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Bible Dictionaries
Stephen
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or Of Stephen we know nothing beyond the abort notice of him contained in the two chapters (6 and 7) of Acts. He is said by Epiphanius [Haer. xx. 4) to have been one of the Seventy; but such a statement has little weight. All we can say for certain is that, when elected to be one of the Seven, he was a man of position both within and without the Christian community (Acts 6:3). The office to which he was appointed was that of administering alms to the widows of Hellenists (i.e. Greek-speaking Jews) who considered themselves overlooked in the daily distribution from the common fund of food or money. But to this work Stephen, like others of the Seven, notably Philip, by no means restricted himself. He was ‘full of grace and power’ (Acts 6:8), and was impelled to engage in controversy with members of the Hellenistic synagogues established in Jerusalem, and ‘they were not able to withstand the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spake’ (Acts 6:10). It is generally supposed that, as he devoted himself to the members of these Hellenistic synagogues, he was himself a Hellenist. The inference, not unreasonable in itself, is confirmed by his name, and by the familiarity which he seems to show with the Septuagint version of the Scriptures, perhaps even by what seems to have been the tenor of his teaching. To the Hellenist Jews with whom he argued that tenor must have been unmistakable, even from the outset. He was at once accused of undermining the authority of the Law of Moses, denying the permanent sanctity even of the Temple (Acts 6:14-15).
Those who brought these charges are called false witnesses. False witnesses they undoubtedly were, as they interpreted the words of warning and of insight which he uttered as threats thrown out against the Temple and the Law. In this it was with Stephen as it had been previously with our Lord, Our Lord Himself had said that He was to become the world’s temple in the future, and was condemned for blasphemy for speaking ill words against the Temple in Jerusalem; Stephen proclaimed that Temple and Law had done their work and were to give place in time to a more spiritual temple, a more universal law, and was denounced for blasphemy. The speech which he delivers when summoned before the Sanhedrin makes it plain that this was his position; and the fullness with which the speech is given, as a sort of introduction to the section of the Acts which traces the gradual reception of the Gentiles into the Christian Church, makes it obvious that this is the right construction to be put upon his words.
The speech itself contains three lines of thought, sometimes kept separate, but oftener interlaced, all leading up to one and the same conclusion. The first line is this-that the original covenant made between God and Israel was concluded not with Moses but long before with Abraham and the patriarchs, and, since the Mosaic covenant had been thus preceded by an earlier and more spiritual one, it might also be followed by a later and more spiritual one (‘A covenant confirmed beforehand by God, the law, which came four hundred and thirty years after, doth not disannul, so as to make the promise of none effect’ (Galatians 3:17). Secondly, there is the suggestion that since God was worshipped acceptably long before temple or even tabernacle (after which the Temple was modelled, the tabernacle itself being but a copy of the heavenly tabernacle seen on the mount) was built, and again since God was acceptably worshipped in spots far removed from the Land of Canaan, and Solomon, at the very moment of building the Temple, declared that God dwells not in ‘houses made with hands’ (Acts 7:48), it is at least possible that God may be worshipped, and worshipped acceptably, elsewhere than in the Temple. Thirdly, the speech ends with the warning to which all the earlier part-the fate of Joseph, the fate of Moses-had led up: ‘Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye’ (Acts 7:51). It was this last lesson so emphatically driven home that immediately produced that outbreak of rage in the Sanhedrin which brought about Stephen’s death. Its members condemned him to be guilty of blasphemy: he had justified, not denied or even softened down, his previous utterances; they rushed upon him, and, when he stated that he saw the heavens opened and Jesus standing to welcome him on the right hand of God, the vision did, in this view, but increase the blasphemy, so they dragged him out of the city and stoned him. Saul, then a young man, presided at the stoning and gave hearty assent and approval to his death (Acts 7:60, Acts 8:1).
Two questions relating to this stoning have to be answered: (1) How did it take place at all, seeing that the Jews had not the power of life and death? (2) What was the date at which it occurred? As to the first point, the actual martyrdom of Stephen seems to have been something of the nature of a tumultuous outbreak. It was a sudden fit of rage that brought it about, similar to that through which St. Paul so nearly lost his life had he not been rescued by the Roman soldiers (Acts 22:23 ff.). As to the second question, it has been suggested that this outbreak took place during a temporary vacancy in the provincial authority, which will not, however, fix the date, as the Roman governors were frequently changed during this period; or, as some have thought, it may have occurred during a vacancy in the Imperial throne. Tiberius died and Caius became Emperor early in a.d. 37, and Stephen’s martyrdom has been put at this time. This is almost the latest date assigned, and there is more, perhaps, to be said for an earlier date such as Ramsay suggests-a.d. 32 or 33 (St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, p. 376). All that we can gather with fair certainty is that St. Paul’s conversion followed soon after; but the date of this event is itself involved in much obscurity, depending, as it does, on whether we identify the visit to Jerusalem mentioned in Galatians 2 with the visit of Paul and Barnabas described in Acts 11, 12 or with that described in Acts 15. As Harnack, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 29, concludes, it is impossible to settle this point with certainty, because St. Luke, probably having himself no exact date to rely upon, has left the chronology of this section of the Acts in intentional obscurity.
Literature.-J. P. Norris, Key to Narrative of the Acts of the Apostles, London, 1885; R. B. Rackham, The Acts of the Apostles, do., 1901; W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, do., 1895; A. Harnack, The Acts of the Apostles, Eng. translation , do., 1909, Luke the Physician, Eng. translation , do., 1907.
W. A. Spooner.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Stephen'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/s/stephen.html. 1906-1918.
