Acts 6:8. “But Stephen, full of grace and fortitude”—with that fortitude by which he was soon to pour out his blood for Christ—“was doing great wonders and signs among the people.” From this it is evident that, just as innumerable miracles were done by Christ, so also by the Apostles and disciples many miracles were wrought which were not written down; only some were recorded, as the Holy Spirit willed them to be written, for the faith of others.
Acts 6:9. “Now there arose some”—zealous for the Law of Moses—“from the synagogue,” from a college or congregation, “which is called the Synagogue of the Libertines,” that is, of Jewish Libertines. These were Jews who were permitted to live at Rome beyond the Tiber by Caesar Augustus, whose parents had formerly been captured in various wars and carried to Rome into slavery, as is gathered from Philo the Jew in his Embassy to Gaius. For among the Romans, libertini were properly those who were born of parents who had been slaves and afterwards were granted freedom. These Roman Jewish Libertines, just as the other nations here named, had at Jerusalem, as in the public academy of the Mosaic Law and the sacred Scriptures, a synagogue or college, to which they sent their sons to be educated.
“And of the Cyrenians”—also from the synagogue of the Jews who dwelt in Cyrene, a famous city of Africa, of which mention was made earlier in Acts 2:10.
“And of the Alexandrians”—from the synagogue of the Jews who lived in Alexandria in Egypt.
“And of those who were from Cilicia”—Jews who lived at Tarsus and in the other cities of Cilicia.
“And Asia”—finally, from the synagogue of the Jews of Asia Minor, which is neighboring Cilicia.
All these cities together also had a synagogue at Jerusalem, in which, it is very likely, Saint Paul the Cilician of Tarsus sat at the feet of Gamaliel the Doctor.
“Disputing with Stephen.” Some interpreters conjecture that Saint Paul was among these disputants from the synagogue of the Cilicians, and that Saint Stephen was his kinsman, for some relate that he was his cousin, whom he fiercely opposed. For disputes among friends and relatives in matters of religion are often the most fervent. Since Saint Paul seems to have been at Jerusalem at the time of the Lord’s Passion, it is probable that he hastened at once from Tarsus in Cilicia, or from elsewhere, to Jerusalem when he heard that a new religion, contrary to the Mosaic Law, was being preached there by the Apostles with signs and wonders.
Acts 6:10. “And they were not able to resist the wisdom” by which Stephen was interpreting the Scriptures to them and proving that Jesus is the Messiah, the one promised in the Law and the Prophets, “and the Spirit who was speaking.” He spoke in him as in an instrument; for “it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you” (Matthew 10:20).
Because, however, the Greek text reads “the spirit by which he spoke” (τῷ πνεύματι ᾧ ἐλάλει), some interpreters do not understand the Holy Spirit here, but rather the actual grace of the Holy Spirit by which Saint Stephen was moved, so that the things he had conceived in his mind through wisdom he might utter with strength and courage.
Acts 7:54. “But when they heard these things”—their own vices, which Saint Stephen had so fearlessly reproached to their faces—“they were cut to the heart.” Their hearts were, as it were, torn apart by anger and indignation. “And they gnashed their teeth at him,” like rabid dogs, as though they wished to tear him apart with their teeth. Such gnashing of teeth and such turmoil of the mob were most shameful in those chief priests, whose dignity required them to restrain the anger conceived in their hearts, lest it burst forth into that frenzy and gnashing of teeth.
Acts 7:55. “But he, being full of the Holy Spirit,” endowed with all the gifts of the Holy Spirit—for unless his soul had been wholly inflamed with the light and fire of the Holy Spirit, he would never have dared, in that assembly of so many chief priests and rabbis, to hurl such things with such fearlessness, fervor, and brilliance as we have already heard. Hence Carthusianus exclaims of him: O how great was the constancy of this saint, how great the strength of his faith, how great the ardor of love, how great the readiness to die for Christ, how great the zeal for justice, how great the security and tranquility of his mind!
“Looking intently into heaven,” lifting up the eyes of body and mind toward heaven in the manner of one praying and awaiting help. Otherwise, he could not naturally see heaven itself with the bodily eye, for he was not outdoors, but in a hall where that council of rabbis was assembled.
“He saw”—also with bodily eyes—“the glory of God,” a certain heavenly and divine brightness; for the Greek word δόξα (doxa, “glory”) often also means brightness or splendor. Hence the Church, explaining this glory, sings of Saint Stephen: “Among the ethereal courts of the heavenly palace, divine brightness shone upon him.”
“And Jesus standing,” as though helping and fighting on his behalf, for to fight is the posture of one who stands. Christ is not an idle spectator of the combat of the martyrs, but their helper; for unless his grace were fighting for them, no one would be victorious. In other places of Scripture Christ is said to sit as Judge, because even now he judges all things invisibly, and at the end he will come visibly as Judge of all, says Bede.
“At the right hand of God,” surrounded by such glory that he appeared equal in divinity to God the Father. For when Christ is said to be at the right hand of God, it signifies that he is equal to the Father in divinity, lest, because of the lowly garment of human nature with which he is clothed, he be thought inferior to the Father in divinity.
“And he said,” he manifests his vision for the sake of certain elect persons present who were going to believe it: “Behold, I see the heavens opened.” For the brightness of the glorious body of Christ was, as it were, radiating into the lower world through an opened door. Since that brightness lies hidden in the Empyrean heaven and is, as it were, enclosed there, when it shines forth from there the heaven is said to be opened, just as we also say that the heaven is opened in a great flash of lightning. Otherwise, heaven was no more rent or opened here than when, at the baptism of Christ, the heavens are said to have been opened and the Holy Spirit to have descended upon Christ like a dove (Matthew 3:16).
The vision of Saint Stephen was supernatural in its mode, for the light and visible species of Christ’s body penetrated, by a supernatural power, through so great a distance and through all intervening bodies, even opaque ones, as far as the eyes of Saint Stephen, and indeed under so perfect an angle of vision that the entire magnitude of Christ’s body and even his posture as standing appeared. To comfort the patience of the blessed martyr, says Bede, the gate of the heavenly kingdom is opened, and lest the innocent man, being stoned on earth, should falter, the God-man, crucified and crowned, appears to him in heaven.
Some, however, think that Saint Stephen not only saw with the bodily eye the humanity of Christ and the brightness surrounding it, but also beheld with the spiritual eye the very Essence of God, as Saint Thomas and Augustine judge concerning Moses and Paul. But the vision of the divine Essence in a mortal body ought not to be made common to so many; it suffices, therefore, for Saint Stephen, as Carthusianus says, that he had a certain intellectual vision, midway between the faith of the wayfarer and the vision of the blessed in their homeland. And this was brought about, says Carthusianus, without any phantasm, through a most splendid irradiation of uncreated light into the summit of the intellect, as is wont to happen in the contemplation of mystical theology or unitive wisdom.
“And the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” He calls him Son of Man rather than Son of God for the confusion of the Jews, to whom the humanity of Christ was a stumbling block, lest they should believe him to be God. Now, therefore, that man is shown to Saint Stephen in the majesty of God in heaven, such as he was preached in the world by the Apostles. From this passage Lorinus refutes Maldonatus, who had said on Matthew 8:21 that in the New Testament Christ is called Son of Man by no one except himself, and therefore that this name is not one of honor but of abasement.
Acts 7:56. “But crying out with a loud voice,” as though in response to an enormous blasphemy, “they stopped their ears.” They blocked them with their own hands, lest they should hear so great a blasphemy. They wished to appear so holy that they would not even endure listening to blasphemers. “And with one accord they made a rush upon him,” without any sentence of death having been pronounced, on account of the supposed evident nature of the deed, as it seemed to them.
Acts 7:57. “And casting him out,” seizing him and thrusting him out with their hands, “outside the city, they stoned him.” The place of punishments was accustomed to be outside the city. Then, following the example of the Lord, who commanded the blasphemer to be brought out and stoned outside the camp (Leviticus 24:14), Saint Stephen was stoned outside the northern gate of the city of Jerusalem, between the walls and the torrent Cedron, which runs through the Valley of Josaphat, as Adrichomius and Brocardus note. Formerly that gate was called the Gate of Ephraim; now it is called the Gate of Saint Stephen.
“And the witnesses,” who had borne testimony against him (Acts 6:11, 13). For the Law commanded that those by whose testimony the accused was stoned should cast the first stones at him (Deuteronomy 17:7). “Laid down their garments,” their outer garments, such as cloaks or togas, so that they might be free for stoning, “at the feet of a young man,” who perhaps voluntarily offered himself for this office, so that in some manner he might stone him by the hands of all whose garments he was keeping, as Saint Augustine thinks. Indeed, he encouraged the others who were stoning him, and was a leader of that most wicked band, even though he was, as many think, a kinsman of Saint Stephen; but in the opposition of religions, brothers and kinsmen are often more hostile than strangers.
“Who was called Saul.” This name is Hebrew, Šāʾûl (שָׁאוּל, “asked for”), from which Christ afterwards called him from heaven (Acts 9:4), where, when we read “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” in Greek it is Σαοὺλ, Σαοὺλ. Saint Luke calls Paul a young man (adolescens), although he was then about thirty-four years old and of the same age as Christ the Lord, as Baronius and others teach, because adolescence is here taken for youth, which extends to about the thirtieth or thirty-fifth year. For contiguous ages, such as adolescence and youth, easily communicate their names to one another. Thus Saint Luke in Acts 20:9 calls a certain Eutychus adolescens, and immediately in verse 12 calls him puer (“boy”), although adolescence follows childhood.
So also Saul here, who is called an adolescent or youth, about a year later will be called a man (Acts 9:13). Some also, like Pythagoras according to Laërtius, divide the age of man into periods of twenty years, so that the first twenty years are called childhood, the next twenty adolescence, and so on; thus adolescence would last until the fortieth year of age. Indeed, Seneca in Epistle 30 takes adolescence for the whole period of more vigorous age that precedes old age; for just as old age follows adolescence, so death follows old age. But if adolescence were taken strictly here as extending only from the fourteenth to the twenty-fifth year, Saint Paul, writing the Epistle to Philemon about twenty-six years later, would not have called himself an old man (v. 9), since he could scarcely have been fifty if that were so. But if he was about thirty-four at the death of Stephen, then after twenty-six years he would have been about sixty, which is the proper middle of old age.
Acts 7:58. “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” into your hands and into your heaven. Against Calvin and the heretics who deny that the souls of the saints go immediately to heaven at death, as Oecumenius also notes, Stephen, dying, professes the faith that he preached, namely, that Jesus is the Messiah and God.
Acts 7:59. “And kneeling down,” although overwhelmed by a storm of stones, he nevertheless rises upon his knees in order to pray to God for his enemies. Why did he not bend his knees for himself, but only when he prayed for his enemies? I answer: because their greater iniquity demanded a more efficacious mode of prayer, says Bede. But why did he first pray for himself and then for his enemies, whereas Christ on the Cross did the contrary, first praying for his enemies—“Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34)—and afterwards praying for himself—“Father, into your hands” (Luke 23:46)? Estius replies that Christ could not fall away from justice and therefore prayed first for others; Stephen, however, could fall away, and therefore, according to the order of charity, was first solicitous for himself.
“He cried out with a loud voice,” signifying the greatness of his love toward his enemies. “Lord, do not lay this sin against them.” Do not make their sin stable and perpetual by withdrawing the grace of repentance, but forgive them both the guilt and the punishment. The prayer of Stephen was heard for some, and especially for Saul. Hence that saying of Augustine: If Stephen had not prayed, the Church would not have had Paul. And because Saul was most obstinate, and many who were obstinate in malice, as various histories relate, were converted by the invocation of Stephen, it is thought that Saint Stephen received from God this privilege of converting the obstinate, just as some other saints are said to have various graces of healings, both of soul and of body.
“And when he had said this,” having cried out with a loud voice—in this also imitating Christ his Master, who, crying out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” expired (Luke 23:46). How great a cry could be uttered by those who are expiring, whose voice ordinarily fails in the last agony, was miraculous.
“He fell asleep.” For death, which is followed by the blessed resurrection of the body to a better life, is like a sweet sleep, from which men awaken to the works and tasks of life more vigorous and stronger. Hence the places destined for the burial of the faithful are called in Greek κοιμητήρια (koimētēria, “dormitories”). “In the Lord.” In the faith and grace of Christ the Lord. Yet this phrase is not added in the Greek text. Gregory of Nyssa and Carthusianus understand to fall asleep in the Lord of the rest of the soul in eternal beatitude, to which Stephen was at once assumed by Christ the Lord from the moment of bodily death.
He is called Protomartyr, not because there were no martyrs before him—such as the Maccabees, John the Baptist, and others—but because they were killed for other causes; Stephen, however, is the first of all martyrs who was slain on account of the confession of Christ, God and man, and Messiah promised in the Scriptures.
“But Saul was consenting to his death.” Some translate willingly consenting, for in the strict etymology of the Greek word it signifies a consent that is glad and voluntary, not compelled, as the Syriac interpreter also notes. Therefore, even if he did not stone Stephen with his own hands, he nevertheless stoned him with a willing mind; indeed, he kept the garments of those who were stoning him and encouraged them to stone him. Yet not only those who do such things are worthy of death, but also those who consent to those who do them, as Paul himself writes (Romans 1:32).
Saint Luke here expressly mentions Saul, in order that the work of God in his conversion, to be described in chapter 9, might appear more illustrious, as Chrysostom notes.
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