Stephen

STEPHEN

One of the seven deacons first chosen by the church at Jerusalem, and distinguished among them as “a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost.” He seems from his name to have been a Hellenistic Jew, (see GRECIANS,) and to have been chosen in part as being familiar with the language, opinions, and customs of the Greeks, Mal 6:1-6 . His mighty works and unanswerable argument roused the bitterest hostility against him, and he was brought before the Sanhedrin for trial, on the charge of blasphemy and heresy. His speech in his own defense, probably recorded only in part, shows historically that the opponents of Christianity were but the children and imitators of those who had always opposed true religion. His enraged hearers hurried him to death, a judicial tribunal becoming a riotous mob for the occasion. Compare Joh 18:31 . With Christ-like magnanimity he forgave his murderers, and “fell asleep” amid their stones, with his eyes upon the Savior “standing at the right hand of God,” as if rising from his throne to protect and receive the first martyr of his church, Mal 7:1-60 .The results of Stephen’s death illustrates the saying of Tertrullian, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,” Mal 8:1,4 11:19-21. Augustine observes that the church owes the conversion and ministry of Paul to the prayer of Stephen. Paul, himself a Cilician, Mal 6:9 22:3, had undoubtedly felt the force of his arguments in the discussions which preceded his arrest; and long afterwards alluded to his own presence at the martyr’s death, Mal 22:19,20 -that triumph of Christian faith and love which has taught so many martyrs and Christians how to die. Yet nothing he heard or witnessed availed for his conversion, till he saw the Savior himself, Mal 9:1-43 . The scene of Stephen’s martyrdom is placed by modern tradition on the east side of Jerusalem, near the gate called after his name. Earlier traditions located it more to the north.

Fuente: American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

Stephen

Of Stephen we know nothing beyond the abort notice of him contained in the two chapters (6 and 7) of Acts. He is said by Epiphanius [Haer. xx. 4) to have been one of the Seventy; but such a statement has little weight. All we can say for certain is that, when elected to be one of the Seven, he was a man of position both within and without the Christian community (Act 6:3). The office to which he was appointed was that of administering alms to the widows of Hellenists (i.e. Greek-speaking Jews) who considered themselves overlooked in the daily distribution from the common fund of food or money. But to this work Stephen, like others of the Seven, notably Philip, by no means restricted himself. He was full of grace and power (Act 6:8), and was impelled to engage in controversy with members of the Hellenistic synagogues established in Jerusalem, and they were not able to withstand the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spake (Act 6:10). It is generally supposed that, as he devoted himself to the members of these Hellenistic synagogues, he was himself a Hellenist. The inference, not unreasonable in itself, is confirmed by his name, and by the familiarity which he seems to show with the Septuagint version of the Scriptures, perhaps even by what seems to have been the tenor of his teaching. To the Hellenist Jews with whom he argued that tenor must have been unmistakable, even from the outset. He was at once accused of undermining the authority of the Law of Moses, denying the permanent sanctity even of the Temple (Act 6:14-15).

Those who brought these charges are called false witnesses. False witnesses they undoubtedly were, as they interpreted the words of warning and of insight which he uttered as threats thrown out against the Temple and the Law. In this it was with Stephen as it had been previously with our Lord, Our Lord Himself had said that He was to become the worlds temple in the future, and was condemned for blasphemy for speaking ill words against the Temple in Jerusalem; Stephen proclaimed that Temple and Law had done their work and were to give place in time to a more spiritual temple, a more universal law, and was denounced for blasphemy. The speech which he delivers when summoned before the Sanhedrin makes it plain that this was his position; and the fullness with which the speech is given, as a sort of introduction to the section of the Acts which traces the gradual reception of the Gentiles into the Christian Church, makes it obvious that this is the right construction to be put upon his words.

The speech itself contains three lines of thought, sometimes kept separate, but oftener interlaced, all leading up to one and the same conclusion. The first line is this-that the original covenant made between God and Israel was concluded not with Moses but long before with Abraham and the patriarchs, and, since the Mosaic covenant had been thus preceded by an earlier and more spiritual one, it might also be followed by a later and more spiritual one (A covenant confirmed beforehand by God, the law, which came four hundred and thirty years after, doth not disannul, so as to make the promise of none effect (Gal 3:17). Secondly, there is the suggestion that since God was worshipped acceptably long before temple or even tabernacle (after which the Temple was modelled, the tabernacle itself being but a copy of the heavenly tabernacle seen on the mount) was built, and again since God was acceptably worshipped in spots far removed from the Land of Canaan, and Solomon, at the very moment of building the Temple, declared that God dwells not in houses made with hands (Act 7:48), it is at least possible that God may be worshipped, and worshipped acceptably, elsewhere than in the Temple. Thirdly, the speech ends with the warning to which all the earlier part-the fate of Joseph, the fate of Moses-had led up: Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye (Act 7:51). It was this last lesson so emphatically driven home that immediately produced that outbreak of rage in the Sanhedrin which brought about Stephens death. Its members condemned him to be guilty of blasphemy: he had justified, not denied or even softened down, his previous utterances; they rushed upon him, and, when he stated that he saw the heavens opened and Jesus standing to welcome him on the right hand of God, the vision did, in this view, but increase the blasphemy, so they dragged him out of the city and stoned him. Saul, then a young man, presided at the stoning and gave hearty assent and approval to his death (Act 7:60, Act 8:1).

Two questions relating to this stoning have to be answered: (1) How did it take place at all, seeing that the Jews had not the power of life and death? (2) What was the date at which it occurred? As to the first point, the actual martyrdom of Stephen seems to have been something of the nature of a tumultuous outbreak. It was a sudden fit of rage that brought it about, similar to that through which St. Paul so nearly lost his life had he not been rescued by the Roman soldiers (Act 22:23 ff.). As to the second question, it has been suggested that this outbreak took place during a temporary vacancy in the provincial authority, which will not, however, fix the date, as the Roman governors were frequently changed during this period; or, as some have thought, it may have occurred during a vacancy in the Imperial throne. Tiberius died and Caius became Emperor early in a.d. 37, and Stephens martyrdom has been put at this time. This is almost the latest date assigned, and there is more, perhaps, to be said for an earlier date such as Ramsay suggests-a.d. 32 or 33 (St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, p. 376). All that we can gather with fair certainty is that St. Pauls conversion followed soon after; but the date of this event is itself involved in much obscurity, depending, as it does, on whether we identify the visit to Jerusalem mentioned in Galatians 2 with the visit of Paul and Barnabas described in Acts 11, 12 or with that described in Acts 15. As Harnack, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 29, concludes, it is impossible to settle this point with certainty, because St. Luke, probably having himself no exact date to rely upon, has left the chronology of this section of the Acts in intentional obscurity.

Literature.-J. P. Norris, Key to Narrative of the Acts of the Apostles, London, 1885; R. B. Rackham, The Acts of the Apostles, do., 1901; W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, do., 1895; A. Harnack, The Acts of the Apostles, Eng. translation , do., 1909, Luke the Physician, Eng. translation , do., 1907.

W. A. Spooner.

Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church

Stephen

(, a crown), one of the first seven deacons, and the protomartyr, of the Christian Church. A.D. 29. In the following account we give the Scriptural notices, with such elucidation as modern investigations have thrown on the subject.

St. Stephen’s importance is stamped on the narrative by a reiteration of emphatic, almost superlative, phrases full of faith and of the Holy Ghost (Act 6:5); full of grace and power (Act 6:8); irresistible spirit and wisdom (Act 6:10); full of the Holy Ghost (7:55). Of his ministrations among the poor we hear nothing. But he seems to have been an instance, such as is not uncommon in history, of a new energy derived from a new sphere. He shot far ahead of his six companions, and, far above his particular office. First, he arrests attention by the great wonders and miracles that he did. Then begins a series of disputations with the Hellenistic Jews of North Africa, Alexandria, and Asia Minor, his companions in race and birthplace. The subject of these disputations is not expressly mentioned; but, from what follows, it is evident that he struck into a new vein of teaching, which eventually caused his martyrdom.

I. History.

1. Early Notices. It appears from Stephen’s name that he was a Hellenist, as it was not common for the Jews of Palestine to adopt names for their children except from the Hebrew or Syriac; though of what country he was is unknown. His Hebrew (or rather Syriac) name is traditionally (Basil of Seleucia, Orat. de S. Stephano. See Gesenius in voce ) said to have been Chelil, or Cheliel (a crown). He is represented by Epiphanius (40, 50) as one of the seventy disciples chosen by Christ; but this statement is without authority from Scripture, and is, in fact, inconsistent with what is there mentioned concerning him. He is spoken of by others as one of the first converts of Peter on the day of Pentecost; but this also is merely conjectural. Jerome (On Isaiah 46, 12) and others of the fathers praise him as a man of great learning and eloquence.

2. His Official Position. The first authentic notice we find of him is in Act 6:5. In the distribution of the common fund that was intrusted to the apostles (Acts 6:35-37) for the support of the poorer brethren (see Mosheim, De Rebus Christ. ante Const. p. 118, and Dissert. ad Hist. Ecclesiastes Pertin.), the Hellenistic Jews complained that a partiality was shown to the natives of Palestine, and that the poor and sick among their widows were neglected. Whether we conceive with Mosheim (De Rebus, etc. p. 118) that the distribution was made by individuals set apart for that office, though not yet possessing the name of deacons; or, with the writer in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana (art. Ecclesiastical History; see also archbishop Whately’s Kingdom of Christ), we conclude that with the office they had also the name, but were limited to Hebrews; or whether we follow the more common view as set forth by Bhmer (Diss. 7; Juris Ecclesiastes Antiq.), does not materially affect the present subject. The complaint of the Hellenists having reached the ears of the apostles, immediate directions were given by them with a view to removing the cause of it. Unwilling themselves to be called away from their proper employment of extending the bounds of the Christian community, they told the assembled multitude of believers to select seven men of their own number, in whose faith and integrity they might repose entire confidence, for the superintendence of everything connected with the relief of the poor. The proposal of the apostles met with the approbation of the brethren, who proceeded at once with the choice of the prescribed number of individuals, among whom Stephen is first mentioned; hence the title of first deacon, or first of the deacons, is given to him by Irenaeus (Iren. 1,12). He is distinguished in Scripture as a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost (Act 6:5). The newly elected individuals were brought to the apostles, who ordained them to their office, and they entered upon their duties with extraordinary zeal and success. The number of the disciples as greatly increased, and many priests were among the converts. In this work Stephen greatly distinguished himself by the miracles he performed before the people and by the arguments he advanced in support of the Christian cause. From his foreign descent and education, he was naturally led to address himself to the Hellenists; and in his disputations with Jews of the Synagogue of the Libertines and Cyrenians, etc. SEE SYNAGOGUE; SEE LIBERTINE, he brought forward views of the Christian scheme that could not be relished by the bigots of the ancient faith.

3. The Accusation. Down to this time the apostles and the early Christian community had clung in their worship, not merely to the Holy Land and the Holy City, but to the holy place of the Temple. This local worship, with the Jewish customs belonging to it, Stephen now seems to have denounced. The actual words of the charge brought against him may have been false, as the sinister and malignant intention which they ascribed to him was undoubtedly false. Blasphemous (), that is, calumnious, words against Moses and against God (Act 6:11) he is not likely to have used. But the overthrow of the Temple, the cessation of the Mosaic ritual, is no more than Paul preached openly, or than is implied in Stephen’s own speech, against this holy place and the law that Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs that Moses delivered us (Act 6:13-14).

Benson (History of the First Planting of the Christian Religion) and others have considered the testimony of the witnesses against Stephen as in every respect false, and that we are not even to suppose that he had stated that Christ would change the customs which Moses delivered (Act 6:14), upon the ground of the improbability of more being revealed to Stephen than to the apostles, as to the abolition of the Levitical ceremonies. From the strain of the martyr’s speech, however, a different conclusion may be drawn. His words imply, in various passages, that external rites were not essential, and that true religion was not confined to the Temple service (7, 8, 38, 44, etc.). There seems much plausibility in the conjecture of Neander (Planting and Training of the Christian Church, translated by Ryland, 1, 56 sq.) that Stephen and the other deacons, from their birth and education, were less under the influence of Jewish prejudices than the natives of Palestine, and may thus have been prepared to precede the apostles themselves in apprehending the liberty which the Gospel was to introduce. The statements of Stephen correspond in more than one particular with what was afterwards taught by Paul.

4. The Trial. For such savings he was arrested at the instigation of the Hellenistic Jews and brought before the Sanhedrim, where, as it would seem, the Pharisaic party had, just before this time (Act 5:34; Act 7:51), gained an ascendency. As they were unable to withstand his powers of reasoning, their malice was excited; they suborned false witnesses against him as a blasphemer. The charge brought against him was, as we have seen, that he had spoken against the law and the Temple, against Moses and against God. This accusation was calculated to incite all parties in the Sanhedrim against him (comp. 22:22); and upon receiving it the predetermined purpose of the council was not to be mistaken. Stephen saw that he was to be the victim of the blind and malignant spirit which had been exhibited by the Jews in every period of their history. But his serenity was unruffled; his confidence in the goodness of his cause and in the promised support of his heavenly Master imparted a divine tranquillity to his mind; and when the judges fixed their regards upon him, the light that was within beamed forth upon his countenance, and they saw his face as if it had been the face of an angel (6:15).

For a moment, the account seems to imply the judges of the Sanhedrim were awed at his presence. Then the high priest that presided appealed to him (as Caiaphas had, in like manner, appealed in the great trial in the Gospel history) to know his own sentiments on the accusations brought against him. To this Stephen replied in a speech which has every appearance of being faithfully reported. The peculiarities of the style, the variations from the Old Test. history, the abruptness which, by breaking off the argument, prevents us from easily doing it justice, are all indications of its being handed down to us substantially in its original form.

5. Stephen’s Defense. His speech is well deserving of the most diligent study, and the more it is understood the higher idea will it convey of the degree with which he possessed the qualities ascribed to him in the sixth chapter. Very different views have been taken of it by commentators. Upon the whole, we are inclined to follow that which is given by Neander in the work referred to. Even as a composition it is curious and interesting from the connection which may be discovered between the various parts, and from the unity given to the whole by the honesty and earnestness of the speaker. Without any formal statement of his object. Stephen obviously gives a confession of his faith, sets forth a true view of the import of his preaching in opposition to the false gloss that had been put upon it, maintains the justness of his cause, and shows how well founded were his denunciations against the impenitent Jews.

The framework in which his defense is cast is a summary of the history of the Jewish Church. In this respect it has only one parallel in the New. Test, the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews a likeness that is the more noticeable, as, in all probability, the immediate writer of that epistle was, like Stephens, a Hellenist.

In the facts which he selects from this history he is guided by two principles at first more or less latent, but gradually becoming more and more apparent as he proceeds. The first is the endeavor to prove that, even in the previous Jewish history, the presence and favor of God had not been confined to the Holy Land or the Temple of Jerusalem. This he illustrates with a copiousness of detail which makes his speech a summary almost as much of sacred geography as of sacred history the appearance of God to Abraham in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Haran (Act 7:2); his successive migrations to Haran and to Canaan (Act 7:4); his want of even a resting place for his foot in Canaan (Act 7:5); the dwelling of his seed in a strange land (Act 7:6); the details of the stay in Egypt (Act 7:8-13); the education of Moses in Egypt (Act 7:20-22); his exile; in Midian (Act 7:29); the appearance in Sinai, with the declaration that the desert ground was holy earth ( ) (Act 7:30-33); the forty years in the wilderness (Act 7:36; Act 7:44); the long delay before the preparation for the Tabernacle of David (Act 7:45); the proclamation of spiritual worship even after the building of the Temple (Act 7:47-50).

The second principle of selection is based on the attempt to show that there was a tendency from the earliest times towards the same ungrateful and narrow spirit that had appeared in this last stage of their political existence. And this rigid, suspicious disposition he contrasts with the freedom of the divine grace and of the human will, which were manifested in the exaltation of Abraham (Act 7:4), Joseph (Act 7:10), and Moses (Act 7:20), and in the jealousy and rebellion of the nation against these their greatest benefactors, as chiefly seen in the bitterness against Joseph (Act 7:9) and Moses (Act 7:27), and in the long neglect of true religious worship in the wilderness (Act 7:39-43).

Both of these selections are worked out on what may almost be called. critical principles. There is no allegorizing of the text, nor any forced constructions. Every passage quoted yields fairly the sense assigned to it.

Besides the direct illustration of a freedom from local restraints involved in the general argument, there is also an indirect illustration of the same doctrine, from his mode of treating the subject in detail. Many of his references to the Mosaic history differ from it either by variation or addition, apparently from traditionary sources of information, e.g.:

1. The call of Abraham before the migration to Haran (Act 7:2), not, as according to Gen 12:1, in Haran.

2. The death of his father after the call (Act 7:4), not, as according to Gen 11:32 before it.

3. The seventy-five souls of Jacob’s migration (Act 7:14), not as according to Gen 46:27, seventy.

4. The supreme loveliness ( , a Hebraistic superlative) of Moses (Act 7:20), not simply, as according to Exo 2:2, the statement that he was a goodly child.

5. His Egyptian education (Act 7:22) as contrasted with the silence on this point in Exo 4:10.

6. The same contrast with regard to his secular greatness, mighty in words and deeds (Act 7:22; comp. Exo 2:10).

7. The distinct mention of the three periods of forty years (Act 7:23; Act 7:30; Act 7:36), of which only the last is specified in the Pentateuch.

8. The terror of Moses at the bush (Act 7:32), not mentioned in Exo 3:3.

9. The supplementing of the Mosaic narrative by the illusions in Amos to their neglect of the true worship in the desert (Act 7:42-43).

10. The intervention of the angels in the giving of the Law (Act 7:53), not mentioned in Exo 19:16.

11. The burial of the twelve patriarchs at Shechem (Act 7:16), not mentioned in Exo 1:6. The burial of Joseph’s bones alone is recorded (Jos 24:32).

12. The purchase of the tomb at Shechem by Abraham from the sons of Emmor (Act 7:16), not, as according to Gen 23:15, the purchase of the cave at Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite.

13. The introduction of Remphan from the Sept. of Amo 5:26, not found in the Hebrew.

The explanation and source of these variations must be sought under the different names to which they refer; but the general fact of their adoption by Stephen is significant as showing the freedom with which he handled the sacred history, and the comparative disregard of verbal accuracy by him and by the sacred historian who records his speech. He had regard, as Jerome says, to the meaning, not to the words. (See their reconcilement in Wordsworth’s New Test. [1860], p. 65-69.)

6. His Condemnation and Martyrdom. It would seem that, just at the close of his argument, Stephen saw a change in the aspect of his judges, as if for the first time they had caught the drift of his meaning. He broke off from his calm address, and turned suddenly upon them in an impassioned attack which shows that he saw what was in store for him. Those heads thrown back on their unbending necks, those ears closed against any penetration of truth, were too much for his patience: Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! ye do always resist the Holy Ghost as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? the Just One: of whom ye are the betrayers and murderers. As he spoke they showed by their faces that their hearts (to use the strong language of the narrative) were being sawn asunder, and they kept gnashing their set teeth against him; but still, though with difficulty, restraining themselves. He, in this last crisis of his fate, turned his face upwards to the open sky, and as he gazed the vault of heaven seemed to him to part asunder (), and the divine glory appeared through the rending of the earthly veil the Divine Presence, seated on a throne, and on the right hand the human form of Jesus, not, as in the usual representations, sitting in repose, but standing erect, as if to assist his suffering servant. Stephen spoke as if to himself, describing the glorious vision; and, in so doing, alone of all the speakers and writers in the New Test., except only Christ himself, uses the expressive phrase, the Son of man. As his judges heard the words, expressive of the divine exaltation of him whom they had sought so lately to destroy, they could forbear no longer. They broke into a loud yell; they clapped their hands to their ears, as if to prevent the entrance of any more blasphemous words; they flew as with one impulse upon him, and dragged him out of the city to the place of execution.

It has been questioned by what right the Sanhedrim proceeded to this act without the concurrence of the Roman government; but it is enough to reply that the whole transaction is one of violent excitement. On one occasion, even in our Lord’s life, the Jews had nearly stoned him even within the precincts of the Temple (Joh 8:59). Their vengeance in other cases was confined to those subordinate punishments which were left under their own jurisdiction imprisonment, public scourging in the synagogue, and excommunication (Milman, Hist. of Latin Christianity, 1, 400). See Conybeare and Howson, Life of St. Paul, 1, 74. On this occasion, however, they determined for once to carry out the full penalties enjoined by the severe code of the Mosaic ritual. SEE STONING.

Any violator of the law was to be taken outside the gates, and there, as if for the sake of giving to each individual member of the community a sense of his responsibility in the transaction, he was to be crushed by stones, thrown at him by all the people. Those, however, were to take the lead in this wild and terrible act who had taken upon themselves the responsibility of denouncing him (Deu 17:7; comp. Joh 8:7). These were, in this instance, the witnesses who had reported or misreported the words of Stephen. They, according to the custom, for the sake of facility in their dreadful task, stripped themselves, as is the Eastern practice on commencing any violent exertion; and one of the prominent leaders in the transaction was deputed by custom to signify his assent (Act 22:20) to the act by taking the clothes into his custody, and standing over them while the bloody work went on. The person who officiated on this occasion was a young man from Tarsus one, probably, of the Cilician Hellenists who had disputed with Stephen. His name, as the narrative significantly adds, was Saul. Everything was now ready for the execution. It was outside the gates of Jerusalem. The earlier tradition fixed it at what is now called the Damascus gate. The later, which is the present tradition, fixed it at what is hence called St. Stephen’s gate, opening on the descent to the Mount of Olives; and in the red streaks of the white limestone rocks of the sloping hill used to be shown the marks of his blood, and on the first rise of Olivet, opposite, the eminence on which the Virgin stood to support him with her prayers. The sacred narrative fixes its attention only on two figures that of Saul of Tarsus, already noticed, and that of Stephen himself.

As the first volley of stones burst upon him, he called upon the Master whose human form he had just seen in the heavens, and repeated almost the words with which he himself had given up his life on the cross, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

Another crash of stones brought him on his knees. One loud piercing cry ( ) answering to the loud shriek or yell with which his enemies had flown upon him escaped his dying lips. Again clinging to the spirit of his Master’s word’s he cried, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge, and instantly sank upon the ground; and, in the touching language of the narrator, who then uses for the first time the word afterwards applied to the departure of all Christians, but here the more remarkable from the bloody scenes in the midst of which the death took place , fell asleep.

7. His Remains. Stephen’s mangled body was buried by the class of Hellenists and proselytes to which he belonged ( ), with an amount of funeral state and lamentation expressed in two words used here only in the New Test. ( and ).

This simple expression is enlarged by writers of the 5th century into an elaborate legend. The high priest, it is said, had intended to leave the corpse to be devoured by beasts of prey. It was rescued by Gamaliel, carried off in his own chariot by night, and buried in a new tomb on his property at Caphar Gamala (village of the Camel); eight leagues from Jerusalem. The funeral lamentations lasted for forty days. All the apostles attended. Gamaliel undertook the expense, and, on his death, was interred in an adjacent cave. This story was probably first drawn up on the occasion of the remarkable event which occurred in A.D. 415, under the name of the Invention and Translation of the Relics of St. Stephen. Successive visions of Gamaliel to Lucian, the parish priest of Caphar Gamala, on Dec. 3 and, 18 in that year, revealed the spot where the martyr’s remains would be found. They were identified by a tablet bearing his, name, Cheliel, and were carried in state to Jerusalem, amid various portents, and buried in the church on Mount Zion, the scene of so many early Christian traditions. The event of the Translation is celebrated in the Latin Church on Aug. 3, probably from the tradition of that day being the anniversary of the dedication of a chapel of St. Stephen at Ancona. The story itself is encompassed with legend, but the event is mentioned in all the chief writers of the time. Parts of his remains were afterwards transported to different parts of the coast of the West-Minorca, Portugal, North Africa, Ancona, Constantinople and in 460 what were still left at Jerusalem were translated by the empress Eudocia to a splendid church called by his name on the supposed scene of his martyrdom (Tillemont, St.-Etienne, art. 5-9, where all the authorities are quoted). Evodius, bishop of Myala, wrote a small treatise concerning the miracles performed by them; and Severus, a bishop of the island of Minorca, wrote a circular letter of the conversion of the Jews in that island and of the miracles wrought in that place by the relics which Orosius left there. These writings are contained in the works of Augustine, who gives the sanction of his authority to the incredible follies they record (De Civ. Dei, 22, 8).

The exact date of Stephen’s death is not given in the Scriptural history. But ecclesiastical tradition fixes it in the same year as the crucifixion, on Dec. 26, the day after Christmas day. It is beautifully said by Augustine (in allusion to the juxtaposition of the two festivals) that men would not have had the courage to die for God, if God had not become man to die for them (Tillemont, St.-Etienne, art. 4).

II. S. Stephen’s Typical Character. The importance of his career may be briefly summed up under three heads:

1. He was the first great Christian ecclesiastic. The appointment of the Seven, commonly (though not in the Bible) called deacons, formed the first direct institution of the nature of an organized Christian ministry, and of these Stephen was the head the archdeacon, as he is called in the Eastern Church and in this capacity represented as the companion or precursor of Laurence, archdeacon of Rome in the Western Church. In this sense allusion is made to him in the Anglican Ordination of Deacons.

2. He is the first martyr the protomartyr. To him the name martyr is first applied (Act 22:20). He, first of the Christian Church, bore witness to the truth of his convictions by a violent and dreadful death. The veneration which has accrued to his name in consequence is a testimony of the Bible to the sacredness of truth, to the nobleness of sincerity, to the wickedness and the folly of persecution. It also contains the first germs of the reverence for the character and for the relics of martyrs, which afterwards grew to a height now regarded by all Christians as excessive. A beautiful hymn, by Reginald Heber, commemorates this side of Stephen’s character.

3. He is the forerunner of Paul. So he was already regarded in ancient times. is te expression used for him by Basil of Seleucia. But it is an aspect that has been much more forcibly drawn out in modern times. Not only was his martyrdom (in all probability) the first means of converting Paul his prayer for his murderers not only was fulfilled in he conversion of Paul the blood of the first martyr, the seed of the greatest apostle the pangs of remorse for his death, among the stings of conscience against which the apostle vainly writhed (Act 9:5) not only thus, but in his doctrine also, he was the anticipator, as, had he lived, he would have been the propagator of the new phase of Christianity of which Paul became the main support. His denunciations of local worship, the stress which he lays on the spiritual side of the Jewish history, his freedom in treating that history, the very turns of expression that he uses, are all Pauline.

III. Literature. Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiastes 2, 1; Tillemont, Memoires, 2, 1-24; Neander, Planting and Training; Conybeare and Howson, St. Paul, ch. 2; Augusti, Archaol. Denkwrdigk. 1, 145; Rees, De Lapidatione Stephani (Jen. 1729); Ziegelbaur, Acta Stephani (Vien. 1736); Walch, De Funere Steph. (Jen. 1756); Schwarz, Martyrium Stephani (Viteb. 1756); Baur, De Oratione Steph. (Tb. 1829); Schmid, Discours de St.-Etienne (Strasb. 1839); Bohn, Life of St. Stephen (Lond. 1844); and other monographs cited by Volbeding, Index Programmatum, p. 74; and by Danz, Wrterb. s.v. Apostelgesch. Nos. 56, 57.

Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Stephen (2)

a Scotch prelate, was bishop of the Isles in 1253, and in the same year confirmed to the monastery of Paisley all the churches and lands they held within his diocese. See Keith, Scottish Bishops, page 300.

Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Stephen

one of the seven deacons, who became a preacher of the gospel. He was the first Christian martyr. His personal character and history are recorded in Acts 6. “He fell asleep” with a prayer for his persecutors on his lips (7:60). Devout men carried him to his grave (8:2).

It was at the feet of the young Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus, that those who stoned him laid their clothes (comp. Deut. 17:5-7) before they began their cruel work. The scene which Saul then witnessed and the words he heard appear to have made a deep and lasting impression on his mind (Acts 22:19, 20).

The speech of Stephen before the Jewish ruler is the first apology for the universalism of the gospel as a message to the Gentiles as well as the Jews. It is the longest speech contained in the Acts, a place of prominence being given to it as a defence.

Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Stephen

The first of the seven appointed to minister as a deacon in distributing alms, so that the Grecian widows should not be neglected while the Hebrew widows were served (Acts 6; 7). (See DEACON.) His Grecian name (meaning “crown”; by a significant coincidence he was the first who received the crown of martyrdom) and his anti-Judaistic speech indicate that he was a Hellenist or Greek speaking foreign Jew as contrasted with a home born Hebrew speaking Jew. (See GRECIAN.) “He did great miracles and wonders among the people,” in confirmation of the gospel. He was, like the rest of the seven, “of honest report, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom”; also “full of faith and power,” so that the disputants of the synagogue of the Libertines, Cyrenians, Alexandrians, Cilicians, all like himself Grecian Jews, “were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke.” So they charged him before the Sanhedrin by suborned witnesses with speaking against Moses and God, the temple and the law, and asserting that, Jesus of Nazareth should destroy the temple and change the customs that Moses had delivered.

Doubtless, he showed that Jesus really “fulfilled” the law while setting aside that part of its letter which was designed to continue only until the gospel realized its types. His Hellenistic life away from the temple and its rites made him less dependent on them and readier to comprehend the gospel’s freedom from legal bonds. The prophets similarly had foretold the superseding of the legal types and the temple by the Antitype (Jer 7:4; Jer 31:31-34). His judges looking steadfastly on him “saw his face as it had been the face of an angel,” like that of Moses after talking with God on the mountain (Exo 34:29-35; 2Co 3:18; Ecc 8:1). They were at first awestruck, as the band that fell backward at Jesus’ presence in Gethsemane. Then the high priest appealed to Stephen himself as Caiaphas had to Jesus. His speech is not the unconnected narrative that many suppose, but a covert argument which carries his hearers unconsciously along with him until at the close he unveils the drift of the whole, namely, to show:

(1) That in Israel’s past history God’s revelation of Himself was not confined to the holy land and the temple, that Abraham had enjoyed God’s revelations in Mesopotamia, Haran, and Canaan before he possessed a foot of the promised land; so also Israel and Moses in the strange land of Egypt, and in Midian and Sinai, which was therefore “holy ground” (Act 7:33), and in the wilderness 40 years.

(2) That in their past history from the first the same failure to recognize their true friends appeared as in their present rejection of the great Antitype Messiah and His ministers: “ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit, as your fathers did so do ye”; so the brethren toward Joseph, the Israelites towards Moses (Act 7:9; Act 7:35; Act 7:40), and worst of all toward God, whom they forsook for a calf and for Moloch.

(3) That God nevertheless by ways seeming most unlikely to man ultimately exalted the exile Abraham, the outcast slave Joseph, and the despised Moses to honour and chiefship; so it will be in Messiah’s case in spite of the humiliation which makes the Jews reject Him.

(4) That Solomon the builder of the temple recognized that which the Jews lose sight of, namely, that the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands, as though His presence was confined to a locality (1Ki 8:27; 2Ch 2:6; 2Ch 6:18), and which Jehovah through Isaiah (Isa 66:1) insists on.

Therefore spiritual worship is the true worship for which the temple was but a preparation. The alleged discrepancies between the Old Testament and Stephen’s speech are only in appearance. He under the Holy Spirit supplements the statements in Exo 7:7, Moses “fourscore years old” at his call, 40 years in the wilderness, 120 at his death (Deu 29:5; Deu 31:2; Deu 34:7), by adding that he was 40 at his visiting his Israelite brethren and leaving Egypt for Midian, and stayed there 40 (Act 7:23-30). Also he combines, as substantially one for his immediate object, the two statements (Gen 15:16), “after that they shall come here (to Canaan) again,” and Exo 3:12, “ye shall serve God upon this mountain” (Horeb), by Act 7:7, “after that they shall come forth and serve Me in this place” (Canaan).

Israel’s being brought forth to worship Jehovah in Horeb, and subsequent worshipping Him in Canaan their inheritance, were but different stages in the same deliverance, not needing to be distinguished for Stephen’s purpose. Moses’ trembling (Act 7:32) was a current belief which Stephen endorses under the Spirit. Again as to Act 7:15-16, “Jacob and our fathers were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought of Emmor,” Stephen with elliptical brevity refers to six different chapters, summing up in one sentence, which none of his hearers could misunderstand from their familiarity as to the details, the double purchase (from Ephron the Hittite by Abraham, and from Hamor of Shechem by Jacob: Gen 23:16; Gen 33:19), the double burial place (Machpelah’s cave and the ground at Shechem), and the double burial (Jacob in Machpelah’s cave: Gen 50:13, and Joseph in the Shechem ground of Jacob, Gen 50:25; Exo 13:19; Jos 24:32).

The burials and purchases were virtually one so far as his purpose was concerned, namely, to show the faith of the patriarchs and their interest in Canaan when to the eye of sense all seemed against the fulfillment of God’s promise; Stephen hereby implying that, however visionary Jesus’ and His people’s prospects might seem, yet they are as certain as were the patriarchs’ prospects when their only possession in Canaan was a tomb. These seeming discrepancies with the Old Testament are just what a forger would avoid, they confirm, the genuineness of S.’ s speech as we have it. So as to other supplementary notices in it as compared with Old Testament (Act 7:2 with Gen 12:1; Act 7:4 with Gen 11:32; Act 7:14 with Gen 46:27; Act 7:20 with Exo 2:2; Act 7:22 with Exo 4:10; Act 7:21 with Exo 2:10; Act 7:53 with Deu 33:2; Act 7:42-43 with Amo 5:26).

The fascination with which at first Stephen’s beaming heavenly countenance had overawed his stern judges gave place to fury when they at last saw the drift of his covert argument. Perceiving their resistance to the truth he broke off with a direct charge: “ye stiffnecked (with unbending neck and head haughtily thrown back), and (with all your boast of circumcision) uncircumcised in heart and ears (which ye close against conviction!), ye do always resist the Holy Spirit” (compare Neh 9:29-30); with all your phylacteries “ye have not kept (efulaxate) the law,” of which you boast. They were cut to the heart (Greek: “sawn asunder”) and gnashed on him with set teeth. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit,” strained his eyes with steadfast look into heaven” (atenisas, the same word as describes the disciples’ look after the ascending Saviour: Act 1:10). There he saw “standing (to help (Psa 109:31), plead for and receive him, not as elsewhere sitting in majestic repose) the Son of man” (a phrase used elsewhere in New Testament by Jesus Himself).

The members of the council, remembering probably the use of similar language by Jesus when on trial before them (Mat 26:64), being at all events resolved to treat as blasphemy Stephen’s assertion of the divine exaltation of Him whom they had crucified, cried aloud, stopped their ear’s (unconsciously realizing Stephen’s picture of them: Act 7:51; Psa 58:4), ran upon him with one accord (contrast “with one accord,” Act 4:24), and cast him out of the city (as was the custom in order to put out from the midst of them such a pollution: 1Ki 21:13; Luk 4:29; Heb 13:12) and stoned him, all sharing in the execution, the witnesses casting the first stones (Deu 13:9-10; Deu 17:7; Joh 8:7), after having stripped off the outer garments for greater ease in the bloody work, and laid them at the feet of Saul who thereby signified his consent to Stephen’s execution (Act 8:1; Act 22:20).

The act was in violation of Roman authority, which alone had power of life or death, a sudden outbreak as in Joh 8:59. Like Jesus in his recognition of the glory of “the Son of man,” he also resembled his Lord in his last two cries, the second uttered on bended knee to mark the solemnity of his intercession, “Lord Jesus (as Jesus had invoked the Father), receive my spirit.” “Lord lay not this sin to their charge” (Luk 23:34; Luk 23:46). Thus Stephen was laid “asleep” (the term for death after Jesus’ pattern: Joh 11:11, compare Deu 31:16; Dan 12:2; 1Co 15:18; 1Co 15:51). Devout proselytes, a class related to the Hellenists to whom Stephen belonged, carried him to his burial and made great lamentation over him. His holy day is put next after Christmas, the martyr having the nearest place to the great Sufferer. It is the Lord’s becoming man to die for man that nerves man to be willing to die for the Lord.

The gate opening on the descent to the valley of the Kedron is called Stephen’s gate. Stephen was first of the earliest Christian ministry, “the archdeacon,” as the Eastern church calls him. To Stephen first the name “martyr” is applied (Act 22:20). The forerunner of Paul, whose conversion was the first fruit of his prayer for his murderers; among the pricks of conscience which Saul vainly strove to resist (Act 9:5) the foremost was remorse at the remembrance of the part he took in the last touching scene of the holy martyr’s execution. The first martyr foreran the first apostle of the Gentiles; Stephen anticipated that worldwide universality of spirit which Paul advocated everywhere in opposition to the narrow prejudices of Judaism.

Fuente: Fausset’s Bible Dictionary

STEPHEN

When some of the Greek-speaking Jews in the early Jerusalem church complained that their widows were being neglected, Stephen was one of seven men chosen to help sort out the problem. He was a man full of the Holy Spirit, strong in faith, gifted in the working of miracles and brilliant in debating with the opponents of Christianity (Act 6:1-10).

Being a Greek-speaking Jew himself, Stephen went to the synagogue for Greek-speaking Jews in Jerusalem to try to turn his fellow Jews to Christ. But instead, they turned against him (Act 6:11). Stephen saw that Christianity was not simply a remodelled Judaism. Through the life and work of Jesus, everything had changed. The Jewish laws, ceremonies, temple and priesthood had fulfilled their purpose and were no longer necessary. When Stephen preached these things, the Jews accused him of blasphemy and brought him before their Council, the Sanhedrin (Act 6:12-15).

In defending his preaching, Stephen gave an outline of Israels history, his aim being to demonstrate two main points. He showed firstly that God had never limited himself to one location (Act 7:2; Act 7:9; Act 7:30; Act 7:44; Act 7:48), and secondly that the people of Israel had always rejected Gods messengers (Act 7:9; Act 7:25; Act 7:35; Act 7:40). He applied these two points to the Jews of his time by saying that they were mistaken in thinking God dwelt in the Jerusalem temple, and that their rejection of Christ was in keeping with the stubbornness of their forefathers (Act 7:48-53).

Furious at Stephens words, the Jews rushed upon him, dragged him out of the city and stoned him to death (Act 7:54-60). They then drove all the other Greek-speaking Jewish Christians out of Jerusalem (Act 8:1-3). The result, however, was that Christianity spread throughout the region, as the expelled Christians preached the gospel wherever they went (Act 8:4; Act 11:19).

Fuente: Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

Stephen

STEPHEN.Early in the history of the Christian Church it was found necessary for the Apostles to devolve some of their duties on others. There is no reason for supposing (with Prof. Ramsay) that presbyters had yet been appointed, though they soon followed; but in Act 6:1-15 seven persons, commonly (but not in NT) called deacons, all but one probably Hellenistic or Greek-speaking Jews (see art. Nicolas), were appointed to manage the distribution of alms to the Hellenist widows. Of the Seven, Stephen was the most prominent. Their duties were not eleemosynary only; Stephen at once undertook evangelistic work and won great success, persuading many, and working miracles. His success resulted in the first persecution of the Church, and false witnesses were brought who accused him of blasphemy, and of speaking against the Temple and the Law. He made a long defence (Act 7:2-53), which is not easy of interpretation. He summarizes OT history from the call of Abraham to the building of Solomons Temple (cf. St. Pauls sermon in Act 13:1-52), in a manner which shows that he depended partly on tradition, for there are many discrepancies between his speech and OT. He speaks with great respect of the Mosaic Law (Act 7:35-38; Act 7:53). Some think that he disparages the Temple as having been built against Gods will (Act 13:48 ff.). But this is very improbable. Perhaps the defence was not completed; yet what was delivered gives its drift. The Jews had misunderstood their own Law. God had not confined His presence to the Tabernacle and the Temple; He had appeared to Abraham and others before the Law was given; Isaiah (Isa 66:1 f.) had preached that Gods worship was not confined to one place. But the people had persecuted the prophets as they now had killed Jesus. This defence provoked the Jews so much that they cast Stephen out of the city and stoned himundoubtedly an illegal murder, not sanctioned by the Roman law. Stephen, whose dying prayer for his murderers (Act 7:60) recalls that of his Master, thus became the first Christian martyr. His death led to a persecution, and to a dispersal of the disciples from Jerusalem. This caused the spread of the gospel to many lands. But the most prominent fruit of the martyrdom, doubtless, was the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, who was present (Act 7:58, Isa 8:1), and of whom, as is generally acknowledged, Stephen was in his preaching the forerunner.

A. J. Maclean.

Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible

Stephen

stev’n (, Stephanos, crown (Acts 6:5 through 8:12)):

1.His Personal Antecedents

2.His Character and Activity

3.His Teaching

4.His Arraignment before the Sanhedrin

5.His Defence before the Sanhedrin

(1)Personal Defence

(2)Defense of His Teaching

6.Martyrdom of Stephen

LITERATURE

Known best as the proto-martyr of the Christian church, introducing the heroic period of persecutions. He deserves as well to be called the first great apologist for Christianity, since it was this that brought on his death as a martyr (circa 36 or 37 AD).

1. His Personal Antecedents:

As his name and his relations in the church at Jerusalem seem to imply (Act 6:3 ff), he was a Hellenist, i.e. a Greek-speaking Jew. Thus he belonged to that class of Jews usually residing outside of Palestine who, though distinguished from the orthodox Palestinian Jew by a broader outlook on life due to a more liberal education, were Jews none the less, the original Jewish element predominating in their character, and who might be true Israelites indeed, as Stephen was. Of his conversion to Christianity we know nothing, though there is a tradition that he was among the Seventy. As Stephen by his life and work marks a period of transition in the development of the early Christian church, so his name is connected with an important new departure within the organization of the church itself, namely, the institution of the office of the Seven (Act 6:1 ff), who were entrusted with the administration of the work of relief in the church at Jerusalem – the foundation of the diaconate (Iren., Haer., i. 26; Cyprian, Epist., iii. 3). Of the seven men, all Hellenists, elected to this office at the occasion of a grievance of the Hellenistic Christians in the Jerusalem church against the Hebrew Christians, to the effect that in the distribution of alms their widows were being discriminated against, Stephen, who heads the list, is by far the most distinguished.

2. His Character and Activity:

Stephen more than met the requirements of the office to which he was elected (Act 6:3); the record characterizes him as a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit (Act 6:5), i.e. of an enthusiastic faith and of a deep spirituality, and his activity was not restricted to the functions of his office; in fact while nothing is said of the manner in which he fulfilled the duties of his office, though without doubt he fulfilled them faithfully, the record makes it very clear that the importance of Stephen lay in his activity as a preacher, a witness for Christ; it is this activity which has given him the place he holds in history (Act 22:20). In itself that is not surprising, for in the early Christian church every Christian was at once a witness for Christ, and lay-preaching was common. The Seven from the first were occupied with essentially spiritual work, as also the later diaconate was engaged in something far different from mere charity organization. But Stephen was especially qualified for this high work, having been endued by the Holy Spirit with apostolical gifts, not only that of preaching, but also that of working miracles (Act 6:8). In his freer views of Jewish law and customs, due to his deeper conception and better understanding of the essence of Christianity, he even excelled the apostles.

3. His Teaching:

He burst the bonds of Judaism, by which the other apostles were still bound, by teaching that the temple and the Law of Moses were evanescent and that Christianity was destined to supersede Judaism (Act 6:14). These freer views of Stephen, though possibly attributable to his Hellenic culture, were certainly not of Hellenistic origin, for just their promulgation is what brought him into controversy with the Hellenistic synagogues of Jerusalem. Though the Hellenist dispensed himself from keeping all of the Pharisaic additions to the Law, he always regarded the Law of Moses and the temple at Jerusalem as highly as the Palestinian Jew. Even Philo characterizes the Law of Moses in distinction from the laws of other nations, as stedfast, immovable and unchangeable, placing it on a level with the laws of Nature. The true source of Stephen’s freer views of the Mosaic Law and the temple was Christ’s own teachings, Stephen showing a wonderfully ripened understanding of them, paralleled only by that of Paul some time later. Christ’s words regarding the temple (Joh 4:20-24; Mar 13:2) not only led Stephen to see that the true worship of God was not confined to the temple, but opened his eyes as to the purely formal character of this worship in that day, which, far from being true worship, had become a mere ceremonialism (Mar 7:6), and in the words of Christ (Joh 2:19) he saw an intimation of the new temple which was to take the place of the old. Thus also his conception of the transitory nature of the Mosaic Law may be traced to Christ’s teaching as to the Sabbath, the laws of purifying, the fulfillment of the Law and Jewish customs of the day (Mat 5:20) and of a better righteousness than that of the Pharisees and scribes (Mat 9:16). As Christ had been drawn into controversy with Pharisees and scribes on account of these freer views, and as His word about the temple was used to frame the accusation against Him in His trial, so also in the case of Stephen. He did not hesitate to preach his views, choosing the Hellenistic synagogues for this purpose, and soon became engaged in controversies there. But, as the record says, his opponents were not able to withstand the wisdom, i.e. better understanding, convincing knowledge, and the Spirit, i.e. the deep earnestness and spirituality, by which he spake so convincingly (Act 6:10; Mat 10:19, Mat 10:20). Seeing themselves beaten, they took recourse to the ignoble method of declaring him a blasphemer and a heretic, by using the same foul means that the enemies of Jesus had resorted to, by suborning false witnesses to the plot, by stirring up the people against him, by appealing to their Jewish prejudices and to the scribes and elders, members of the Sanhedrin, and thus eventually brought about his arraignment.

4. His Arraignment Before the Sanhedrin:

The accusation which they brought against him, through the introduction of false witnesses, included a twofold charge, one against his person, a charge of blasphemous words against Moses which would make him also a blasphemer of God, and one against his teaching, charging him with revolutionary and radical statements concerning the temple and the Law. (compare Mar 14:58; Mar 13:2; Mar 15:29). Customs of Moses (Act 6:14) were the institutions that distinguished the Jews and that were derived from Moses. By his reference to this place and these customs Stephen was understood to imply the destruction of the temple and the change of the Law, Christianity thus aiming not only at the overthrow of the Jews’ religion but the very termination of their national existence.

The charge against Stephen’s person was a baseless accusation. There was no blasphemy on the part of Stephen, save by perversion of his words. The charge against his teaching was both false and true. It was false as an implied insinuation that he impugned the divine origin and character of the temple and the Mosaic Law, but it was true as far as he conceived both to be only of a temporary nature and serving a merely provisional purpose, which, as we have seen, constituted the peculiarity of his teaching. As in the trial of Christ, the judge, Pontius Pilate, read his true verdict, I find no guilt in him, written on His countenance and whole bearing, thus here the record tells us that the judges of Stephen, All that sat in the council … saw his face as it had been the face of an angel (Act 6:15; 2Co 3:18); as if in refutation of the charge made against him, Stephen receives the same mark of divine favor which had been granted to Moses. It is a significant fact that Stephen was not arraigned before the Sanhedrin as being a Nazarene though at bottom it was the real cause of his arraignment. Thus also his defense before the Sanhedrin, though the name of Jesus was not mentioned until the very last, was in reality a grand apology for Christ.

5. His Defense Before the Sanhedrin:

While the assembly was overawed by the evidence of singular innocence and holiness written upon the countenance of Stephen (Act 6:15), the question of the high priest Are these things so? broke in upon the silence. It drew forth from Stephen that masterful pleading which, so sublime in form and content and bare of all artificiality, belongs to the highest type of oratory, characterized by its deep, earnest, and genuine spirituality, the kind of oratory of which the great speeches of our own martyred Lincoln were models. It is not so much a plea in selfdefence as a grand apology for the cause which Stephen represents.

Beginning by mentioning the God of glory and ending with a vision of that glory itself, the speech is a wonderful apotheosis of the humble cause of the Nazarene, the enthusiastic tribute of its first great martyr delivered in the face of death. The contents of his speech are a recital of the most marked phases of Jewish history in the past, but as read from the point of view of its outworkings in the present – old facts interpreted by a spiritfilled disciple of Christ. It is in reality a philosophy of Israel’s history and religion, and in so far it was a novum. Thus the new feature that it furnishes is its philosophy of this history which might be termed the Christian philosophy of Jewish history. In appealing to their reason he calls up picture after picture from Abraham to Moses; the speech exhibits vividly the continuity and the progress of the divine revelation which culminated in Jesus of Nazareth, the same thought as that expressed by Christ in Mat 5:17 of the principal agreement between the Old Testament and the New Testament revelation.

The emotional appeal lies in the reverential and feeling manner in which he handles the history sacred to them all. The strong appeal to the will is made by holding up the figure of Moses type of the Law, in its vital significance, in such a way as passionately to apply it to the fundamental relation of divine plan and human conduct. Thus the aim of Stephen was to point out to his hearers the true meaning of Jewish history and Jewish Law in reference to the present, i.e. in such a way that they might better understand and judge the present and adjust their conduct to it accordingly. Their knowledge of Jewish history and Jewish religion as he would convey it to them would compel them to clear him of the accusation against him as blasphemer and false teacher.

In accordance with the accusation against him, his defense was a twofold one: personal defense and defense of his teaching.

(1) Personal Defense

The charge of blasphemy against God and contempt of the Law is implicitly repudiated by the tenor of the whole speech. The courteous and at once endearing terms in Stephen’s address (Act 7:2) to the council, and the terms our fathers and our race in Act 7:2, Act 7:19 by which he closely associates himself with his hearers, his declaration of the divine majesty of Yahweh with which the speech opens (Act 7:2), of the providential leading of the patriarchs (Act 7:8, Act 7:10), his recognition of the Old Testament institutions as divinely decreed (Act 7:8), his reference to the divine sanction of the Law and its condemnation of those who had not kept it (Act 7:53), at the close of his speech, show clearly his reverence, not only for the past history of the Jewish race, but as well for its Sacred Writings and all of its religious institutions. It makes evident beyond doubt how not grounded the accusation of blasphemy against him was. Not to impiety or frivolity in Stephen, but to some other cause, must be due therefore the difference between him and his opponents. What it is Stephen himself shows unmistakenly in the second part of his defense.

(2) Defence of His Teaching

The fundamental differences between Stephen and his opponents, as is evident from the whole tone and drift and purpose of his speech, lay in that he judged Old Testament history from the prophetical point of view, to which Jesus had also allied Himself, while his opponents represented the legalistic point of view, so characteristic of the Jewish thought of that day. The significance of this difference is borne out by the fact upon which Stephen’s refutation hinges, namely, the fact, proved by the history of the past, that the development of the divine revelation and the development of the Jewish nation, so far from combining, move in divergent lines, due to a disposition of obstinate disobedience on the part of their fathers, and that therefore not he but they were disobedient to the divine revelation. Thus in a masterful way Stephen converts the charge of Antinomianism and anti-Mosaism brought against him into a countercharge of disobedience to the divine revelation, of which his hearers stood guilty in the present as their fathers had in the past. In this sense the speech of Stephen is a grand apology for the Christian cause which he represented, inasmuch as it shows clearly that the new religion was only the divinely-ordered development of the old, and not in opposition to it.

The main arguments of the speech may be summed up as follows: (a) God’s self-manifestation to Israel in revealing His covenant and His will, so far from being bound to one sanctuary and conveyed to one single person (Moses), began long before Moses and long before there was a temple. Thus it was gradual, and as it had begun before Moses it was not completed by him, as is evident from his own words, A prophet shall God raise up unto you from among your brethren, like unto me (Acts 7:2-37).

(b) The Jews to whom these revelations were granted, so far from being thankful at all stages of their history, had been slow to believe and understand them because they would not be obedient (Act 7:39, Act 7:57). They resisted the purpose of God by obstinately and stiff-neckedly opposing those through whom God worked. Thus their fathers had turned away from Moses at the very moment when he was receiving God’s greatest revelation, and, instead of obeying the living oracles (Act 7:38) he gave them, turned to idol-worship for which God punished them by the Babylonian captivity (Act 7:39-43). They had killed the prophets who had protested against the dead ritualism of the temple-worship and raised their voice in behalf of a true spiritual worship as that of the tabernacle had been (Act 7:44-50, Act 7:52). This disposition of disobedience so characteristic of the race in its whole history, because, in spite of the divine revelation received, they remained unregenerate (Act 7:51), reached its culmination in that awful crime of betrayal and murder committed by the present generation upon the Righteous One whose coming the prophets had predicted the rejection of Jesus of Nazareth, by which the Jews doomed not only their national existence, but also their temple-worship and the reign of the Law to destruction (Act 6:14).

Though the name of Jesus was not uttered by Stephen in his speech and does not occur until in his dying prayer, his hearers could not fail to notice the hidden reference to Him throughout the entire speech and to draw parallels intended by Stephen: As Joseph and Moses, types of the Messiah, had been rejected, scorned and illtreated (Act 7:9, Act 7:27, Act 7:39), before being raised to be ruler and deliverer, so Jesus had also been repulsed by them.

The climax of his speech is reached in Act 7:51-53, when Stephen, breaking off the line of argument, suddenly in direct address turns upon his hearers, and, the accused becoming the accuser, charges them openly with the sin of resisting the Holy Spirit, with the murder of the prophets and the Righteous One, and with continual disobedience to the Law. These words which mark the climax, though probably not the close of the speech, pointed the moral in terms of the most cutting rebuke, and were at once prophetical as to the effect the speech would have upon his hearers and for him.

6. Martyrdom of Stephen:

Such arguing and directness as Stephen’s could have but one result. Prejudiced and enraged as they were, the unanswerable arguments of Stephen, based on their own Scriptures, made them mad with fury, and doubtless through their demonstrations they stopped the speech. But Stephen, ansported with enthusiasm and inspiration, was vouchsafed a vision of the glory of God, which he had mentioned in the beginning of his speech (Act 7:2), and of Jesus, whose cause he had so gallantly defended (Act 7:55). Stephen standing there, his gaze piercing into heaven, while time and human limitations seemed effaced for him, marks one of the most historic moments in the history of Israel, as his words constitute the most memorable testimony ever uttered in behalf of Christ: Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man – the only place where this title is uttered by any other person than Jesus – standing on the right hand of God (Act 7:56). Now the audience could restrain its rage no longer, and the catastrophe followed immediately. Contrary to Roman law and order they took Stephen, and without awaiting sentence against him, amid a tumultuous scene, stoned him to death, the punishment prescribed in Mosaic Law for a blasphemer (Deu 17:7; Lev 24:14-16). This recourse to lynch law may have been connived at by the Roman authorities, since the act was without political significance. It is noteworthy, however, that the Jewish legal forms were observed, as if to give to the violence the appearance of legality. Accordingly, Stephen was taken outside the city (Lev 24:14; compare Luk 4:29); the witnesses threw the first stone at him (compare Deu 17:7) after taking off their upper garments and laying them at the feet of a young man named Saul (Act 7:58) – afterward Paul, now about 30 years old – who evidently had charge of the whole proceedings.

Stephen died as he had lived, a faithful witness to his Master whom he acknowledged as such amid the rain of stones hurled at him, loudly calling upon His name, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit (Act 7:59; compare Luk 23:46), and whose spirit he exemplified so nobly when, with a final effort, bending his knees, he cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge (Act 7:60; compare Luk 23:34). And when he had said this, he fell asleep (Act 7:60; compare 1 Cor 15).

The impression made by Stephen’s death was even greater than that made by his life. Though it marks the beginning of the first great persecution of Christians, the death of the first Christian martyr resulted in the greatest acquisition Christianity has probably ever made, the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. The vision of the risen and exalted Jesus vouchsafed to the dying Stephen presented Christianity to Saul of Tarsus in a new light, tending to remove what had been its greatest stumbling-block to him in the Crucified One. This revelation coupled with the splendid personality of Stephen, the testimony of his righteous life and the noble bravery of his sublime death, and above all his dying prayer, fell upon the honest soul of Saul with an irresistible force and inevitably brought on the Damascus event, as Augustine clearly recognized: Si Stephanus non orasset, ecclesia Paulum non habuisset. Judged by his teaching, Stephen may be called the forerunner of Paul. He was one of the first to conceive of the fact that Christianity represented a new order of things and as such would inevitably supersede the old order. Thus his teachings forecast that greatest controversy of the first Christian century, the controversy between Judaism and Christianity, which reached its culmination-point in the Council of Jerusalem, resulting in the independence of the Christian church from the fetters of Judaistic legalism.

Literature.

R. J. Knowling, Acts in Expositor’s Greek Testament., II (1900); Feine, PRE3, XIX (1907); Pahncke in Studien u. Krit. (1912), I.

Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

Stephen

Stephen, one of the seven first deacons, and the proto-martyr, of the Christian church. There have been various conjectures respecting his early history, but the first authentic notice we find of him is in Act 6:5. In the distribution of the common fund that was entrusted to the Apostles (Act 4:35-37) for the support of the poorer brethren, the Hellenistic Jews complained that a partiality was shown to the natives of Palestine, and that the poor and sick among their widows were neglected. The complaint of the Hellenists having reached the ears of the apostles, immediate directions were given by them with a view to remove the cause of it. Unwilling themselves to be called away from their proper employment of extending the bounds of the Christian community, they told the assembled multitude of believers to select seven men of their own number, in whose faith and integrity they might repose entire confidence, for the superintendence of everything connected with the relief of the poor. The proposal of the apostles met with the approbation of the brethren, who proceeded at once with the choice of the prescribed number of individuals, among whom Stephen is first mentioned. He is distinguished in Scripture as a man ‘full of faith and of the Holy Ghost’ (Act 6:5). The newly elected individuals were brought to the apostles, who ordained them to their office, and they entered upon their duties with extraordinary zeal and success. The number of the disciples was greatly increased, and many priests were among the converts. In this work Stephen greatly distinguished himself by the miracles he performed before the people, and by the arguments he advanced in support of the Christian cause. From his foreign descent and education he was naturally led to address himself to the Hellenists, and in his disputations with Jews of the Synagogue of the Libertines and Cyrenians, etc. [SYNAGOGUE and LIBERTINES], he brought forward views of the Christian scheme that could not be relished by the bigots of the ancient faith. As they were unable to withstand his powers of reasoning, their malice was excited; they suborned false witnesses against him, and dragged him before the Sanhedrim as a blasphemer. The speech which Stephen made in defending himself against this accusation is well deserving of the most careful study. He first enters upon a historical statement, involving a refutation of the charges which had been made against him of hostility to the Old Testament institutions; but at the same time showing that acceptance with God does not depend upon outward relations. Under the same form he illustrates the providential care exercised by the Almighty in regard to the Jewish people, along with the opposition exhibited by the Jews towards those sent to them by God. And he points the application of his whole discourse by charging his carnal-minded hearers with resisting, like their fathers, the Holy Ghost. The effect upon his auditors was terrible. Conscience-smitten, they united in wreaking their vengeance on the faithful denouncer of their guilt. They drowned his voice with their clamorous outcries, they stopped their ears against him, they rushed on him with one accord in a tumultuary manner, they carried him forth, and without waiting for the authority of law, they stoned him to death as a blasphemer. The frantic violence of his persecutors did not disturb the tranquility of the martyr, and he died praying that his murderers might be forgiven (Act 7:60).

The only other particular connected with Stephen, mentioned in Scripture, is, that ‘devout men carried him to his burial, and made great lamentation over him’ (Act 8:2).

Fuente: Popular Cyclopedia Biblical Literature

Stephen

One of the seven chosen in the church at Jerusalem to minister the alms of the saints. He was a Greek-speaking Jew, who, though appointed to an office, yet in the energy of the Holy Ghost, bore witness of the power consequent on Christ being glorified, and the Holy Spirit here. 1Ti 3:13. Stephen was able to speak with such wisdom and power that his hearers could not withstand him. They suborned evil men to falsely accuse him, and he was dragged before the Jewish council, to whom his face appeared like that of an angel. He sketched the history of the people from Abraham, with which they were all familiar; but he laid bare from the outset the opposition of the Jews and of their fathers. Joseph they had refused; Moses they had repelled; they had turned to idolatry; had slain the prophets; had always resisted the Holy Ghost; and had been the betrayers and murderers of the Just One. Such was man’s history under culture and probation.

His hearers were cut to the heart, but did not repent: they gnashed their teeth at him. He, lifting up his eyes to heaven, saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and bore testimony to this. But they rushed upon him, cast him out of the city, and stoned him. He, like Jesus, prayed that their sin might not be laid to their charge, and, commending his spirit to the Lord, fell asleep.

Stephen’s martyrdom formed an epoch in the history of the church. Being a Hellenist, he in this respect differed from the apostles. He was chosen for the first martyr. To him the heaven was opened, and he bore witness to Jesus, the second Man, being at the right hand of God. It is at this juncture that Saul, who was destined to carry on the ministry of the gospel of the glory of Christ, is brought into view. He was then a young man, at whose feet the witnesses laid their clothes. Act 6:5-15; Acts 7; Act 8:2; Act 11:19; Act 22:20.

It has been asserted, by some critics, that Stephen made several mistakes in his address to the council! It is said, however, in scripture that he was “full of the Holy Ghost.” See SHECHEM.

Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary

Stephen

A Christian martyr.

Appointed one of the committee of seven to oversee the daily ministration

Act 6:3; Act 6:5-6

Faith and power of

Act 6:5; Act 6:8-10

False charges against

Act 6:11-15

Defense of

Act 7

Stoned

Act 7:54-60; Act 8:1; Act 22:20

Burial of

Act 8:2

Gentle and forgiving spirit of

Act 7:59-60

Fuente: Nave’s Topical Bible

Stephen

Stephen (st’vn), a chaplet, crown. One of the seven and the first martyr of the Christian church. Act 6:5; After a noble defence, he was dragged without the city, where, while praying, he was stoned to death. Act 6:11-15; Act 7:1-60; Act 8:2; Act 11:19; Act 22:20.

Fuente: People’s Dictionary of the Bible

Stephen

Ste’phen. The first Christian martyr, was the chief of the seven, (commonly called, Deacons), appointed to rectify the complaints in the early Church of Jerusalem, made by the Hellenistic against the Hebrew Christians. His Greek name indicates his own Hellenistic origin. His importance is stamped on the narrative by a reiteration of emphatic, almost superlative, phrases: “full of faith and of the Holy Ghost,” Act 6:5; “full of grace and power,” Act 6:8; irresistible “spirit and wisdom,” Act 6:10; “full of the Holy Ghost.” Act 7:55.

He shot far ahead of his six companions, and far above his particular office. First, he arrests attention by the “great wonders and miracles that he did.” Then begins a series of disputations, with the Hellenistic Jews of North Africa, Alexandria and Asia Minor, his companions in race and birthplace. The subject of these disputations is not expressly mentioned; but from what follows, it is obvious that he struck into a new vein of teaching, which evidently caused his martyrdom. Down to this time, the apostles and the early Christian community had clung in their worship, not merely to the Holy Land and the Holy City, but to the Holy Place of the Temple. This local worship, with the Jewish customs belonging to it, Stephen denounced. So we must infer from the accusations brought against him confirmed as they are by the tenor of his defence.

He was arrested at the instigation of the Hellenistic Jews, and brought before the Sanhedrin. His speech in his defence, and his execution by stoning outside the gates of Jerusalem, are related at length in Acts 7. The frame work in which his defence is cast is a summary of the history of the Jewish Church. In the facts which he selects from his history, he is guided by two principles.

The first is the endeavor to prove that, even in the previous Jewish history, the presence and favor of God had not been confined to the Holy Land, or the Temple of Jerusalem.

The second principle of selection is based on the attempt to show that, there was a tendency, from the earliest times, toward the same ungrateful and narrow spirit, that had appeared in this last stage of their political existence.

It would seem that, just at the close of his argument, Stephen saw a change in the aspect of his judges, as if, for the first time, they had caught the drift of his meaning. He broke off from his calm address, and tumult suddenly upon them in an impassioned attack, which shows that he saw what was in store for him. As he spoke, they showed, by their faces, that their hearts “were being sawn asunder,” and they kept gnashing their set teeth against him; but still, though with difficultly, restraining themselves.

He, in this last crisis of his fate, turned his face upward to the; open sky, and as he gazed, the vault of heaven seemed to him to part asunder; and the divine Glory appeared through the rending of the earthly veil — the divine Presence, seated on a throne, and on the right hand, the human form of Jesus. Stephen spoke as if to himself, describing the glorious vision; and in so doing, alone of all the speakers and writers in the New Testamenm t except, only Christ himself, uses the expressive phrase “the Son of man.”

As his judges heard the words, they would listen no longer. They broke into, a loud yell; they clapped their hands to their ears; they flew as with one impulse upon him, and dragged him out of the city to the place of execution. Those who took the lead in the execution were the persons who had taken upon themselves, the responsibility of denouncing him. Deu 17:7. Compare Joh 8:7.

In this instance, they were the witnesses who had reported, or misreported, the words of Stephen. They, according to the custom, stripped themselves; and one, of the prominent leaders, in the transaction, was deputed by custom to signify his assent to the act, by taking the clothes into his custody, and standing over them while the bloody work went on. The person was officiated on this occasion was a young man from Tarsus, the future apostle of the Gentiles. See Paul.

As the first volley of stones burst upon him, Stephen called upon the Master, whose human form, he had just seen in the heavens, and repeated almost the words with which, he himself had given up his life on the cross, “O Lord Jesus receive my spirit.” Another crash of stones brought him on his knees. One loud, piercing cry, answering to the shriek or yell with which his enemies had flown upon him, escaped his dying lips.

Again clinging to the spirit of his Master’s words, he cried “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge” and instantly sank upon the ground, and, in the touching language of the narrator, who then uses, for the first time, the words, afterward, applied to the departure of all Christians, but here the more remarkable from the bloody scenes in the midst of which death took place, fell asleep. His mangled body was buried by the class of Hellenists and proselytes to which he belonged. The importance of Stephen’s career may be briefly summed up under three heads:

He was the first great Christian ecclesiastic, “the Archdeacon,” as he is called in the eastern Church.

He is the first martyr — the protomartyr. To him, the name of “martyr” is first applied. Act 23:20.

He is the forerunner of St. Paul. He was the anticipator, as, had he lived, he would have been the propagator, of the new phase of Christianity of which St. Paul became the main support.

Fuente: Smith’s Bible Dictionary

STEPHEN

one of the seven, commonly called deacons, in the early
church.

Act 6:5; Act 7:59; Act 8:2; Act 11:19; Act 22:20

— “The Spirit filled Business Man”,
Elected to supervise benevolences

Act 6:5

— he overleapt the limitations of his task and became a powerful
preacher

Act 7:1-60

— Possessed a seven-fold Fulness
Full of Faith and the Holy Spirit

Act 6:5

Full of Wisdom

Act 6:3; Act 6:10

Full of Power

Act 6:8

Full of Light

Act 6:15

Fulness of vision

Act 7:55; Act 7:56

Fulness of Love

Act 7:60

A martyr for the faith

Act 7:56

Fuente: Thompson Chain-Reference Bible

Stephen

the first martyr. He is always put at the head of the seven deacons; and it is believed he had studied at the feet of Gamaliel. As he was full of the Holy Ghost, and of zeal, Act 6:5-6, &c, he performed many wonderful miracles: and those of the synagogue of the Libertines, of the Cyrenians, of the Alexandrians, and others, disputing with him, could not withstand the wisdom and the power with which the spoke. Then having suborned false witnesses, to testify that they had heard him blaspheme against Moses, and against God, they drew him before the sanhedrim. Stephen appeared in the midst of this assembly, with a countenance like that of an angel; and the high priest asking him what he had to answer, in his defence, he rapidly traced the history of the Jews, showing that they had always opposed themselves to God and his prophets; faithfully upbraided them with the hardness of their hearts, with their putting the prophets to death, and, lastly, with slaying Christ himself. At these words they were filled with rage, and gnashed their teeth against him. But Stephen, lifting up his eyes to heaven, calmly exclaimed, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God. Then the Jews cried out, and stopped their ears as though they had heard blasphemy, and falling on him, they drew him out of the city, and stoned him. The witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man called Saul, afterward St. Paul, who then appears to have commenced his career of persecution. And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive, my spirit; 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, an example of the majesty and meekness of true Christian heroism, and as the first, so also the pattern, of all subsequent martyrs. His Christian brethren forsook not the remains of this holy man; but took care to bury him, and accompanied his funeral with great mourning, Act 8:2.

Fuente: Biblical and Theological Dictionary