The Stoning

Enraged by the speech, the council rushes upon Stephen, casts him out of the city, and stones him; the witnesses lay their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul (Acts 7:57–58). Stephen dies as his Master died — committing his spirit (“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”) and praying for his killers (“Lord, do not hold this sin against them”) — and “when he had said this, he fell asleep” (Acts 7:59–60). “And Saul approved of his execution” (Acts 8:1). This file follows the first Christian martyrdom in its detail and its meaning.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Protomartyr)

The Rage of the Council

The speech ends and the verdict is instantaneous. “Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him” (Acts 7:54). Stephen has turned the trial inside out — the prisoner has convicted the court — and the response is not a sentence but a fury. The narrative marks the moment as the point at which legal process collapses into mob violence: there is no formal condemnation, no Roman confirmation of a death penalty (which the Sanhedrin lacked the authority to carry out, cf. John 18:31), only a crowd that “cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him” (Acts 7:57). The stopping of the ears is the gesture of those who will not hear blasphemy — and so, ironically, of those who refuse the word of the Spirit they have just been told they “always resist” (Acts 7:51). The scene has the character of a lynching rather than an execution, which is one reason the historical and legal questions it raises are taken up in their own place (see The Historical Questions).

Cast Out and Stoned

“Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him” (Acts 7:58). The casting-out of the city follows the Mosaic prescription that the blasphemer be stoned outside the camp (Lev 24:14; Num 15:35; cf. Deut 17:7) — and it echoes, as Hebrews would later make explicit, the death of Jesus “outside the gate” (Heb 13:12). Stoning was the appointed penalty for blasphemy under the Law (Lev 24:16), and the procedure required the witnesses to cast the first stones (Deut 17:7) — which is exactly what Luke records: “the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul” (Acts 7:58), stripping for the violent work of casting the heavy stones. The detail is precise and dreadful, and it introduces, almost in passing, the figure who will dominate the rest of Acts.

Saul at the Stoning

The young man at whose feet the garments are laid is Saul — the Pharisee of Tarsus, in Cilicia (Acts 22:3), who will become the Apostle Paul. Luke names him three times around the death of Stephen, with mounting emphasis: the witnesses lay their garments “at the feet of a young man named Saul” (Acts 7:58); “and Saul approved of his execution” (literally, “was consenting to his killing,” syneudokōn tē anairesei autou, Acts 8:1); and “Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison” (Acts 8:3). The repetition is deliberate: Luke is binding the first martyr and the future apostle together at the very scene of the death, so that the reader who later meets Saul struck down on the Damascus road (Acts 9) will remember where he first stood. Paul himself never forgot it: years later, in the Temple, he recalls before God “when the blood of Stephen your witness (martys) was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him” (Acts 22:20). The protomartyr and the apostle of the nations are joined at the place of stoning — a conjunction the fathers, above all Augustine, would read as the secret hinge of the whole story (developed in The Seed of the Church).

The Two Prayers

Stephen dies as his Lord died, and Luke frames the death by two prayers that consciously echo the two last sayings of Christ from the cross in his own Gospel. First, “as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit’” (Acts 7:59) — answering the dying word of Jesus, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46). The difference is itself a confession: where Jesus commends his spirit to the Father, Stephen commends his to the Lord Jesus — addressing the risen Christ in prayer, as God, in the act of dying for him (Barrett, Acts, ICC, 1994, 1:384–387; and the christological weight of this is treated in The Vision of the Son of Man). Then, “falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them’” (Acts 7:60) — answering the Lord’s word over his crucifiers, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). The martyr’s last act is intercession for his murderers, and it is the act on which the whole later theology of Stephen as the seed of Paul will rest.

“He Fell Asleep”

The death itself is told with a single, gentle word: “And when he had said this, he fell asleep” (ekoimēthē, Acts 7:60). The verb is the Christian word for the death of the faithful — koimēsis, the “falling asleep” of those who die in the Lord and will rise (cf. 1 Cor 15:6, 18, 51; 1 Thess 4:13–15) — and Luke, having narrated a death of utmost violence, names it with the tenderness of one who knows it is not an ending. The first martyr does not die; he falls asleep, his spirit received by the Lord whom he saw standing to receive him. “Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him” (Acts 8:2). And on that day “a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered” — except the apostles — “throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria” (Acts 8:1), so that the death which the council meant for an ending became the beginning of the mission beyond Jerusalem (see The Seed of the Church).

See Also

References

  • The Holy Bible — Lev 24:14–16; Num 15:35; Deut 17:7; Luke 23:34, 46; John 18:31; Acts 7:54–8:3; 9:1–19; 22:3, 20; 1 Cor 15:6, 18; 1 Thess 4:13–15; Heb 13:12. Cited by book chapter:verse.
  • John Chrysostom. Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles 18. Trans. in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I, Vol. 11. (The death and the prayer for the killers.)
  • Augustine of Hippo. Sermon 382 (on Stephen). Trans. in The Works of Saint Augustine III/10. Hyde Park: New City Press, 1995.
  • Barrett, C. K. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. Vol. 1. ICC. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994. (Acts 7:54–8:3.)
  • Fitzmyer, Joseph A. The Acts of the Apostles. Anchor Bible 31. New York: Doubleday, 1998. (The stoning and Saul.)