of young Sauls salvation. Let wicked young Saul repent of his wrong to Stephen. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 58. Cast him out of the city, and stoned him] They did not however wait for any sentence to be pronounced upon him; it seems they were determined to stone him first, and then prove, after it had been done, that it was done justly. For the manner of stoning among the Jews, See Clarke on Le 24:23.
The witnesses laid down their clothes] To illustrate this whole transaction, see the observations at the end of this chapter. See Clarke on Ac 7:60
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Cast him out of the city; that the city might not be polluted with his blasphemy.
Stoned him; this punishment was appointed for such as seduced them to the worship of false gods, Deu 13:6,10; and though all power of capital punishment was taken from them, as they themselves confess, Joh 18:31, yet what will not popular rage attempt?
The witnesses; who were by the law to cast the first stones, Deu 17:7, whereby the witnesses, if they had not testified true, did take upon themselves the guilt of the blood that was spilt, and freed the people, who only followed them in the execution.
Laid down their clothes; their upper garments, that they might carry and cast down the heavier stones.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
58. cast him out of thecityaccording to Lev 24:14;Num 15:35; 1Ki 21:13;and see Heb 13:12.
and stoned“proceededto stone” him. The actual stoning is recorded in Ac7:59.
and the witnesseswhosehands were to be first upon the criminal (De17:7).
laid down their clothestheirloose outer garments, to have them taken charge of.
at a young man’s feet whosename was SaulHow thrilling is this our first introduction toone to whom Christianitywhether as developed in the New Testamentor as established in the worldowes more perhaps than to all theother apostles together! Here he is, having perhaps already a seat inthe Sanhedrim, some thirty years of age, in the thick of thistumultuous murder of a distinguished witness for Christ, not only”consenting unto his death” (Ac8:1), but doing his own part of the dark deed.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And cast him out of the city,…. Of Jerusalem; for the place of stoning was without the city. The process, when regular, according to the sentence of the court, was after this manner p;
“judgment being finished, (or the trial over,) they brought him out (the person condemned) to stone him; the place of stoning was without the sanhedrim, as it is said, Le 24:14 “bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp”, when he was ten cubits distant from the place of stoning, they order him to confess and when four cubits from it, they take off his garments–the place of stoning was twice a man’s height.”
And elsewhere q it is said, that the place of stoning was without three camps (the camp of the Shekinah, the camp of the Levites, and the camp of the Israelites): upon which the gloss has these words;
“the court is the camp of the Shekinah, and the mountain of the house the camp of the Levites, and every city the camp of the Israelites; and in the sanhedrim in every city, the place of stoning was without the city like to Jerusalem.”
And these men, though transported with rage and fury, yet were so far mindful of rule, as to have him out of the city before they stoned him:
and they stoned him; which was done after this manner, when in form r:
“the wise men say, a man was stoned naked, but not a woman; and there was a place four cubits from the house of stoning, where they plucked off his clothes, only they covered his nakedness before. The place of stoning was two men’s heights, and there he went up with his hands bound, and one of the witnesses thrust him on his loins, that he might fall upon the earth; and if he died not at that push, the witnesses lifted up a stone, which lay there, the weight of two men, and one cast it with all his strength upon him; and if he died not, he was stoned by all Israel.”
And the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul; for the witnesses, according to the above account, were first concerned in the stoning; and this was agreeably to the rule in De 17:7 and which they seem to have observed amidst all their hurry and fury: and that they might perform their work with more ease and expedition, they plucked off their upper garments, and committed them to the care of Saul of Tarsus; who was now at Jerusalem, and belonged to the synagogue of the Cilicians, that disputed with Stephen, and suborned false witnesses against him. He is called a young man; not that he was properly a youth, for he must be thirty years of age, or more; since about thirty years after this he calls himself Paul the aged, Phm 1:9 when he must be at least sixty years of age, if not more; besides, Ananias calls him a “man”, Ac 9:13 nor would the high priests have given letters to a mere youth, investing him with so much power and authority as they did; but he is so called, because he was in the prime of his days, hale, strong, and active. The learned Alting has taken a great deal of pains to show, that this Saul, who was afterwards Paul the apostle, is the same with Samuel the little, who is frequently mentioned in the Talmud; he living at this time, and being a disciple of Rabban Gamaliel, and a bitter enemy of the heretics, or Christians; and who, at the instigation of his master, composed a prayer against them; and his name and character agreeing with him: but it is not likely that the Jews would have retained so high an opinion of him to the last, had he been the same person: for they say s,
“that as the elders were sitting in Jabneh, Bath Kol came forth, and said, there is one among you fit to have the Holy Ghost, or the Shekinah, dwell upon him; and they set their eyes on Samuel the little; and when he died, they said, ah the holy, ah the meek disciple of Hillell!”
p Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 6. sect. 1, 2, 3, 4. q T. Bab Sanhedrin, fol. 42. 2. r Moses Kotsensis Mitzvot Tora, pr. Affirm. 99. Vid. Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 6. sect. 4. & Maimon. Hilchot Sanhedrin, c. 15. sect. 1. s Shilo, l. 4. c. 26, 27, 28.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Stoned. According to the Rabbis, the scaffold to which the criminal was to be led, with his hands bound, was to be twice the size of a man. One of the witnesses was to smite him with a stone upon the breast, so as to throw him down. If he were not killed, the second witness was to throw another stone at him. Then, if he were yet alive, all the people were to stone him until he was dead. The body was then to be suspended till sunset.
A young man [] . Which, however, gives no indication of his age, since it is applied up to the age of forty – five. Thirty years after Stephen ‘s martyrdom, Paul speaks of himself as the aged (Phl 1:9).
Saul. The first mention of the apostle to the Gentiles.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “And cast him out of the city,” (kai ekbalontes ekso tes poleos) “And casting him out (out of the council) and out of the city of Jerusalem,” as they had done the Lord, so that they might legally stone him to death, and that the temple and city be not defiled, Lev 24:14; Deu 13:6-10; Heb 13:2.
2) “And stoned him:” (elithoboloun) “They (the Jews) stoned him (Stephen),” as they once cast Jesus out of Nazareth for the purpose of killing Him, Luk 4:29. This was the general mode of execution among the Jews.
3) “And the witnesses laid down their clothes,” (kai hoi martures apethento ta himatia auton) “And the witnesses put off (took off) their garments,” that would hinder them from throwing stones, to perform their cruel task, as witnesses against him, Deu 17:7; Joh 8:7.
4) “At a young man’s feet,” (para tous podas neaniou) “Alongside (at) the feet of a young man,” for his care of their garments, as they later stoned Stephen until he was dead. The term “young man” (neaniou) was applied to males 24 to 40 years of age, Act 26:10.
5) “Whose name was Saul,” (kaloumenou Saulou) “Who was named (called) or known as Saul,” of Tarsus.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
58. They stoned. God had appointed this kind of punishment in the law for false prophets, as it is written in the 13th chapter of Deuteronomy; but God doth also define there who ought to be reckoned in that number; to wit, he which doth attempt to bring the people unto strange gods; therefore the stoning of Stephen was both unjust and also wicked, because he was unjustly condemned; so that the martyrs of Christ must suffer like punishment with the wicked. It is the cause alone which maketh the difference; but this difference is so highly esteemed before God and his angels, that the rebukes of the martyrs (480) do far excel all glory of the world. Yet here may a question be moved, How it was lawful for the Jews to stone Stephen, who had not the government in their hands? For in Christ’s cause they answer, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death. I answer, that they did this violently and in an uproar. And whereas the president did not punish this wickedness, it may be that he winked at many things, (481) lest they should bring that hatred upon his own head which they bare against the name of Christ. We see that the Roman presidents did chiefly wink at the civil discords of that nation, even of set purpose; that when one of them had murdered another, (482) they might the sooner be overcome afterward.
(480) “ Martyrum probra,” the ignominy.
(481) “ In populo turbulento et prope indomito,” in a turbulent and almost untameable people, omitted.
(482) “ Ut mutuo confecti,” that having mutually destroyed each other.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
18.
OUTSIDE THE CITY WALL. Act. 7:58-60.
58
and they cast him out of the city, and stoned him; and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul,
59
And they stoned Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
60
And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
Act. 7:58-60 As full of rage as were these men, they would not break the tradition of the elders and stone a man inside the city gates. Stephen was cast out of the city, probably dragged hastily out by the very ones who sat as his judges. It was also a law that the witnesses against the man were to be the first to cast the stones at the condemned. The false witnesses surely took upon their hearts and souls a weighty responsibility when they accepted money to give a false testimony against this man.
Here outside the city wall these men must lay aside their outer garments and pick up stones to be the executioners of this innocent man.
In this account we have the first mention of Saul. The garments of the witnesses were laid at his feet. Whether he was a member of the Sanhedrin or just an observer we have no way of knowing. We do know that he was witnessing the death of Stephen with approval (Act. 8:4). It is difficult to find words to tell of the tragic, yet victorious death of this gallant young man. While the stones tore his flesh and bruised and broke his body, he cried out in imitation of his Master, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge, and Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
235.
What two customs were observed in the stoning of Stephen?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(58) And stoned him.Literally, were stoning him. The verb is repeated in Act. 7:59, as if to show that the shower of stones went on even during the martyrs prayers.
The witnesses laid down their clothes.The Law required, as if to impress on witnesses their solemn responsibility, that they should be the first, if the accused were condemned to death, to take part in his execution (Deu. 17:7). Our Lord, it will be remembered, had applied the rule in the case of the woman taken in adultery (Joh. 8:7). The loose, flowing cloak, which was worn as an outer garment, would have impeded the free action of their arms, and had therefore to be laid on one side.
A young mans feet, whose name was Saul.As defined by Philo, on the authority of medical writers, the term thus used extended from twenty-one to twenty-eight years of age. Looking to the prominent position taken by Saul in this matter, and to his description of himself as Paul the aged, A.D. 64 (Phm. 1:9), it will be safe to assume that he had nearly attained the later limit. It will be convenient on this his first appearance to put together the chief facts of his life up to this period. He was of the tribe of Benjamin (Php. 3:5), and had been named after its great hero-king. His father had obtained, perhaps as a freed-man, after a time of slavery at Rome, the privilege of Roman citizenship (Act. 22:28). He had settled at Tarsus. The absence of any reference to him or to the Apostles mother makes it probable that they were both dead before he appears on the scene. The son of a married sister is found, apparently residing in Jerusalem, in Act. 23:16. At Tarsus the boy would probably receive a two-fold education, instructed at home in the Holy Scriptures daily, and in Greek literature and philosophy in the schools for which the city was famous. Traces of the knowledge thus acquired are found in his quotations from the Cilician poet Aratus (see Note on Act. 17:28), Menander (see 1Co. 15:33), Epimenides (see Tit. 1:12), and the Festival Hymn quoted by him at Lystra (see Note on Act. 14:17). At twelve he would become a child of the Law (see Note on Luk. 2:42); and showing great devotion to the studies which thus opened on him, was probably dedicated by his parents to the calling of a scribe. This, however, did not involve the abandonment of secular occupation; and after some years spent in Jerusalem, studying under Gamaliel (we may say, with almost absolute certainty, before the commencement of our Lords ministry), he returned to his native city, and became a tent-maker (Act. 18:3)a manufacturer, i.e., of the coarse goats hair sail-cloth, for which Cilicia was famous. There seems reason to believe that somewhere about this time he became acquainted with Barnabas (see Note on Act. 4:36), and possibly also with St. Luke (see Note on Act. 13:1; Act. 16:10, and Introduction to St. Lukes Gospel). In the interval between the Ascension and the appointment of the Seven Deacons, he came up to Jerusalem. He finds a new sect, as it would seem, added to the threethe Pharisees, Sadducees, Esseneswhom he had known before. In some respects their teaching is such as Hillel, the grandfather of Gamaliel, would have approved. They pray and fast, and give alms. They proclaim a resurrection and a judgment after death. They connect that proclamation with the belief that a teacher of Nazareth, who had died a malefactors death, was the long-expected Messiah. What is he to think of these startling claims? What were others thinking? Gamaliel, his master, counselled caution and a policy of expectation (Act. 5:35-39); Barnabas, his early friend, had joined the new society (Act. 4:36); Andronicus and Junias, his kinsmen, had followed the example (Rom. 16:7). But Saul had a zeal which was more fiery than theirs. He was a Pharisee after the straitest sect, and the teaching of Stephen, more conspicuously, it would seem, than that of Peter, was a protest against Pharisaism, and told of its coming downfall. He, therefore, could make no truce with that teaching, and burst impatiently from the cautions of his master. For good or for evil, he was at least thorough, and had the courage of his convictions. Even the face as of an angel and the words of ecstatic joy did but kindle in him the fire of a burning indignation.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
58. Out of the city In accordance with the law that malefactors should not be executed within the city. Tradition as early as the fifteenth century has given the name of St. Stephen to the gate through which it supposes him to have passed, opening over the Kedron toward Gethsemane. Earlier tradition designated the Damascus Gate, opening on the north to the road that leads to the city of that name. To a spectator on any northeastern height, the crowd through either gate would have been visible.
Witnesses According to Jewish law, the witnesses who slay the man by their testimony must execute him with their hands. This was held as a check upon false accusation.
Laid down their clothes Putting off their loose garments in order that they might perform the arduous task of hurling the huge stones, as prescribed for blasphemy.
Saul The first introduction of the name of one hereafter to be a most illustrious defender of the cause for which Stephen dies.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.’
The rules for stoning were observed so scrupulously that a mature young man called Saul, who had not been a witness, demonstrated his oneness with the sentence by guarding the coats of the witnesses as they carried out the stoning, because he knew that the Law said that he could not be the first to participate because he was not a witness. But he was an angry and vengeful young man, full of hate for Stephen, and wanted to show as far as he could that he thought that Stephen deserved everything that he received.
However, he stood aside from the stoning, even when the witnesses had commenced it (when he could have joined in – Deu 17:7). This suggests that he is mentioned, not so much because he guarded the coats but because of what that indicated. It indicated a position of some authority, and direct identification with the deed even though he did not particpate. While he would not himself cast stones, possibly because he felt that it was not the position of a would be Rabbi to do so unless he were a witness, he was very much one with those who did it. Here we have the picture of the implacable enemy.
There is an implacableness about him that is unnerving. He stood there, we may imagine with his arms folded, not only surveying the scene but giving it his approval. All knew him for what he was, for he was a disciple of Rabban Gamaliel. And already his mind was probably determining that he would seek approval for the plan that was formulating in his brain and hunt down more of these blasphemers and punish them. (We know him too, for we are shortly to learn more of his history when he becomes Paul. He never forgot this moment. It burned its way into his soul – see Act 22:20).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
58 And cast him out of the city, and stoned him : and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.
Ver. 58. And stoned him ] As a blasphemer. Our proto-martyr in Queen Mary’s days was Mr Rogers; as in Germany Henry and John, two Augustine monks, were the first that were burnt for Lutheranism. (Scultet. Annul.) They suffered at Brussels, A.D. 1523, and sang in the flames. He was a bold Israelite that first set foot into the Red Sea, saith one. These proto-martyrs shall be renowned to all posterity.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
58. . .] See Lev 24:14 . ‘Locus lapidationis erat extra urbem: omnes enim civitates muris cinct paritatem habent ad castra Israelis.’ Babyl. Sanhedr. ad loc. (Meyer.) Cf. also Heb 13:12-13 .
] they stoned him : an anticipation of the fact, the details of which follow: not, ‘ they prepared to stone him :’ non ‘jam in itinere ad supplicii locum petulanter eum lapidibus lacessebant’ (Heinr.): nor need we conjecture with Markland. Stoning was the punishment of blaspheming, Lev 24:16 . The question whether this was a legal proceeding on sentence, or a tumultuary one, is not easy to answer. It would appear from Joh 18:31 , that the Jews had not legally the power of putting any man to death (see note there). Certainly, from the narrative before us, and from the fact of a bloody persecution having taken place soon after it, it seems that the Jews did, by connivance of, or in the absence of the Procurator, administer summary punishments of this kind. But here no sentence is recorded: and perhaps the very violence and zelotic character of the execution might constitute it, not an encroachment on the power of the Procurator, as it would have been if strictly in form of law, but a mere outbreak, and as such it might be allowed to pass unnoticed. That they observed the forms of their own law , in the place and manner of the stoning, is no objection to this view.
] See ref. [where it is enacted that the hands of the witnesses were to be first on the criminal to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people]. They disencumbered themselves of their loose outer garments, . Theophyl.
] to keep them.
Such notices are deeply interesting, when we recollect by whom they were in all probability carefully inserted. See ch. Act 22:19-20 , and note on ch. Act 26:10 : from which it appears that Saul can certainly not have been less than thirty at this time. He was a member of the Sanhedrim, and soon after was despatched on an important mission with their authority.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Act 7:58 . : according to the law, Lev 24:14 , so in Luk 4:29 , our Lord is cast out of Nazareth to be stoned. : as guilty of blasphemy. St. Stephen’s closing remarks were in the eyes of his judges a justification of the charge; imperf. as in Act 7:59 , see note below. The judicial forms were evidently observed, at least to some extent (Weiss attributes the introduction of the witnesses to a reviser), and whilst the scene was a tumultuous one, it was quite possible that it was not wholly bereft of judicial appearances. : whose part it was to throw the first stone, cf. Deu 17:7 (Joh 8:7 ). : to perform their cruel task with greater ease and freedom, cf. Act 22:20 . : only used in Acts, where it occurs three or four times, Act 20:9 , Act 23:17 (18), several times in LXX. It has been thought (Wendt) that the term could not have been used of Saul if he had been married, or if he was at this time a widower, but if might be used to denote any man of an age between twenty-four and forty, like Latin adulescens and the Hebrew , Gen 41:12 (Grimm-Thayer), Saul might be so described. Josephus applies the term to Agrippa I. when he was at least forty. Jos., Ant. , xviii., 6, 7. See further on Act 26:10 . : “If the Acts are the composition of a second-century writer to whom Paul was only a name, then the introduction of this silent figure in such a scene is a masterpiece of dramatic invention” (Page, Acts , Introd., xxxi.); for the name see below on Act 13:9 , and also on its genuineness, Zahn, Einleitung in das N. T. , ii., 49, as against Krenkel. Of Saul’s earlier life we gather something from his own personal notices, see notes on Act 22:3 , Act 23:6 , Act 24:14 , Act 26:4 , and cf. Act 9:13 . He was a Hebrew sprung from Hebrews, Phi 3:5 ; he was a Roman citizen, and not only so, but a Tarsian, a citizen of no mean city; cf. for the two citizenships, Act 21:39 (Act 9:11 ) and Act 22:27 , “Citizenship,” Hastings’ B.D.; Zahn, u. s. , p. 48; Ramsay, St. Paul , p. 30. Zahn, u. s. , pp. 35, 49, maintains that Saul’s family had only recently settled in Tarsus (but see Ramsay, u. s. ), and defends the tradition that his parents had come there from Gischala, their son being born to them in Tarsus. On Saul’s family and means see notes on Act 23:16 and Act 24:26 . But whatever his Roman and Tarsian citizenship may have contributed to his mental development, St. Paul’s own words clearly lead us to attach the highest and most significant influence to the Jewish side of his nature and character. Paul’s Pharisaism was the result not only of his training under Gamaliel, but also of the inheritance which he claimed from his father and his ancestors (Act 23:6 , not , cf. Gal 1:14 ). His early years were passed away from Jerusalem, Act 26:4 (the force of (R.V.) and the expression , Zahn, u. s. , p. 48), but his home-training could not have been neglected ( cf. 2Ti 1:3 ), and when he went up to the Holy City at an early stage to study under Gamaliel (Act 22:3 , , on its force see Sabatier L’Aptre Paul , p. 30) he “lived a Pharisee,” and nothing else than his well-known zeal is needed to account for his selection to his dreadful and solemn office at St. Stephen’s martyrdom. As a Pharisee he had been “a separated one,” and had borne the name with pride, not suspecting that a day was at hand when he would speak of himself as in a far higher and fuller sense, Rom 1:1 , Gal 1:15 (Zahn, u. s. , p. 48); as a Pharisee he was “separated from all filthiness of heathenism” around (Nivdal), but he was to learn that the Christian life was that of the true “Chasid,” and that in contrast to all Pharisaic legalism and externalism there was a cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, a perfecting holiness in the fear of God God Who chooseth before all temples the upright heart and pure-(Edersheim, Jewish Social Life , p. 231). On the question whether St. Paul ever saw our Lord in the flesh, see Keim, Geschichte Jesu , i., 35, 36, and references, and for the views of more recent writers, Witness of the Epistles (Longmans), chaps. i. and ii.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Acts
THE YOUNG SAUL AND THE AGED PAUL 1
Act 7:58
A far greater difference than that which was measured by years separated the young Saul from the aged Paul. By years, indeed, the difference was, perhaps, not so great as the words might suggest, for Jewish usage extended the term of youth farther than we do, and began age sooner. No doubt, too, Paul’s life had aged him fast, and probably there were not thirty years between the two periods. But the difference between him and himself at the beginning and the end of his career was a gulf; and his life was not evolution, but revolution.
At the beginning you see a brilliant young Pharisee, Gamaliel’s promising pupil, advanced above many who were his equals in his own religion, as he says himself; living after its straitest sect, and eager to have the smallest part in what seemed to him the righteous slaying of one of the followers of the blaspheming Nazarene. At the end he was himself one of these followers. He had cast off, as folly, the wisdom which took him so much pains to acquire. He had turned his back upon all the brilliant prospects of distinction which were opening to him. He had broken with countrymen and kindred. And what had he made of it? He had been persecuted, hunted, assailed by every weapon that his old companions could fashion or wield; he is a solitary man, laden with many cares, and accustomed to look perils and death in the face; he is a prisoner, and in a year or two more he will be a martyr. If he were an apostate and a renegade, it was not for what he could get by it.
What made the change? The vision of Jesus Christ. If we think of the transformation on Saul, its causes and its outcome, we shall get lessons which I would fain press upon your hearts now. Do you wonder that I would urge on you just such a life as that of this man as your highest good?
I. I would note, then, first, that faith in Jesus Christ will transform and ennoble any life.
That initial impulse operated through all the rest of his career. Hearken to him: ‘I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. To me to live is Christ. Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Living or dying, we are the Lord’s.’ ‘We labour that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of Him.’ The transforming agency was the vision of Christ, and the bowing of the man’s whole nature before the seen Saviour.
Need I recall to you how noble a life issued from that fountain? I am sure that I need do no more than mention in a word or two the wondrous activity, flashing like a flame of fire from East to West, and everywhere kindling answering flames, the noble self-oblivion, the continual communion with God and the Unseen, and all the other great virtues and nobleness which came from such sources as these. I need only, I am sure, remind you of them, and draw this lesson, that the secret of a transforming and noble life is to be found in faith in Jesus Christ. The vision that changed Paul is as available for you and me. For it is all a mistake to suppose that the essence of it is the miraculous appearance that flashed upon the Apostle’s eyes. He speaks of it himself, in one of his letters, in other language, when he says, ‘It pleased God to reveal His Son in me.’ And that revelation in all its fulness, in all its sweetness, in all its transforming and ennobling power, is offered to every one of us. For the eye of faith is no less gifted with the power of direct and certain vision-yea! is even more gifted with this-than is the eye of sense. ‘If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.’ Christ is revealed to each one of us as really, as veritably, and the revelation may become as strong an impulse and motive in our lives as ever it was to the Apostle on the Damascus road. What is wanted is not revelation, but the bowed will-not the heavenly vision, but obedience to the vision. I suppose that most of you think that you believe all that about Jesus Christ, which transformed Gamaliel’s pupil into Christ’s disciple. And what has it done for you? In many cases, nothing. Be sure of this, dear young friends, that the shortest way to a life adorned with all grace, with all nobility, fragrant with all goodness, and permanent as that life which does the will of God must clearly be, is this, to bow before the seen Christ, seen in His word, and speaking to your hearts, and to take His yoke and carry His burden. Then you will build upon what will stand, and make your days noble and your lives stable. If you build on anything else, the structure will come down with a crash some day, and bury you in its ruins. Surely it is better to learn the worthlessness of a non-Christian life, in the light of His merciful face, when there is yet time to change our course, than to see it by the fierce light of the great White Throne set for judgment. We must each of us learn it here or there.
II. Faith in Christ will make a joyful life, whatever its circumstances.
That was one side of it. Was that all? This man had that within him which enabled him to triumph over all trials. There is nothing more remarkable about him than the undaunted courage, the unimpaired elasticity of spirit, the buoyancy of gladness, which bore him high upon the waves of the troubled sea in which he had to swim. If ever there was a man that had a bright light burning within him, in the deepest darkness, it was that little weather-beaten Jew, whose ‘bodily presence was weak, and his speech contemptible.’ And what was it that made him master of circumstances, and enabled him to keep sunshine in his heart when winter bound all the world around him? What made this bird sing in a darkened cage? One thing-the continual presence, consciously with Him by faith, of that Christ who had revolutionised his life, and who continued to bless and to gladden it. I have quoted his description of his external condition. Let me quote two or three words that indicate how he took all that sea of troubles and of sorrows that poured its waves and its billows over him. ‘In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.’ ‘As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation aboundeth also by Christ.’ ‘For which cause we faint not, but though our outward man perish, yet our inward man is renewed day by day.’ ‘Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.’ ‘I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.’ ‘As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all things.’
There is the secret of blessedness, my friends; there is the fountain of perpetual joy. Cling to Christ, set His will on the throne of your hearts, give the reins of your life and of your character into His keeping, and nothing ‘that is at enmity with joy’ can either ‘abolish or destroy’ the calm blessedness of your spirits.
You will have much to suffer; you will have something to give up. Your life may look, to men whose tastes have been vulgarised by the glaring brightnesses of this vulgar world, but grey and sombre, but it will have in it the calm abiding blessedness which is more than joy, and is diviner and more precious than the tumultuous transports of gratified sense or successful ambition. Christ is peace, and He gives His peace to us; and then He gives a joy which does not break but enhances peace. We are all tempted to look for our gladness in creatures, each of which satisfies but a part of our desire. But no man can be truly blessed who has to find many contributories to make up his blessedness. That which makes us rich must be, not a multitude of precious stones, howsoever precious they may be, but one Pearl of great price; the one Christ who is our only joy. And He says to us that He gives us Himself, if we behold Him and bow to Him, that His joy might remain in us, and that our joy might be full, while all other gladnesses are partial and transitory. Faith in Christ makes life blessed. The writer of Ecclesiastes asked the question which the world has been asking ever since: ‘Who knoweth what is good for a man in this life, all the days of this vain life which he passeth as a shadow?’ You young people are asking, ‘Who will show us any good?’ Here is the answer-Faith in Christ and obedience to Him; that is the good part which no man taketh from us. Dear young friend, have you made it yours?
III. Faith in Christ produces a life which bears being looked back upon.
What did Paul say? ‘I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.’ He was not self-righteous; but it is possible to have lived a life which, as the world begins to fade, vindicates itself as having been absolutely right in its main trend, and to feel that the dawning light of Eternity confirms the choice that we made. And I pray you to ask yourselves, ‘Is my life of that sort?’ How much of it would bear the scrutiny which will have to come, and which in Paul’s case was so quiet and calm? He had had a stormy day, many a thundercloud had darkened the sky, many a tempest had swept across the plain; but now, as the evening draws on, the whole West is filled with a calm amber light, and all across the plain, right away to the grey East, he sees that he has been led by, and has been willing to walk in, the right way to the ‘City of habitation.’ Would that be your experience if the last moment came now?
There will be, for the best of us, much sense of failure and shortcoming when we look back on our lives. But whilst some of us will have to say, ‘I have played the fool and erred exceedingly,’ it is possible for each of us to lay himself down in peace and sleep, awaiting a glorious rising again and a crown of righteousness.
Dear young friends, it is for you to choose whether your past, when you summon it up before you, will look like a wasted wilderness, or like a garden of the Lord. And though, as I have said, there will always be much sense of failure and shortcoming, yet that need not disturb the calm retrospect; for whilst memory sees the sins, faith can grasp the Saviour, and quietly take leave of life, saying, ‘I know in whom I have believed, and that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day.’
So I press upon you all this one truth, that faith in Jesus Christ will transform, will ennoble, will make joyous your lives whilst you live, and will give you a quiet heart in the retrospect when you come to die. Begin right, dear young friends. You will never find it so easy to take any decisive step, and most of all this chiefest step, as you do to-day. You will get lean and less flexible as you get older. You will get set in your ways. Habits will twine their tendrils round you, and hinder your free movement. The truth of the Gospel will become commonplace by familiarity. Associations and companions will have more and more power over you; and you will be stiffened as an old tree-trunk is stiffened. You cannot count on to-morrow; be wise to-day. Begin this year aright. Why should you not now see the Christ and welcome Him? I pray that every one of us may behold Him and fall before Him with the cry, ‘Lord! what wilt Thou have me to do?’
1 To the young.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
out of = without. Greek. exo. Compare Lev 24:14. The charge was blasphemy, as in the case of his Master. Compare Heb 13:13.
stoned him = kept easting stones at him. Greek. lithoboleo. Compare Mar 12:4.
witnesses. See note on Act 1:8. In accordance with the law they had to cast the first stone (Deu 17:7).
young man. Greek. neanias. Only here, Act 20:9; Act 23:17, Act 23:18, Act 23:22. He was probably about thirty-three years of age. Neanias was the next period to neaniskos (App-108. x), but the limits are very uncertain.
Saul. Greek. Saulos. Compare Act 22:20.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
58. . .] See Lev 24:14. Locus lapidationis erat extra urbem: omnes enim civitates muris cinct paritatem habent ad castra Israelis. Babyl. Sanhedr. ad loc. (Meyer.) Cf. also Heb 13:12-13.
] they stoned him: an anticipation of the fact, the details of which follow: not, they prepared to stone him: non jam in itinere ad supplicii locum petulanter eum lapidibus lacessebant (Heinr.): nor need we conjecture with Markland. Stoning was the punishment of blaspheming, Lev 24:16. The question whether this was a legal proceeding on sentence, or a tumultuary one, is not easy to answer. It would appear from Joh 18:31, that the Jews had not legally the power of putting any man to death (see note there). Certainly, from the narrative before us, and from the fact of a bloody persecution having taken place soon after it, it seems that the Jews did, by connivance of, or in the absence of the Procurator, administer summary punishments of this kind. But here no sentence is recorded: and perhaps the very violence and zelotic character of the execution might constitute it, not an encroachment on the power of the Procurator, as it would have been if strictly in form of law, but a mere outbreak, and as such it might be allowed to pass unnoticed. That they observed the forms of their own law, in the place and manner of the stoning, is no objection to this view.
] See ref. [where it is enacted that the hands of the witnesses were to be first on the criminal to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people]. They disencumbered themselves of their loose outer garments, . Theophyl.
] to keep them.
Such notices are deeply interesting, when we recollect by whom they were in all probability carefully inserted. See ch. Act 22:19-20, and note on ch. Act 26:10 :-from which it appears that Saul can certainly not have been less than thirty at this time. He was a member of the Sanhedrim, and soon after was despatched on an important mission with their authority.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Act 7:58. , out of the city) They regard Stephen as having been injurious to the city, and therefore unworthy to die in it.-, they laid down) in order to be the less encumbered.-, of a young man) Saul already at that time seems to have held some degree of dignity among them. It was, however, so ordered by Providence, that he did not raise his hand against the martyr: ch. Act 26:10.- Saul) He was perhaps of the progeny of King Saul.-Valla. At least they were of the same tribe.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
cast: Num 15:35, 1Ki 21:13, Luk 4:29, Heb 13:12, Heb 13:13
stoned: Act 6:11, Lev 24:14-16, Joh 10:23-26
the witnesses: Act 6:13, Deu 13:9, Deu 13:10, Deu 17:7
their: Act 8:1, Act 9:1-19, Act 22:4, Act 22:20
Reciprocal: Lev 20:2 – the people 1Ki 12:18 – all Israel 2Ch 10:18 – stoned him 2Ch 24:21 – stoned him Psa 94:21 – condemn Mat 23:34 – ye Mat 27:31 – and led Mat 27:32 – as Joh 10:31 – General Joh 19:17 – went Act 8:3 – General Act 14:19 – having Act 21:30 – and they Act 26:10 – I also 2Co 11:25 – once Heb 11:37 – stoned
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
8
Act 7:58. The Jews told Pilate it was not lawful for them to put any man to death. That was true, but it was not the real motive for their plea that Pilate have Jesus slain. It did not prevent them from carrying out their murderous rage upon Stephen, who had not even been sentenced by any court, religious or secular. Witnesses. The law (Deu 17:7) required that the witnesses to a crime must be first in an execution. That is why Jesus said what he did to the men who had witnessed the sin of the woman (Joh 8:7). Laid down their clothes. When any manual action was to be done, it was the usual practice for the men to lay aside their loose outer garments. As a guard to protect them, they were placed in charge of someone standing by, and this was done by placing the garments at the feet of Saul, of wbcm we will hear much in later chapters.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Act 7:58. And cast him out of the city. By the law of Moses (Lev 24:14-16), these executions were to take place outside the camp. When the people had settled in the land of Canaan, each walled town was considered as representing the camp. For an example of this custom, see the account of the stoning of Naboth (1Ki 21:13).
And stoned him. The Talmudists mention four different modes of death awarded by the court of justicestoning, burning, slaying with the sword, strangulation. Of these, the first was deemed the most severe, and was the punishment of blasphemy. The way in which it was carried out was as follows:The culprit, pinioned and stripped of his clothes, ascended a scaffold erected (outside the city) twice the height of a man, whence one of the witnesses pushed him down, so that he fell with his face to the ground. If death ensued, there was no occasion for stoning; but if in the accused there still remained life, then the other witness flung a very large stone at his chest, and if after this the culprit was still not dead, the people pelted him with stones till life was extinct, thus conforming to the command in Deu 17:7.
At a young mans feet, whose name was Saul. This is the first time the famous Paul of Tarsus appears mixed up with the affairs of the Church of Christ. It was as the bitterest enemy of the new sect we first hear of him. As a prominent member, no doubt, of the Cilician synagogue (Act 6:9) in its disputations with Stephen, he had become acquainted with much of the teaching of the leading followers of Jesus, and, in common with other leaders of the Jewish schools of thought, was persuaded these new doctrines were most hostile to the ceremonial traditions and superstitious ritual taught and practised among the people. Hence his conduct in the martyrdom of Stephen. For a detailed account of the training and early associations of this great man, see chapter 2 of Conybeare and Howsons St. Paul.
He is, in this passage, styled a young man. This, however, must be understood with some reservation. Chrysostom states that at this period Paul was thirty-five years old, and this age is quite in accordance with the common way of speaking of a young man (juvenis). Gloag quotes Varro as calling a man young till the age of forty-five, and Dio Cassius speaking of Csar as a young man when about forty. Shortly after this time we find the Sanhedrim employing Saul as their chief agent in an important mission to Damascus. Such a work would scarcely have been entrusted to one still a young man in the ordinary acceptation of the word. Whether he was one of the Sanhedrim judges at this time is doubtful, but that he was elected a member soon after is sometimes inferred from Act 26:10.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
See notes on verse 54
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
Verse 58
Their clothes; that is, such as it was necessary to put off in order to leave the arms free. The throwing of the stones was to be commenced by the witnesses.–Saul; afterwards called Paul. This is the first mention of his name.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
7:58 And cast [him] out of the city, and stoned [him]: and the {b} witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.
(b) It was appointed by the Law that the witnesses should cast the first stones; De 17:7 .
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Chapter 1
THE TRAINING OF SAUL THE RABBI
Act 7:58; Act 22:3
THE appearance of St. Paul upon the stage of Christian history marks a period of new development and of more enlarged activity. The most casual reader of the Acts of the Apostles must see that a personality of vast power, force, individuality, has now entered the bounds of the Church, and that henceforth St. Paul, his teaching, methods, and actions, will throw all others into the shade. Modern German critics have seized upon this undoubted fact and made it the foundation on which they have built elaborate theories concerning St. Paul and the Acts of the Apostles. Some of them have made St. Paul the inventor of a new form of Christianity, more elaborate, artificial, and dogmatic than the simple religion of nature which, as they think, Jesus Christ taught. Others have seen in St. Paul the great rival and antagonist of St. Peter, and have seen in the Acts a deliberate attempt to reconcile the opposing factions of Peter and Paul by representing St. Pauls career as modelled upon that of Peter. These theories are, we believe, utterly groundless; but they show at the same time what an important event in early Church history St. Pauls conversion was, and how necessary a thorough comprehension of his life and training if we wish to understand the genesis of our holy religion.
Who and whence, then, was this enthusiastic man who is first introduced to our notice in connection with St. Stephens martyrdom? What can we glean from Scripture and from secular history concerning his earlier career? I am not going to attempt to do what Conybeare and Howson thirty years ago, or Archdeacon Farrar in later times, have executed with a wealth of learning and a profuseness of imagination which I could not pretend to possess. Even did I possess them it would be impossible, for want of space, to write such a biography of St. Paul as these authors have given to the public. Let us, however, strive to gather up such details of St. Pauls early life and training as the New Testament, illustrated by history, sets before us. Perhaps we shall find that more is told us than strikes the ordinary superficial reader. His parentage is known to us from St. Pauls own statement. His father and mother were Jews of the Dispersion, as the Jews scattered abroad amongst the Gentiles were usually called; they were residents at Tarsus in Cilicia, and by profession belonged to the Pharisees who then formed the more spiritual and earnest religious section of the Jewish people. We learn this from three passages. In his defence before the Council, recorded in Act 23:6, he tells us that he was “a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees.” There was no division in religious feeling between the parents. His home life and his earliest years knew nothing of religious jars and strife. Husband and wife were joined not only in the external bonds of marriage, but in the profounder union still of spiritual sentiment and hope, a memory which may have inspired a deeper meaning, begotten of personal experience in the warning delivered to the Corinthians, “Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers.” Of the history of his parents and ancestors we know practically nothing more for certain, but we can glean a little from other notices. St. Paul tells us that he belonged to a special division among the Jews, of which we have spoken a good deal in the former volume when dealing with St. Stephen. The Jews at this period were divided into Hebrews and Hellenists: that is, Hebrews who by preference and in their ordinary practice spoke the Hebrew tongue, and Hellenists who spoke Greek and adopted Greek civilisation and customs. St. Paul tells us in Php 3:5 that he was “of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews,” a statement which he substantially repeats in 2Co 11:22. Now it was almost an impossibility for a Jew of the Dispersion to belong to the Hebrews. His lot was cast in a foreign land, his business mixed him up with the surrounding pagans so that the use of the Greek language was an absolute necessity; while the universal practice of his fellow-countrymen in conforming themselves to Greek customs, Greek philosophy, and Greek civilisation rendered the position of one who would stand out for the old Jewish national ideas and habits a very trying and a very peculiar one. Here, however, comes in an ancient tradition, recorded by St. Jerome, which throws some light upon the difficulty. Scripture tells us that St. Paul was born at Tarsus. Our Lord in His conversation with Ananias in Act 9:2, calls him “Saul of Tarsus,” while again the Apostle himself in the twenty-second chapter describes himself as “a Jew born in Tarsus.” But then the question arises, how came his parents to Tarsus, and how, being in Tarsus, could they be described as Hebrews while all around and about them their countrymen were universally Hellenists? St. Jerome here steps in to help us. He relates, in his “Catalogue of Illustrious Writers,” that “Paul the Apostle, previously called Saul, being outside the number of the Twelve, was of the tribe of Benjamin and of the city of the Jewish Gischala; on the capture of which by the Romans he migrated with them to Tarsus.” Now this statement of Jerome, written four hundred years after the event, is clearly inaccurate in many respects, and plainly contradicts the Apostles own words that he was born in Tarsus.
But yet the story probably embodies a tradition substantially true, that St. Pauls parents were originally from Galilee. Galilee was intensely Hebrew. It was provincial, and the provinces are always far less affected by advance in thought or in religion than the towns, which are the chosen homes of innovation and of progress. Hellenism might flourish in Jerusalem, but in Galilee it would not be tolerated; and the tough, sturdy Galileans alone would have moral and religious grit enough to maintain the old Hebrew customs and language; even amid the abounding inducements to an opposite course which a great commercial centre like Tarsus held out. Assuredly our own experience affords many parallels illustrating the religious history of St. Pauls family. The Evangelical revival, the development of ritual in the Church of England, made their mark first of all in the towns, and did not affect the distant country districts till long after. The Presbyterianism of the Highlands is almost a different religion from the more enlightened and more cultured worship of Edinburgh and Glasgow. The Low Church and Orange developments of Ulster bring us back to the times of the last century, and seem passing strange to the citizens of London, Manchester, or Dublin, who first make their acquaintance in districts where obsolete ideas and cries still retain a power quite forgotten in the vast tide of life and thought which sways the great cities. And yet these rural backwaters, as we may call them, retain their influence, and show strong evidence of life even in the great cities; and so it is that even in London and Edinburgh and Glasgow and Dublin congregations continue to exist in their remoter districts and back streets where the prejudices and ideas of the country find full sway and exercise. The Presbyterianism of the Highlands and the Orangeism of Ulster will be sought in vain in fashionable churches, but in smaller assemblies they will be found exercising a sway and developing a life which will often astonish a superficial observer.
So it was doubtless in Tarsus. The Hebrews of Galilee would delight to separate themselves. They would look down upon the Hellenism of their fellow-countrymen as a sad falling away from ancient orthodoxy, but their declension would only add a keener zest to the zeal with which the descendants of the Hebrews of Gischala, even in the third and fourth generations, as it may have been, would retain the ancient customs and language of their Galilean forefathers.
St. Paul and his parents might seem to an outsider mere Hellenists, but their Galilean origin and training enabled them to retain the intenser Judaism which qualified the Apostle to describe himself as not only of the stock of Israel, but as a Hebrew of the Hebrews.
St. Pauls more immediate family connections have also some light thrown upon them in the New Testament. We learn, for instance, from Act 23:16, that he had a married sister, who probably lived at Jerusalem, and may have been even a convert to Christianity; for we are told that her son, having heard of the Jewish plot to murder the Apostle, at once reported it to St. Paul himself, who thereupon put his nephew into communication with the chief captain in whose custody he lay. While again, in Rom 16:7; Rom 16:11, he sends salutations to Andronicus, Junias, and Herodion, his kinsmen, who were residents in Rome; and in verse 21 {Rom 16:21} of the same chapter joins Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, his kinsmen, with himself in the Christian wishes for the welfare of the Roman Church, with which he closes the Epistle. It is said, indeed, that this may mean simply that these men were Jews, and that St. Paul regarded all Jews as his kinsmen. But this notion is excluded by the form of the twenty-first verse, where he first sends greetings from Timothy, whom St. Paul dearly loved, and who was a circumcised Jew, not a proselyte merely, but a true Jew, on his mothers side, at least; and then the Apostle proceeds to name the persons whom he designates his kinsmen. St. Paul evidently belonged to a family of some position in the Jewish world, whose ramifications were dispersed into very distant quarters of the empire. Every scrap of information which we can gain concerning the early life and associations of such a man is very precious; we may therefore point out that we can even get a glimpse of the friends and acquaintances of his earliest days. Barnabas the Levite was of Cyprus, an island only seventy miles distant from Tarsus, In all probability Barnabas may have resorted to the Jewish schools of Tarsus, or may have had some other connections with the Jewish colony of that city. Some such early friendship may have been the link which bound Paul to Barnabas and enabled the latter to stand sponsor for the newly converted Saul when the Jerusalem Church was yet naturally suspicious of him. “And when he was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: and they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the Apostles.” {Act 9:26-27} This ancient friendship enabled Barnabas to pursue the Apostle with those offices of consolation which his nascent faith demanded. He knew Sauls boyhood haunts, and therefore it is we read in Act 11:25 that “Barnabas went forth to Tarsus to seek for Saul” when a multitude of the Gentiles began to pour into the Church of Antioch. Barnabas knew his old friends vigorous, enthusiastic character, his genius, his power of adaptation, and therefore he brought him back to Antioch, where for a whole year they were joined in one holy brotherhood of devout and successful labour for their Master. The friendships and love of boyhood and of youth received a new consecration and were impressed with a loftier ideal from the example of Saul and of Barnabas.
Then again there are other friends of his youth to whom he refers. Timothys family lived at Lystra, and Lystra was directly connected with Tarsus by a great road which ran straight from Tarsus to Ephesus, offering means for that frequent communication in which the Jews ever delighted. St. Pauls earliest memories carried him back to the devout atmosphere of the pious Jewish family at Lystra, which he had long known, where Lois the grandmother and Eunice the mother had laid the foundations of that spiritual life which under St. Pauls own later teaching flourished so wondrously in the life of Timothy. Let us pass on, however, to a period of later development. St. Pauls earliest teaching at first was doubtless that of the home. As with Timothy so with the Apostle; his earliest religious teacher was doubtless his mother, who from his infancy imbued him with the great rudimentary truths which lie at the basis of both the Jewish and the Christian faith. His father too took his share. He was a Pharisee, and would be anxious to fulfil every jot and tittle of the law and every minute rule which the Jewish doctors had deduced by an attention and a subtlety concentrated for ages upon the text of the Old Testament. And one great doctor had laid down, “When a boy begins to speak, his father ought to talk with him in the sacred language, and to teach him the law”; a rule which would exactly fall in with his fathers natural inclination. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, though dwelling among Hellenists. He prided himself on speaking the Hebrew language alone, and he therefore would take the greatest pains that the future Apostles earliest teachings should be in that same sacred tongue, giving him from boyhood that command over Hebrew and its dialects which he afterwards turned to the best of uses.
At five years old Jewish children of parents like St. Pauls advanced to the direct study of the law under the guidance of some doctor, whose school they daily attended, as another rabbi had expressly enacted, “At five years old a boy should apply himself to the study of Holy Scripture.” Between five and thirteen Saul was certainly educated at Tarsus, during which period his whole attention was concentrated upon sacred learning and upon mechanical or industrial training. It was at this period of his life that St. Paul must have learned the trade of tent making, which during the last thirty years of his life stood him in such good stead, rendering him independent of all external aid so far as his bodily wants were concerned. A question has often been raised as to the social position of St. Pauls family; and people, bringing their Western ideas with them, have thought that the manual trade which he was taught betokened their humble rank. But this is quite a mistake. St. Pauls family must have occupied at least a fairly comfortable position, when they were able to send a member of their house to Jerusalem to be taught in the most celebrated rabbinical school of the time. But it was the law of that school – and a very useful law it was too – that every Jew, and especially every teacher, should possess a trade by which he might be supported did necessity call for it. It was a common proverb among the Jews at that time that “He who taught not his son a trade taught him to be a thief.” “It is incumbent on the father to circumcise his son, to redeem him, to teach him the law, and to teach him some occupation, for, as Rabbi Judah saith, whosoever teacheth not his son to do some work is as if he taught him robbery.” “Rabbin Gamaliel saith, He that hath a trade in his hand, to what is he like? He is like to a vineyard that is fenced.” Such was the authoritative teaching of the schools, and Jewish practice was in accordance therewith. Some of the most celebrated rabbis of that time were masters of a mechanical art or trade. The vice-president of the Sanhedrin was a merchant for four years, and then devoted himself to the study of the law. One rabbi was a shoemaker; Rabbi Juda, the great Cabalist, was a tailor; Rabbi Jose was brought up as a tanner; another rabbi as a baker, and yet another as a carpenter. And so as a preparation for the office and life work to which his father had destined him, St. Paul during his earlier years was taught one of the common trades of Tarsus, which consisted in making tents either out of the hair or the skin of the Angora goats which browsed over the hills of central Asia Minor. It was a trade that was common among Jews. Aquila and his wife Priscilla were tent-makers, and therefore St. Paul united himself to them and wrought at his trade in their company at Corinth. {Act 18:3} It has often been asserted that at this period of his life St. Paul must have studied Greek philosophy and literature, and men have pointed to his quotations from the Greek poets Aratus, Epimenides, and Menander, to prove the attention which the Apostle must have bestowed upon them. {See Act 17:28, Tit 1:12, 1Co 15:33} Tarsus was certainly one of the great universities of that age, ranking in the first place along with Athens and Alexandria. So great was its fame that the Roman emperors even were wont to go to Tarsus to look for rotors to instruct their sons. But Tarsus was at the very same time one of the most morally degraded spots within the bounds of the Roman world, and it is not at all likely that a strict Hebrew, a stern Pharisee, would have allowed his son to encounter the moral taint involved in freely mixing with such a degraded people and in the free study of a literature permeated through and through with sensuality and idolatry. St. Paul doubtless at this early period of his life gained that colloquial knowledge of Greek which was every day becoming more and more necessary for the ordinary purposes of secular life all over the Roman Empire, even in the most backward parts of Palestine. But it is not likely that his parents would have sanctioned his attendance at the lectures on philosophy and poetry delivered at the University of Tarsus, where he would have been initiated into all the abominations of paganism in a style most attractive to human nature.
At thirteen years of age, or thereabouts, young Saul, having now learned all the sacred knowledge which the local rabbis could teach, went up to Jerusalem just as our Lord did, to assume the full obligations of a Jew and to pursue his higher studies at the great Rabbinical University of Jerusalem. To put it in modern language, Saul went up to Jerusalem to be confirmed and admitted to the full privileges and complete obligations of the Levitical Law, and he also went up to enter college. St. Paul himself describes the period of life on which he now entered as that in which he was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. We have already touched in a prior volume upon the subject of Gamaliels history and his relation to Christianity, but here it is necessary to say something of him as a teacher, in which capacity he laid the foundations of modes of thought and reasoning, the influence of which moulded St. Pauls whole soul and can be traced all through St. Pauls Epistles.
Gamaliel is an undoubtedly historical personage. The introduction of him in the Acts of the Apostles is simply another instance of that marvellous historical accuracy which every fresh investigation and discovery show to be a distinguishing feature of this book. The Jewish Talmud was not committed to writing for more than four centuries after Gamaliels time, and yet it presents Gamaliel to us in exactly the same light as the inspired record does, telling us that “with the death of Gamaliel I the reverence for the Divine law ceased, and the observance of purity and abstinence departed.” Gamaliel came of a family distinguished in Jewish history both before and after his own time. He was of the royal House of David, and possessed in this way great historical claims upon the respect of the nation. His grandfather Hillel and his father Simeon were celebrated teachers and expounders of the law. His grandfather had founded indeed one of the leading schools of interpretation then favoured by the rabbis. His father Simeon is said by some to have been the aged man who took up the infant Christ in his arms and blessed God for His revealed salvation in the words of the “Nunc Dimittis”; while, as for Gamaliel himself, his teaching was marked by wisdom, prudence, liberality, and spiritual depth, so far as such qualities could exist in a professor of rabbinical learning. Gamaliel was a friend and contemporary of Philo, and this fact alone must have imported an element of liberality into his teaching. Philo was a widely read scholar who strove to unite the philosophy of Greece to the religion of Palestine, and Philos ideas must have permeated more or less into some at least of the schools of Jerusalem, so that, though St. Paul may not have come in contact with Greek literature in Tarsus, he may very probably have learned much about it in a Judaised, purified, spiritualised shape in Jerusalem. But the influence exercised on St. Paul by Gamaliel and through him by Philo, or men of his school, can be traced in other respects.
The teaching of Gamaliel was as spiritual, I have said, as rabbinical teaching could have been; but this is not saying very much from the Christian point of view. The schools at Jerusalem in the time of Gamaliel were wholly engaged in studies of the most wearisome, narrow, petty, technical kind. Dr. Farrar has illustrated this subject with a great wealth of learning and examples in the fourth chapter of his “Life of St. Paul.” The Talmud alone shows this, throwing a fearful light upon the denunciations of our Lord as regards the Pharisees, for it devotes a whole treatise to washings of the hands, and another to the proper method of killing fowls. The Pharisaic section of the Jews held, indeed, that there were two hundred and forty-eight commandments and three hundred and sixty-five prohibitions involved in the Jewish Law, all of them equally binding, and all of them so searching that if only one solitary Jew could be found who for one day kept them all and transgressed in no one direction, then the captivity of Gods people would cease and the Messiah would appear.
I am obliged to pass over this point somewhat rapidly, and yet it is a most important one if we desire to know what kind of training the Apostle received; for, no matter how Gods grace may descend and the Divine Spirit may change the main directions of a mans life, he never quite recovers himself from the effects of his early teaching. Dr. Farrar has bestowed much time and labour on this point. The following brief extract from his eloquent word, will give a vivid idea of the endless puerilities, the infinite questions of pettiest, most minute, and most subtle bearing with which the time of St. Paul and his fellow-students must have been taken up, and which must have made him bitterly feel in the depths of his inmost being that, though the law may have been originally intended as a source of life, it had been certainly changed as regards his own particular case, and had become unto him an occasion of death.
“Moreover, was there not mingled with all this nominal adoration of the Law a deeply seated hypocrisy, so deep that it was in a great measure unconscious? Even before the days of Christ the rabbis had learnt the art of straining out gnats and swallowing camels. They had long learnt to nullify what they professed to defend. The ingenuity of Hillel was quite capable of getting rid of any Mosaic regulation which had been found practically burdensome. Pharisees and Sadducees alike had managed to set aside in their own favour, by the devices of the mixtures, all that was disagreeable to themselves in the Sabbath scrupulosity. The fundamental institution of the Sabbatic year had been stultified by the mere legal fiction of the Prosbol. Teachers who were on the high road to a casuistry which could construct rules out of every superfluous particle, had found it easy to win credit for ingenuity by elaborating prescriptions to which Moses would have listened in mute astonishment. If there be one thing more definitely laid down in the Law than another, it is the uncleanness of creeping things; yet the Talmud assures us that no one is appointed a member of the Sanhedrin who does not possess sufficient ingenuity to prove from the written Law that a creeping thing is ceremonially clean; and that there was an unimpeachable disciple at Jabne who could adduce one hundred and fifty arguments in favour of the ceremonial cleanness of creeping things. Sophistry like this was at work even in the days when the young student of Tarsus sat at the feet of Gamaliel; and can we imagine any period of his life when he would not have been wearied by a system at once so meaningless, so stringent, and so insincere?”
These words are true, thoroughly true, in their extremest sense. Casuistry is at all times a dangerous weapon with which to play, a dangerous science upon which to concentrate ones attention. The mind is so pleased with the fascination of the precipice that one is perpetually tempted to see how near an approach can be made without a catastrophe, and then the catastrophe happens when it is least expected. But when the casuists attention is concentrated upon one volume like the law of Moses, interpreted in the thousand methods and combinations open to the luxuriant imagination of the East, then indeed the danger is infinitely increased, and we cease to wonder at the vivid, burning, scorching denunciations of the Lord as He proclaimed the sin of those who enacted that “Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor.” St. Pauls whole time must have been taken up in the school of Gamaliel with an endless study of such casuistical trifles; and yet that period of his life left marks which we can clearly trace throughout his writings. The method, for instance, in which St. Paul quotes the Old Testament is thoroughly rabbinical. It was derived from the rules prevalent in the Jewish schools, and therefore, though it may seem to us at times forced and unnatural, must have appeared to St. Paul and to the men of his time absolutely conclusive. When reading the Scriptures we Westerns forget the great difference between Orientals and the nations of Western Europe. Aristotle and his logic and his logical methods, with major and minor premises and conclusions following therefrom, absolutely dominate our thoughts. The Easterns knew nothing of Aristotle, and his methods availed nothing to their minds. They argued in quite a different style, and used a logic which he would have simply scorned. Analogy, allegory, illustration, form the staple elements of Eastern logic, and in their use St. Paul was elaborately trained in Gamaliels classes, and of their use his writings furnish abundant examples; the most notable of which will be found in his allegorical interpretation of the events of the wilderness journey of Israel in 1Co 10:1-4, where the pillar of cloud, and the passage of the Red Sea, and the manna, and the smitten rock become the emblems and types of the Christian Sacraments; and again, in St. Pauls mystical explanation of Gal 4:21-31, where Hagar and Sarah are represented as typical of the two covenants, the old covenant leading to spiritual bondage and the new introducing to gospel freedom.
These, indeed, are the most notable examples of St. Pauls method of exegesis derived from the school of Gamaliel, but there are numberless others scattered all through his writings. If we view them through Western spectacles, we shall be disappointed and miss their force; but if we view them sympathetically, if we remember that the Jews quoted and studied the Old Testament to find illustrations of their own ideas rather than proofs in our sense of the word, studied them as an enthusiastic Shakespeare or Tennyson or Wordsworth student pores over his favourite author to find parallels which others, who are less bewitched, find very slight and very dubious indeed, then we shall come to see how it is that St. Paul quotes an illustration of his doctrine of justification by faith from Hab 2:4 – “The soul of the proud man is not upright, but the just man shall live by his steadfastness”; a passage which originally applied to the Chaldeans and the Jews, predicting that the former should enjoy no stable prosperity, but that the Jews, ideally represented as the just or upright man, should live securely because of their fidelity; and can find an allusion to the resurrection of Christ in “the sure mercies of David,” which God had promised to give His people in the third verse of the fifty-fifth of Isaiah.
Rabbinical learning, Hebrew discipline, Greek experience and life, these conspired together with natural impulse and character to frame and form and mould a man who must make his mark upon the world at large in whatever direction he chooses for his walk in life. It will now be our duty to show what were the earliest results of this very varied education.