cheenc03a.pdf

STEPHEN
In his brilliant and skilful address 171.8 0.16 17-n
his opponents. In the opening sketch of patri&chsl
history, which is quite in keeping with the sententious
and discursive style often affected by Orientals
in unfolding some grave issue, the speaker is mainly
concerned to explain the origin of the covenant and
promiseZ which culmitmted in the Mosaic legislation
and the Solomonic temple. But he manages indirectly
to express his personal reverence for God (61r. cp
71 ri\ and the temole . 1012, co 77). as well ar the
common ancestry of Jew and Christian alike (our
father. 7 1, cp rz, etc.. also Lk. 11,). Then comes the
development of two leading ideas ; one already suggested,
the other novel, yet both showing his desire to
justify himself by an appeal to the original baris and
trend of OT revelation. la\ Chareed with deorechtine
STEPHEN
the temple, he arguer (+.-n 44-p) that neither law nor
temple had come until comparatively late in the
national history, the temple in fact only in Solomon'r
reign ; yet, previously to that, the spiritual revelation of
God had been camled on in foreign lands (for Abraham.
u. 2, Moses. uzc 30 33. and Israel, i,. 38). Even the
temple itself, ur the prophets testified, formed no
adequate or absolute hediun, for such a spiritual
revelation (the tacit inference being, of course, that it
could not therefore be any blasphemy or treachery to
OT religion to assert, as Jesus had done, that even the
temple was not indispensable or final).' And ur for the
law of Moses (b), uith its divine vitality and power (to
which, answering 6 t'J. Stephen does ample justice.
38 s3). not only had it, like the temple, been preceded
by revelations (r.6, of circumcirion), but its founder
had been misunderntwd (715 Lk. 2 SO), rejected, and
thwarted by the very people (in Egypt 14-35. in the
wilderness 36-14) to whom God had sent him as ruler
-
and redeemer. Thankless, perverse, and obtuse :
such had been their nature all along. Hence their
failure to welcome Jerur with his authority and creative
power to establish a new and final form of worship
which should correspond to the ideal of the OT. This
resistance. so far fwnl king loyalty to religion, spelt
both unfaithfulness and di~ster to it, representing
indeed a conservatism to the letter and the form of
religion which the fresh and fulhr current of the spirit
would leave stranded. Moses predicteda that the
Messiah would be a second Moses, and Stephen
argues vehemently (in quite a characteristic Lucan
fashion, cp Lk. 1619 /: 2411 f: Acts 281~. etc) that
the true observance of the Law would lead its devotees
to Jesua (51-53): real loyalty to the Law and the
prophets culminates in Christian faith, the line of con.
tinuity running from the O'r prophets to the gospel of
Christ. Whereas, he grimly suggests. Jesus had been
indeed a recond Moses: 3 his rejection, due to the same
obstinacy and rebellious spirit (51 f.) that Moses and
his successors' (51) cneounlered, is really a proof of his
genuine Messiahship. In short, the argument ends with
a flashing retort. Stephen hurls hack the charge of
disloyalty on his accusers, implying, in characterirrically
Alexandrian and yet also in OT fashion, that the Jewish
"lido".
a , is ~r~~~di..~ plament to the ar umsnt or+c C.C~ in
its oitanr form, rlnce It destroys the Jewish c~atm t\nt the
M-ic cultus and lsg~rlation were final. The prophel.Mersiah,
;U =~eco"d Moses, rr leait equal to the first in authority "lust
have the right to rup.rrede or transcend previoub revei:tionr.
True the Jcvr had rsjcsted him whom Stephen as !he
true he,rmh. BUC that war no decisive argument aaslnst hlrn
for they hsd done the same to the first ~ orer. ~hus, airhouCd
u. 37 has all the appearanre of ;. parenthesis or ~ dir~~i~l sddi.
tion of Lk.. even so if would only sharp" an tdea already
present in the original and (like 6 r r) reflect a correct resdiug of
the rimhive roucce.
3 $0 a. ddition (I lo) 'and wisdom. (CP
22)=Lk.24o jr (R~sonV The idma dominsfes the Clmrrliu
re cop ti ria^ (