The life and work of St. Paul

94 -ffHE LIFS AND WORK OF ST. PAUL.
Priest who, during tho utmost virulence of tlie first persecution gave Saul his
inquisitorial commission to Damascus ; Matthias, another son, roust, from tho
date of his elevation, have been one of those leading Jews whom Herod Agrippa
tried to conciliate by the murder of James the son of Zebedee ; and another
Hunan, the youngest son of the " viper brood " brought about with illegal
violence the murder of James the brother of the Lord. 1 Thus all these judicial
murders so rare at this epoch were aimed at the followers of Jesus, and all of
them directed or sanctioned by the cunning, avaricious, unscrupulous members
of a single family of Sadducean priests. 2
Stephen, then, was hurried away to execution with a total disregard of the
ordinary observances. His thoughts were evidently occupied with the sad scene
of Calvary ; it would come home to him with all the greater vividness because
he passed in all probability through that very gate through which Jesus, four
short years before, had borne His cross. It was almost in the words of his
Master 8 that when the horrid butchery began for the precautions to render
death speedy seem to have been neglected in the blind rage of his murderers
ho exclaimed, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." 4 And when bruised and
bleeding lie was just able to drag himself to his knees it was again in the spirit
of that Lord that ho prayed for his murderers, and even the cry of his anguish
rang forth in the forgiving utterance showing how little malice there Lad
been in the stern words ho had used
"
before Lord, lay not to their charge
this sin."' With that cry he passed from the wrath of men to the peace of
God. Tho historian ends the bloody tragedy with one weighty and beautiful
word, " He fell asleep." 6
To fulfil their dreadful task, the witnesses had taken off their garments; 7
and they laid them " at the feet of a young man whose name was Saul."
It is the first allusion in history to a name, destined from that day forward
to be memorable for ever in tho annals of tho world. And how sad an
allusion ! He stands, not indeed actively engaged in the work of death ; but
keeping the clothes, consenting to the violence, of those who, in this brutal
' Jos. An.lt. xviii. 4, 3 ; 5, 3 ; xix. 6, 2 ; xx. 9, 1.
2 Every epithet I Lave used is more than justified by what we know of this family
from the Isew Testament, from Josephus, and, above all. from the Talmud. See
Excursus VII., "The Power of the Sanhedrin to Inflict Death."
3 Luke xxiii. 34, 46.
4 tTriKoAdv/xevoc mcans_^ calling on Jesus." There is no need for the ingenious conjecture
of Bentley that eN is lost by hoinoeoteleuton of the ON.
6 This not as ia the Received text is the proper order of the words (N. A, B, C, D).
" Saevire videbatur Stephanus : lingua ferox, cor lene " (Aug. Sc-nn. 315). "Si Stephanus
non orassct ecclesia Pauluru non habuisset." With tho expression itself comp. Rev. xiv. 13.
Perhaps in the word OTTJCTIJS we may see an allusion to the Jewish notion that a man's sins
actually followed and stood by him in the world to come (1 Tim. v. 24 ; Sot^ih, f. 3, 2).
So in. a beautiful epigram of the Anthology, we find the lines, Upb^ virvov xotpaTiu*
0ij\vTu with which, as Bishop Wordsworth points out, the Acts of the
Apostles ends. St. Luke is evidently fond of paronomasia, as well as St. Paul (cf.
KanjfHo0T)