St. Stephen

St. Stephen (died 36 ce, Jerusalem; feast day December 26) was a Christian deacon in Jerusalem and the first Christian martyr, whose apology before the Sanhedrin (Acts of the Apostles 7) points to a distinct strand of belief in early Christianity. His defense of his faith before the rabbinic court enraged his Jewish audience, and he was taken out of the city and stoned to death. His final words, a prayer of forgiveness for his attackers (Acts of the Apostles 7:60), echo those of Jesus on the cross (Luke 23:34). Stephen is the patron saint of deacons and stonemasons. His feast day is observed with both religious and secular traditions in a number of countries. See also St. Stephen’s Day.

The name Stephen is Greek, and chapter 6 of Acts of the Apostles tells us that he was a Hellenist (a foreign-born Jew who spoke Greek). He lived in Jerusalem and had become a Christian. The Hellenist converts, who probably formed a minority in the early Christian community, complained that the care of their elderly widows was neglected by the Hebrew-speaking majority. The Apostles presented the matter to the congregation and, pleading the press of responsibilities, instructed it to select seven deacons for this community service. They were chosen and ordained, and Stephen, who became the best known of the seven, was recognized as a man with special gifts as an evangelist. He engaged in religious discussions among the adherents of synagogues of Diaspora Jews in the capital. Growth in the number of Jewish converts, including “many of the priests,” provoked a reaction. He was summoned before the Sanhedrin, the supreme rabbinic court in Jerusalem, and charged with speaking against “this holy place and the law.” The charge is very general; the report of his defense before the Sanhedrin is the primary resource for learning what Stephen stood for.

Stephen’s response was Jewish in its concerns, and in form it followed Hellenistic rhetorical conventions (Joshua 24:2–14; Acts of the Apostles 3:12–26). Many scholars see a Samaritan connection to Stephen’s community, postulating that it may have migrated there when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 ce. They assume that the speech may have been modified in its transmission through the years between its delivery and its incorporation in St. Luke’s text which appears as Acts of the Apostles. In any event, what Stephen seems to say about temple and law would not have displeased Samaritan ears either, though it is probably Stephen’s independent and original conviction.

Stephen was bitterly opposed to the Temple in Jerusalem and its sacrificial cult. He revered the Law of Moses but considered the temple cult an illegitimate part of it. For Stephen, Moses was “both ruler and deliverer” (Acts of the Apostles 7:35); he had delivered “living oracles,” the true law, and he had promised that God would raise up another prophet (Jesus) as he had raised up Moses (7:37). Stephen seems to think of Jesus as the “restorer of Mosaic religion.” In his discourse, he sets Aaron over against Moses, the Temple over against the tent, and Solomon, who built the Temple, over against David, who was persuaded not to. For Stephen, the building of the Temple was a bit of idolatry, comparable to Aaron’s golden calf; “the Most High does not dwell in houses made with hands” (7:48).

Stephen’s feelings about the Temple seem to have been more completely negative than those of the first Christians generally; the latter, including St. Paul, continued to frequent it. Its sacrificial rites served in many ways to shape the theological interpretation of salvation through the death of Jesus. There is no hint that Stephen assigned doctrinal significance to the death of Jesus. On the other hand, it has been suggested that he may have been the first to anticipate the return (Second Coming) of Jesus. In a moment of rapture, at the close of his apology, he saw the heavens opened and “the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” The title “Son of Man,” with its intensely eschatological-apocalyptic connotations, is used in the New Testament only by Jesus himself, with this single exception from the mouth of Stephen. For St. Paul, Jesus had brought deliverance from the “curse of the law” (Galatians 3:13). For Stephen, deliverance still awaits the rebirth of the Mosaic tradition in its purity. Though Stephen was an intensely committed follower of Jesus, his faith may have rested as much on the old basis as on the new. Stephen, to whose fate the Pharisee Saul of Tarsus assented, spoke for an overwhelmingly Jewish, pre-Pauline Christian movement, the precise outlines of which are not easily recoverable, because they have been covered by layers of great change.