The life and work of St. Paul

WORK AND MARTYRDOM OF ST. STEPHEN. 81
of lessons which nothing short of an express miracle could have made
immediately intelligible to a Peter and a James.
Now the relation of tho Law to the Gospel had been exactly one of those
subjects on which Jesus, in accordance with a divine purpose, had spoken with
a certain reserve. His mission had been to found a kingdom, not to promulgate
a theology ; He had died not to formulate a system, but to redeem & race. His
work liad been not to construct the dogmas of formal creeds, but to purify the
soul of man, by placing him in immediate relation to the Father in Heaven.
It required many years for Jewish converts to understand the meaning of tho
saying that " He came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil." Its meaning could
indeed only become clear in the light of other sayings of which they overlooked
tho force. The Apostles had seen Him obedient to the Law ; they had seen
Him worship in the Temple and the Synagogues, and had accompanied Him in
His journeys to the Feasts. He had never told them in so many words that tho
glory of the Law, like the light which lingered on the face of Moses, was to be
done away. They had failed to comprehend the ultimate tendency and significance
of His words and actions respecting the Sabbath, 1
respecting outward
observances, 2
respecting divorce, 3
respecting the future universality of spiritual
worship. 4 They remembered, doubtless, what He had said about the permanence
of every yod and horn of a letter in the Law, 6 but they had not remarked
that the assertion of the pre-eminence of moral over ceremonial duties is one
unknown to the Law itself. Nor had they seen that His fulfilment of the Law
had consisted in its spiritualisation that He had not ; only extended to infini-
tude the range of its obligations, but had derived their authority from deeper
principles, and surrounded their fulfilment with diviner sanctions. Nor, again,
had they observed how much was involved in the emphatic quotation by Christ
of that passage of Hosoa, " I will have mercy and not sacrifice." 6
They were
not yet ripe for the conviction that to attach primary importance to Mosaic
regulations after they had been admitted into the kingdom of Heaven, was to
fix their eyes upon a waning star while the dawn was gradually broadening into
boundless day.
About the early ministry of Stephen we are told comparatively little in the
Acts, but its immense importance has become more clear in the light of subse-
quent history. It is probable that he himself can never have formed the
remotest conception of the vast results results among millions of Christians
through centuries of progress which in God's Providence should arise from
the first clear statement of those truths which he was the first to perceive.
Had he done so he would have been still more thankful for the ability with
which he was inspired to support them, and for the holy courage which prevented
him from quailing for an instant under the storm of violence and hatred
which his words awoke.
What it was which took him to the synagogues of Jewish Hellenists we do
> Mark ii. 27; John v. 17,
John iv. 22.
J s
Matt. ts. 13 ; xii. 7.
Matt. xix. 3, 6, 8 ; v. S2,
"
Matt. v. 18. Matt. ix. 13 ; xii. 7.