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59. Stephen.
The apostles and
those who had become believers through their word initially led a
beautiful life together. They were all of one heart and one soul. Indeed,
they led a communal household under the supervision of the apostles and
gave their daily food especially to the abandoned and unfortunate widows.
But when the crowd became too large and disorderly, they chose, on the
advice of the apostles, seven blameless and pious men to preside over
the business. One of them was called Stephen.
Stephen was, apart from his piety, a handsome man, but at the same time
a talkative and irritable one. It was easy to see that he was still a
novice and not an apostle. His irritability led to his death. He was
brought before the council because of his teaching. False witnesses came
against him and accused him of saying that Jesus of Nazareth would
destroy the temple and change the laws given by Moses. These wretched
people did not even know how to come up with something new. They brought
up the same accusation that Jesus had been accused of.
All who sat in the council looked at Stephanum; he stood among them like
an angel. But when the high priest asked him, ‘Is it so?’ he began to
speak, and in his address he first called them dear brothers and fathers,
and reminded them of the good things God had done for his people from
the time of Abraham until he came to David and Solomon, who built the
Lord's beautiful temple. But when he mentioned the temple and now
thought again of the accusation for which he had been accused, and when
he was already heated in his speech, he lost the composure of his pious
mind so much that he began to scold them. No apostle did that. He called
them stiff-necked and uncircumcised, which was a great insult in those
days, and accused them of saying that their fathers had killed the
prophets and they themselves were no better.
No one likes to be scolded by his fathers, nor by himself. They gnashed
their teeth in anger at these words, and when he finally said, ‘I see
heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God,’ they
tore him out of the city without justice or judgement and stoned him to
death. But when he felt that he was about to die, he cried out: ‘Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit!’ Indeed, he prayed for his murderers and their
comrades, that God would not keep this sin from them. The pious Stephen
died such a death, and a young Pharisee named Saul stood by as they
stoned him to death and took special pleasure in his death. The young
Pharisee is the one whom God chose to be the twelfth among the disciples,
and no one at that time recognised him for it. God did not keep this sin
from him.
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