SAINT STEPHEN

One of the first deacons and the first Christian martyr; feast on 26 December.
In the Acts of the Apostles the name
of St. Stephen occurs for the first time on the occasion of the appointment of
the first deacons (Acts, vi, 5). Dissatisfaction concerning the distribution
of alms from the community’s fund having arisen in the Church, seven men were
selected and specially ordained by the Apostles to take care of the temporal
relief of the poorer members. Of these seven, Stephen, is the first mentioned
and the best known.
Stephen’s life previous to this appointment remains for us almost entirely
in the dark. His name is Greek and suggests he was a Hellenist, i.e., one of
those Jews who had been born in some foreign land and whose native tongue was
Greek; however, according to a fifth century tradition, the name Stephanos was
only a Greek equivalent for the Aramaic Kelil (Syr. kelila, crown), which may
be the protomartyr’s original name and was inscribed on a slab found in his
tomb. It seems that Stephen was not a proselyte, for the fact that Nicolas is
the only one of the seven designated as such makes it almost certain that the
others were Jews by birth. That Stephen was a pupil of Gamaliel is sometimes
inferred from his able defense before the Sanhedrin; but this has not been
proved. Neither do we know when and in what circumstances he became a
Christian; it is doubtful whether the statement of St. Epiphanius (Haer., xx,
4) numbering Stephen among the seventy disciples is deserving of any credence.
His ministry as deacon appears to have been mostly among the Hellenist
converts with whom the Apostles were at first less familiar; and the fact that
the opposition he met with sprang up in the synagogues of the “Libertines”
(probably the children of Jews taken captive to Rome by Pompey in 63 B. C. and
freed hence the name Libertini), and “of the Cyrenians, and of the
Alexandrians, and of them that were of Cilicia and Asia” shows that he usually
preached among the Hellenist Jews. That he was pre eminently fitted for that
work, his abilities and character, which the author of the Acts dwells upon so
fervently, are the best indication. The Church had, by selecting him for a
deacon, publicly acknowledged him as a man “of good reputation, full of the
Holy Ghost and wisdom” (Acts, vi, 3). He was “a man full of faith, and of the
Holy Ghost” (vi, 5), “full of grace and fortitude” (vi, 8); his uncommon
oratorical powers and unimpeachable logic no one was able to resist, so much
so that to his arguments replete with the Divine energy of the Scriptural
authorities God added the weight of “great wonders and signs” (vi, 8). Great
as was the efficacy of “the wisdom and the spirit that spoke” (vi, 10), still
it could not bend the minds of the unwilling; to these the forceful preacher
was fatally soon to become an enemy.
The conflict broke out when the cavillers of the synagogues “of the
Libertines, and of the Cyreneans, and of the Alexandrians, and of them that
were of Cilicia and Asia”, who had challenged Stephen to a dispute, came out
completely discomfited (vi, 9 10); wounded pride so inflamed their hatred that
they suborned false witnesses to testify that “they had heard him speak words
of blasphemy against Moses and against God” (vi, 11).
No charge could be more apt to rouse the mob; the anger of the
ancients and the scribes had been already kindled from the first reports of
the preaching of the Apostles. Stephen was arrested, not without some
violence it seems (the Greek word synerpasan implies so much), and dragged
before the Sanhedrin, where he was accused of saying that “Jesus of Nazareth
shall destroy this place [the temple], and shall change the traditions which
Moses delivered unto us” (vi, 12 14). No doubt Stephen had by his language
given some grounds for the accusation; his accusers apparently twisted into
the offensive utterance attributed to him a declaration that “the most High
dwelleth not in houses made by hands” (vii, 48), some mention of Jesus
foretelling the destruction of the Temple and some inveighing against the
burthensome traditions fencing about the Law, or rather the asseveration so
often repeated by the Apostles that “there is no salvation in any other” (cf.
iv, 12) the Law not excluded but Jesus. However this may be, the accusation
left him unperturbed and “all that sat in the council…saw his face as if it
had been the face of an angel” (vi, 15).
Stephen’s answer (Acts, vii) was a long recital of the mercies of God
towards Israel during its long history and of the ungratefulness by which,
throughout, Israel repaid these mercies. This discourse contained many things
unpleasant to Jewish ears; but the concluding indictment for having betrayed
and murdered the Just One whose coming the Prophets had foretold, provoked the
rage of an audience made up not of judges, but of foes. When Stephen “looking
up steadfastly to heaven, saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the
right hand of God”, and said: “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son
of man standing on the right hand of God” (vii, 55), they ran violently upon
him (vii, 56) and cast him out of the city to stone him to death. Stephen’s
stoning does not appear in the narrative of the Acts as a deed of mob
violence; it must have been looked upon by those who took part in it as the
carrying out of the law. According to law (Lev., xxiv, 14), or at least its
usual interpretation, Stephen had been taken out of the city; custom required
that the person to be stoned be placed on an elevation from whence with his
hands bound he was to be thrown down. It was most likely while these
preparations were going on that, “falling on his knees, he cried with a loud
voice, saying: “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge” (vii, 59). Meanwhile
the witnesses, whose hands must be first on the person condemned by their
testimony (Deut., xvii, 7), were laying down their garments at the feet of
Saul, that they might be more ready for the task devolved upon them (vii, 57).
The praying martyr was thrown down; and while the witnesses were thrusting
upon him “a stone as much as two men could carry”, he was heard to utter this
supreme prayer: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (vii, 58). Little did all the
people present, casting stones upon him, realize that the blood they shed was
the first seed of a harvest that was to cover the world.
The bodies of men stoned to death were to be buried in a place appointed by
the Sanhedrin. Whether in this instance the Sanhedrin insisted on its right
cannot be affirmed; at any rate, “devout men” whether Christians or Jews, we
are not told “took order for Stephen’s
funeral, and made great mourning over him” (vii, 2). For centuries the
location of St. Stephen’s tomb was lost sight of, until (415) a certain priest
named Lucian learned by revelation that the sacred body was in Caphar Gamala,
some distance to the north of Jerusalem. The relics were then exhumed and
carried first to the church of Mount Sion, then, in 460, to the basilica
erected by Eudocia outside the Damascus Gate, on the spot where, according to
tradition, the stoning had taken place (the opinion that the scene of St.
Stephen’s martyrdom was east of Jerusalem, near the Gate called since St.
Stephen’s Gate, is unheard of until the twelfth century). The site of the
Eudocian basilica was identified some twenty years ago, and a new edifice has
been erected on the old foundations by the Dominican Fathers.
The only first hand source of information on the life and death of St.
Stephen is the Acts of the Apostles (vi, i viii, 2).