“752. STONING—ACTS 7:58”

Stoning—Act_7:58

Stoning to death was the ordinary capital punishment among the Jews, just as much as hanging is with us, decapitation in France and Germany, and strangulation in Spain.

In the Law it is assigned to such offenders as blasphemers, false prophets, and the like; but it was not confined to them, and stoning is to be understood wherever the punishment of death is indicated without any particular form being specified. It is true we read of persons being hanged; but that was the hanging up of the body (in particular cases only) after death had been inflicted. We also find persons “slain by the sword;” but this was the punishment for military or political offenders, sentenced by the sovereign, just as with us such persons are shot or beheaded, while the ordinary death-punishment is hanging. It is noticeable that it is in the deserts of stony Arabia we first hear of this form of punishment—having been suggested probably by the abundance of these missiles, and the fatal effect with which they were often employed in broils among the people. It seems a very shocking form of death-punishment, but was less so than it may seem. Originally, it is likely, the people merely pelted the bound criminal with the stones lying about, till he died. But even in this crude form of its infliction, the first stone that struck the bared head would generally close the painful scene. Latterly the punishment assumed a more orderly shape, and was subjected to arrangements, the object of which was to bring the criminal to his end as expeditiously as possible, and to divest the punishment of a tumultuary aspect. The particulars which the Jewish writers have left us, describe a form of stoning materially different from the idea which is usually entertained of that punishment, and which, as existing in the time of Stephen, deserves our attention. From these sources we learn that the manner of execution was this—A crier marched before the man who was to die, proclaiming his offence, and the names of the witnesses on whose testimony he had been convicted. This was for the humane purpose of enabling any one, possessing knowledge of the parties and the circumstances, to come forward and arrest the execution until his further evidence had been heard and considered. Hence, usually, the tribunal which had sentenced the prisoner, remained sitting to hear such evidence as might thus be produced, and did not finally rise until apprized that the execution had taken place. The place of execution was always outside the town—as was, until about seventy years ago, the case in London, the condemned being conveyed from Newgate Note: Through Holborn and Oxford Street, to a spot fronting Hyde Park, not far from the Marble Arch, and now a fashionable quarter of the metropolis. Cunningham, in his Hand Book of London, says. “It the gallows] stood, as I believe, on the right of Connaught Place, though No. 49, Connaught Square, is said to be the spot.” The change to the present practice of hanging the condemned just outside the prison gate, was made in 1782, and was thus animadverted on by Dr. Johnson, according to Boswell—“He said to Sir William Scott, ‘The age is running mad after innovation, and all the business of the world is to be done in a new way; men are to be hanged in a new way; Tyburn itself is not safe from the fury of innovation.’ It having been argued that this was an improvement—‘No, Sir,’ said he, eagerly, ‘it is not an improvement. They object, that the old method drew together a number of spectators. Sir, executions are intended to draw spectators. If they do not draw spectators, they don’t answer their purpose. The old method was most satisfactory to all parties; the public was gratified by a procession: the criminal was supported by it. Why is all this to be swept away?’” to Tyburn, a distance of nearly three miles, for execution.

St. Stephen’s Gate at Jerusalem

At this day in Jerusalem, there is a gate which bears the name of Stephen, under the belief, locally entertained, that it was through the old gate which this represents that the martyr was hurried to his death. The vicinity of this gate to the area of the temple (now the mosque of Omar), is in favor of this tradition; and as there is a path leading direct from this gate to the garden of Gethsemane, we may conclude that our Lord often passed through it in his way to and from the Mount of Olives—at least on the awful night of his agony.

Arrived at the place, the convict was divested of his clothing, except a small covering about the loins; and his hands being bound, he was taken to the top of some eminence—a tower, a building, or a cliff—not less than twice a man’s height. When the top was reached, the witnesses laid their hands upon him, and then cast off their upper clothing, that they might be the more ready for the active exertion their position imposed—being virtually that of executing the sentence which had been the result of their evidence. To prevent the clothes, of which they thus divested themselves, from being lost, they were consigned to the care of some friend; and in the case of Stephen, the executing witnesses gave their garments in charge of “a young man whose name was Saul,”—of whom there will hereafter be much to say—and whose full and hearty complicity in the transaction is not only indicated by this fact, but is afterwards expressly affirmed in the words: “Saul was consenting unto his death.” Indeed, from the stress that he himself, after his conversion, laid upon this circumstance—“When the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I kept the raiment of them that slew him” (Act_22:20)—we may gather that that implied a degree of active concurrence in the deed only a degree less than that of the witnesses; and the words themselves show, as we now explain, that the witnesses were also the executioners.

All being thus ready, one of the witnesses cast the condemned down from that high place with great violence, endeavoring to do it so that he should fall on a large stone, which was designedly placed below. This usually rendered him insensible, if it did not kill him; but if he was not dead, those below turned him upon his back, and then the other witnesses, remaining above, cast down a large stone aimed at the chest. This was generally mortal; but if not, the people below hastened to cast stones at him till no life remained. In this way the execution was quickly over, and was attended by fewer revolting circumstances than must have ensued from that indiscriminate pelting by the people, which is commonly supposed to have constituted this form of capital punishment. It would seem that Stephen rose from his fall to his knees, and in that posture prayed for the forgiveness of his murderers—a circumstance which imparts an additionally touching emphasis to his prayer.

In the narrative of our Lord’s death, it is made plainly to appear that the Jewish tribunals had no power of inflicting the punishment of death without the sanction of the Romans; and it may be, and has been asked, how it is that we have here what seems, at the first view, a regular trial before the Sanhedrin, with the deposition of witnesses, the prisoner’s defence, and the ordinary capital punishment among the Jews inflicted, without any mention of the Romans. As to the trial merely, that is easily explained. The Jewish tribunal necessarily tried the prisoner to find the nature of his offence; and if they found him guilty of a capital crime, they pronounced sentence against him, and reported it to the Roman governor for confirmation. If confirmed, the offender was given to them for execution by their own mode of stoning, unless the offence were of a political nature, as for sedition, when the Romans took the matter into their own hands, and inflicted their punishment of crucifixion. In the case of Stephen, however, it is very doubtful if the trial even was complete. But supposing that all the forms of legal process were observed, and sentence duly pronounced, it does not follow that they did not exceed the bounds of their authority in carrying their own sentence into effect before the Romans could interfere to prevent it. That it is reported as having taken place, by no means proves that the act was legally performed. The Roman governor ordinarily resided at Caesarea, and was rarely at Jerusalem, except at the great festivals. In his absence they might feel more at liberty to act in carrying out their own sentence, with little fear of being afterwards called to account on the report of the Roman commandant—partly because the Romans held cheaply the life of any one who was not a citizen of Rome, and partly because the governor stood in fear of the Jewish authorities at this time, and would be likely to wink at their proceedings. There was hence little to deter them from acting in this case, even if the Roman check upon their authority did really exist.

All this is on the supposition that the trial was regular, but the execution irregular. But it will rather appear that the trial itself was irregular, and that the judicial act was not completed. There are, indeed, the witnesses, and part of the prisoner’s defence; and here the legal action stops. The high-priest does not, as in our Lord’s trial, ask the opinion of the council, and then deliver sentence in accordance with their views. We read of no conference, no sentence. The defence itself it interrupted, by the ungovernable rage of those who heard it; and when Stephen declared that he saw Jesus standing at God’s right hand, they stayed to hear no more, but rushed upon him, and hurried him away to death. This has all the aspect of a tumultuary proceeding—a violent interruption of that course of action, by which they purposed, in the first instance, to reach a sentence, to be reported to the Roman governor for his sanction. Indeed, the matter reached a point at which they might have felt authorized to act without the usual formalities. The words Stephen uttered sounded in their ears as rank blasphemy; and, when that was the case, the Jews seem always to have been ready to stone a man on the spot without any trial. There are several instances of this in the Gospels, which will instantly occur to the reader’s recollection. A man taken in the fact might be punished out of hand without trial; and this rule seems to have been popularly extended to blasphemy. So, when Stephen uttered words which seemed to them blasphemous, they may have felt there was no need of any further trial—the case having become one for instant and summary action, vindicable even to the Roman Governor. It certainly appears from the narrative that Stephen was convicted, less upon the evidence of the witnesses, than upon that declaration of his own, which made them “run upon him with one accord.”

It seems, therefore, that there is nothing in the case of Stephen to compel us to abandon our previous conclusion, that the Jewish tribunals had been by the Romans divested of the sovereign power of inflicting capital punishment.

Autor: JOHN KITTO