The life and work of St. Paul

WOBK AND MARTYRDOM OF ST. STEPHEN. 77
Gospel, so far from involving any rupture with Judaism, was consistent with
a most scrupulous devotion to its observances. It must be borne in mind that
the priests in Jerusalem, and a few other cities, were a multitudinous body, 1
and that it was only the narrow aristocratic clique of a few alien families who
were Sadduceea in theology and Herodians in politics. Many of the lower
ranks of the priesthood were doubtless Pharisees, and as the Pharisees were
devoted to the doctrine of the Resurrection, there was nothing inconsistent
with their traditions in admitting the Messiahship of a Risen Saviour. Such
a belief would at this time, and indeed long afterwards, have made little
difference in their general position, although if they were true believers it
would make a vast difference in their inward life. The simplicity, the fervour,
the unity, the spiritual gifts of the little company of Galilaeans, would be
likely to attract the serious and thoughtful. They would be won by these
graces far more than by irresistible logic, or by the appeals of powerful elo-
quence. The mission of the Apostles at this time was, as has been well
observed, no mere apostolate of rhetoric, nor would they for a moment pretend
to bo other than they were illiterate men, untrained in the schools of tech-
nical theology and rabbinic wisdom. Had they been otherwise, the argument
for the truth of Christianity, which is derived from the extraordinary rapidity
of its dissemination, would have lost half its force. The weapons of the
Apostolic warfare were not carnal. Converts were won, not by learning or
of a new life.
argument, but by the power of a new testimony and the spirit
Up to this period the name of Stephen has not occurred in Christian
history, and as the tradition that he had been one of the seventy disciples is
valueless, 2 we know nothing of the circumstances of his conversion to Christianity.
His recognition, however, of the glorified figure, which he saw in his
ecstatic vision, as the figure of Him who on earth had called Himself " the Son
of Man," makes it probable that he was one of those who had enjoyed the
advantage of hearing the living Jesus, and of drawing from its very fountain-
head the river of the water of life. 3 We would fain know more of one who,
in so brief a space of time, played a part so nobly wise. But it was with
Stephen as it has been with myriads of others whose names have been written
in the Book of Life ; they have been unknown among men, or known only
during one brief epoch, or for one great deed. For a moment, but for a
moment only, the First Martyr steps into the full light of history. Our
insight into his greatness is derived almost solely from the record of a single
speech and a single day the last speech he ever uttered the last mortal life.
day of his
from the families of the lordly and supercilious Boethusim, Kamhiia, &c. But neither
here nor in i. 15, o\\.o