_ST. STEPHEN'S DEFENCE AND THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION._
"[The Grecian Jews] stirred up the people, and the elders, and
the scribes, and came upon him, and seized him, and brought him
into the council, and set up false witnesses, which said, This
man ceaseth not to speak words against this holy place, and the
law: for we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall
destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses
delivered unto us."--ACTS vi. 12-14.
"And the high priest said, Are these things so? And he said,
Brethren and fathers, hearken."--ACTS vii. 1, 2.
St. Stephen and St. Philip are the two prominent names among the
primitive deacons. Stephen, however, much surpasses Philip. Devout
expositors of Scripture have recognised in his name a prophecy of his
greatness. Stephen is Stephanos, a garland or crown, in the Greek
language. Garlands or crowns were given by the ancient Greeks to those
who rendered good services to their cities, or brought fame to them by
winning triumphs in the great national games. And Stephen had his name
divinely chosen for him by that Divine Providence which ordereth all
things, because he was to win in the fulness of time an imperishable
garland, and to gain a crown of righteousness, and to render highest
services to the Church of God by his teaching and by his testimony
even unto death. St. Stephen had a Greek name, and must have belonged
to the Hellenistic division of the Jewish nation. He evidently
directed his special energies to their conversion, for while the
previous persecutions had been raised by the Sadducees, as the persons
whose prejudices had been assailed, the attack on Stephen was made by
the Grecian Jews of the synagogues belonging to the Libertines or
freedmen, in union with those from Cyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia, and
Asia. The Libertines had been slaves, Jewish captives, taken in the
various wars waged by the Romans. They had been dispersed among the
Romans at Rome and elsewhere. There in their captivity they had
learned the Greek language and become acquainted with Greek culture;
and now, when they had recovered their freedom through that suppleness
and power of adaptation which the Jewish race has ever displayed, they
returned to Jerusalem in such numbers that a synagogue of the
Libertines was formed. Their captivity and servitude had, however,
only intensified their religious feelings, and made them more jealous
of any attempts to extend to the Gentiles who had held them captives
the spiritual possessions they alone enjoyed. There is, indeed, an
extremely interesting parallel to the case of the Libertines in early
English history, as told by Bede. The Saxons came to England in the
fifth century and conquered the Christian Celts, whom they drove into
Wales. The Celts, however, avenged themselves upon their conquerors,
for they refused to impart to the pagan Saxons the glad tidings of
salvation which the Celts possessed.[128] But the Libertines were not
the only assailants of St. Stephen. With them were joined members of
synagogues connected with various other important Jewish centres.
Jerusalem was then somewhat like Rome at the present time. It was the
one city whither a race scattered all over the world and speaking
every language tended. Each language was represented by a synagogue,
just as there are English Colleges and Irish Colleges and Spanish
Colleges at Rome, where Roman Catholics of those nationalities find
themselves specially at home. Among these Hellenistic antagonists of
St. Stephen we have mention made of the men of Cilicia. Here,
doubtless, was found a certain Saul of Tarsus, enthusiastic in defence
of the ancient faith, and urgent with all his might to bring to trial
the apostate who had dared to speak words which he considered
derogatory of the city and temple of the great king.
[128] See Bede's _Ecclesiastical History_, Book ii., chap. 2.
Saul, indeed, may have been the great agent in Stephen's arrest. It is
a nature and an intellect like his that can discern the logical
results of teaching like St. Stephen's, and then found an accusation
upon the deductions he makes rather than upon the actual words spoken.
Saul may have placed the Church under another obligation on this
occasion. To him may be due the report of the speech made by Stephen
before the Sanhedrin. Indeed, it is to St. Paul in his unconverted
state we feel inclined to attribute the knowledge which St. Luke
possessed of the earlier proceedings of the council in the matter of
the Christians.[129] After St. Paul's conversion we get no such
details concerning the deliberations of the Sanhedrin as we do in the
earlier chapters of the Acts, simply because Saul of Tarsus, the
rising champion and hope of the Pharisees, was present at the earlier
meetings and had access to their inmost secrets, while at the later
meetings he never appeared save to stand his trial as an accused
person. The question, How was Stephen's speech preserved? has been
asked by some critics who wished to decry the historic truth of this
narrative, and to represent the whole thing as a fancy sketch or
romance, worked up on historic lines indeed, but still only a romance,
written many years after the events had happened. Critics who ask this
forget what modern research has shown in another department. The
_Acts_ of the martyrs are sometimes very large documents, containing
reports of charges, examinations, and speeches of considerable length.
These have often been considered mere fancy history, the work of
mediæval monks wishing to celebrate the glory of these early witnesses
for truth, and sceptical writers have often put them aside without
bestowing even a passing notice upon them.
[129] I have already said something on p. 181 of the meetings of
the council, but not perhaps quite enough to explain St. Paul's
relation to St. Luke as far as the Acts of the Apostles is
concerned. The Sanhedrin sat in a semicircle. In the centre of the
arc the president was placed; at either extremity there sat a
scribe, while the disciples or pupils of the Sanhedrists were
arranged in three rows appropriate to their respective
attainments. In Selden's _Works_, i., 1323, in his treatise on the
_Assemblies of the Hebrews_, the reader can see a plan of the
Sanhedrin when sitting. St. Paul, as a favourite pupil of the
President Gamaliel, would have the best place among the disciples,
if he were not actually one of the council. Selden says that the
disciples were arrayed in this prominent position not only that
they might be instructed in law, but also might be available for
serving on the council if any member died suddenly or was taken
ill. St. Paul probably made numerous notes of the speeches
delivered before him, and could supply St. Luke with notices
written and verbal. The article in Schaff's _Theological
Cyclopædia_ on Sanhedrin should be consulted for more information
and references on this point, as well as the other references on
p. 181.
Modern investigation has taken these documents, critically
investigated them, compared them with the Roman criminal law, and has
come to the conclusion that they are genuine, affording some of the
most interesting and important examples of ancient methods of legal
procedure anywhere to be found. How did the Christians get these
records? it may be asked. Various hints, given here and there, enable
us to see. Bribery of the officials was sometimes used. The notaries,
shorthand writers, and clerks attendant upon a Roman court were
numerous, and were always accessible to the gifts of the richer
Christians when they wished to obtain a correct narrative of a
martyr's last trial. Secret Christians among the officials also
effected something, and there were numerous other methods by which the
Roman judicial records became the property of the Church, to be in
time transmitted to the present age.[130] Now just the same may have
been the case with the trials of the primitive Christians, and
specially of St. Stephen. But we know that St. Paul was there. Memory
among the Jews was sharpened to an extraordinary degree. We have now
no idea to what an extent the human memory was then developed. The
immense volumes which are filled with the Jewish commentaries on
Scripture were in those times transmitted from generation to
generation simply by means of this power. It was considered, indeed, a
great innovation when those commentaries were committed to writing
instead of being intrusted to tradition. It is no wonder then that St.
Paul could afford his disciple, St. Luke, a report of what Stephen
said on this occasion, even if he had not preserved any notes
whatsoever of the process of the trial. Let us, however, turn to the
consideration of St. Stephen's speech, omitting any further notice of
objections based on our own ignorance of the practices and methods of
distant ages.
[130] M. Le Blant is one of the greatest living authorities on
ancient art and history. He has been head of the French
Archæological School at Rome. He has published an extremely able
work on the subject of the _Acts_ of the martyrs, in which he
treats them in a strictly scientific manner. He confronts them
with the processes of Roman law, the facts of chronology and
history, and triumphantly shows the vast amount of truth contained
in these documents. He also explains how the Christians got
possession of the Roman magistrates' notes, which they then
inserted in the local Church records, and dispersed amid other
Churches, after the manner of the Epistle of the Lyonnese Church,
to which reference has been already made. Le Blant, on p. 9 of his
memoir, quotes one ancient document, which incidentally mentions
that "inasmuch as it was necessary to collect all the records of
the martyrs' confessions, the Christians paid one of the javelin
men two hundred denarii for the privilege of transcribing them."
We are apt to forget that both Jews and Romans conducted all their
persecutions under strict judicial forms. We sometimes think that
the persecutions were mere outbursts of popular rage, managed
after the manner of a street riot. The examples of the magistrates
at Corinth and Ephesus in the Acts of the Apostles ought to dispel
this illusion. The Romans had a perfect horror of civil
commotions, and sternly repressed them. If a sect was to be put
down, it should be put down in a legal manner, with questions and
answers and due records of the proceedings.
I. The defence of St. Stephen was a speech delivered by a Jew, and
addressed to a Jewish audience. This is our first remark, and it is an
important one. We are apt to judge the Scriptures, their speeches,
arguments, and discussions, by a Western standard, forgetting that
Orientals argued then and argue still not according to the rules of
logic taught by Aristotle, nor by the methods of eloquence derived
from the traditions of Cicero and Quinctilian, but by methods and
rules essentially different. What would satisfy Westerns would have
seemed to them utterly worthless, just as an argument which now seems
pointless and weak appeared to them absolutely conclusive. Parallels,
analogies, parables, mystical interpretations were then favourite
methods of argument, and if we wish to understand writers like the
authors of the scriptural books we must strive to place ourselves at
their point of view, or else we shall miss their true interpretation.
Let us apply this idea to St. Stephen's defence, which has been often
depreciated because treated as if it were an oration addressed to a
Western court or audience. Erasmus, for instance, was an exceedingly
learned man, who lived at the period of the Reformation. He was well
skilled in Latin and Greek learning, but knew nothing of Jewish ideas.
He hesitates not, therefore, to say in his Annotations on this passage
that there are many things in Stephen's speech which have no bearing
on the question at issue; while Michaelis, another German writer of
great repute in the earlier days of this century, remarks that there
are many things in this oration of which we cannot perceive the
tendency, as regards the accusation brought against the martyr. Let us
examine and see if the case be not otherwise, remembering that promise
of the Master, given not to supersede human exertion or to indulge
human laziness, but given to support and sustain and safeguard His
persecuted servants under circumstances like those amid which Stephen
found himself. "But when they deliver you up, be not anxious how or
what ye shall speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what ye
shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your
Father that speaketh in you." What, then, was the charge brought
against Stephen? He was accused of "speaking blasphemous words against
Moses, and against God," or, to put it in the formal language used by
the witnesses, "We have heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth shall
destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered
unto us." Now Stephen, if merely a man of common sense, must have
intended to reply to this indictment. Some critics, as we have just
noted, think that he failed effectually to do so. We are indeed often
in great danger of paying too much attention and lending too great
weight to objections of this kind urged by persons who assume to
themselves the office of critics; and to counteract this tendency
perhaps it is as well to note that a leading German writer of a
rationalistic type, named Zeller, who has written a work to decry the
historical character of the Acts, finds in St. Stephen's words an
oration "not only characteristic, but also better suited to the case
and to the accusation raised against him than is usually supposed."
Disregarding, then, all cavils of critics whose views are mutually
destructive, let us see if we cannot discern in this narrative the
marks of a sound and powerful mind, guided, aided, and directed by the
Spirit of God which dwelt so abundantly in him. St. Stephen was
accused of irreverence towards Moses, and hostility towards the
temple, and towards all the Jewish institutions. How did he meet this?
He begins his address to the Sanhedrin at the earliest period of their
national history, and shows how the chosen people had passed through
many changes and developments without interfering with their essential
identity amid these changes. His opponents now made idols of their
local institutions and of the buildings of the temple, but God's
choice and God's promise had originally nothing local about them at
all. Abraham their great father was first called by God in Ur of the
Chaldees, far away across the desert in distant Mesopotamia. Thence he
removed to Charran, and then, only after the lapse of years, became a
wanderer up and down in Canaan, where he never possessed so much of
the land as he could set his foot upon. The promises of God and the
covenant of grace were personal things, made to God's chosen children,
not connected with lands or buildings or national customs. He next
takes up the case of Moses. He had been accused of blasphemy and
irreverence towards the great national law-giver. His words prove that
he entertained no such feelings; he respected and revered Moses just
as much as his opponents and accusers did. But Moses had nothing to
say or do with Canaan, or Jerusalem, or the temple. Nay, rather, his
work for the chosen people was done in Egypt and in Midian and on the
side of Horeb, where the presence and name of Jehovah were manifested
not in the temple or tabernacle, but in the bush burning yet not
consumed.
The Grecian Jews accused Stephen of irreverence towards Moses. But how
had their forefathers treated that Moses whom he recognised as a
divinely-sent messenger? "They thrust him from them, and in their
hearts turned back again into Egypt." Moses, however, led them onward
and upward. His motto was hope. His rod and his voice ever pointed
forward. He warned them that his own ministry was not the final one;
that it was only an intermediate and temporary institution, till the
prophet should come unto whom the people should hearken. There was a
chosen people before the customs introduced by Moses. There may
therefore be a chosen people still when these customs cease, having
fulfilled their purpose. The argument of St. Stephen in this passage
is the same as that of St. Paul in the fourth chapter of Galatians,
where he sets forth the temporary and intermediate character of the
Levitical law and of the covenant of circumcision. So teaches St.
Stephen in his speech. His argument is simply this:--I have been
accused of speaking blasphemous words against Moses because I
proclaimed that a greater Prophet than he had come, and yet this was
only what Moses himself had foretold. It is not I who have blasphemed
and opposed Moses: it is my accusers rather. But then he remembers
that the accusation dealt not merely with Moses. It went farther, and
accused him of speaking blasphemous words against the national
sanctuary, "saying that Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place."
This leads him to speak of the temple. His argument now takes a
different turn, and runs thus. This building is now the centre of
Jewish thoughts and affections. But it is a mere modern thing as
compared with the original choice and promise of God. There was no
chosen dwelling-place of the Almighty in the earliest days of all; His
presence was then manifested wherever His chosen servants dwelt. Then
Moses made a tent or tabernacle, which abode in no certain spot, but
moved hither and thither. Last of all, long after Abraham, and long
after Moses, and even after David, Solomon built God an house. Even
when it was built, and in all its original glory, even then the
temporary character of the temple was clearly recognised by the
prophet Isaiah, who had long ago, in his sixty-sixth chapter,
proclaimed the truth which had been brought forward as an accusation
against himself: "Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool; what
house will ye build Me, saith the Lord, or what is the place of My
rest? Hath not My hand made all these things?"--a great spiritual
truth which had been anticipated long before Isaiah by King Solomon,
in his famous dedication prayer at the opening of the temple: "But
will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold the heaven and the heaven
of heavens cannot contain Thee; how much less this house that I have
builded" (1 Kings viii. 27). After St. Stephen had set forth this
undeniable truth confirmed by the words of Isaiah, which to the
Pharisaic portion of his audience, at least, must have seemed
conclusive, there occurs a break in the address.
One would have thought that he would then have proceeded to describe
the broader and more spiritual life which had shone forth for mankind
in Christ, and to expound the freedom from all local restrictions
which should henceforth belong to acceptable worship of the Most High.
Most certainly, if the speech had been invented for him and placed in
his mouth, a forger would naturally have designed a fuller and more
balanced discourse, setting forth the doctrine of Christ as well as
the past history of the Jews. We cannot tell whether he actually
entered more fully into the subject or not. Possibly the Sadducean
portion of his audience had got quite enough. Their countenances and
gestures bespoke their horror of St. Stephen's doctrine. Isaiah's
opinion carried no weight with them as contrasted with the
institutions of Moses, which were their pride and glory; and so, borne
along by the force of his oratory, St. Stephen finished with that
vigorous denunciation which led to his death: "Ye stiffnecked and
uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost:
as your fathers did, so do ye." This exposition of St. Stephen's
speech will show the drift and argument of it as it appears to us. But
it must have seemed to them much more powerful, plain-spoken, and
aggressive. He vindicated himself to any right-thinking and fair mind
from the accusation of irreverence towards God, towards Moses, or
towards the Divine institutions. But the minds of his hearers were
not fair. He had trampled upon their prejudices, he had suggested the
vanity of their dearest ideas, and they could not estimate his reasons
or follow his arguments, but they could resort to the remedy which
every failing though for the present popular cause possesses,--they
could destroy him. And thus they treated the modern as their ancestors
had treated the ancient prophets. What a lesson Stephen's speech has
for the Church of every age! How wide and manifold the applications of
it! The Jewish error is one that is often committed, their mistake
often repeated. The Jews identified God's honour and glory with an old
order that was fast passing away, and had no eyes to behold a new and
more glorious order that was opening upon them. We may blame them then
for their murder of St. Stephen, but we must blame them gently,
feeling that they acted as human nature has ever acted under similar
circumstances, and that good motives were mingled with those feelings
of rage and bigotry and narrowness that urged them to their deed of
blood. Let us see how this was. Stephen proclaimed a new order and a
new development, embracing for his hearers a vast political as well as
a vast religious change. His forecast of the future swept away at once
all the privileges and profits connected with the religious position
of Jerusalem, and thus destroyed the political prospects of the Jewish
people. It is no wonder the Sanhedrin could not appreciate his
oration. Men do not ever listen patiently when their pockets are being
touched, their profits swept away, their dearest hopes utterly
annihilated. Has not human experience often repeated the scene acted
out that day in Jerusalem? On the political stage men have often seen
it,--we ourselves have seen it. The advocates of liberty, civil and
religious, have had to struggle against the same spirit and the same
prejudices as St. Stephen. Take the political world alone. We now look
back and view with horror the deeds wrought in the name of authority
and in opposition to the principles of change and innovation. We read
the stories of Alva and the massacres in the Netherlands, the bloody
deeds of the seventeenth century in England and all over Europe, the
miseries and the bloodshed of the American war of independence, the
fierce opposition with which the spirit of liberty has been resisted
throughout this century; and our sympathies are altogether ranged on
the side of the sufferers,--the losers and defeated, it may have been,
for the time, but the triumphant in the long run.
The true student, however, of history or of human nature will not
content himself with any one-sided view, and he will have some
sympathy to spare for those who adopted the stern measures. He will
not judge them too harshly. They reverenced the past as the Jews of
Jerusalem did, and reverence is a feeling that is right and blessed.
It is no good sign for this age of ours that it possesses so little
reverence for the past, thinks so lightly of the institutions, the
wisdom, the ideas of antiquity, and is ready to change them at a
moment's notice. The men who now are held up to the execration of
posterity, the high priest and the Sanhedrin who murdered Stephen, the
tyrants and despots and their agents who strove to crush the
supporters of liberty, the writers who cried them down and applauded
or urged on the violent measures which were adopted and sometimes
triumphed for the time,--we should strive to put ourselves in their
position, and see what they had to say for themselves, and thus seek
to judge them here below as the Eternal King will judge them at the
great final tribunal. They knew the good which the old political
institutions had worked. They had lived and flourished under them as
their ancestors had lived and flourished before them. The future they
knew not. All they knew was that changes were proposed which
threatened everything with which their dearest memories were bound up,
and the innovators seemed dangerous creatures, obnoxious to God and
man, and they dealt with them accordingly.
So it has been and still is in politics. The opponents of political
change are sometimes denounced in the fiercest language, as if they
were morally wicked. The late Dr. Arnold seems a grievous offender in
this respect. No one can read his charming biography by Dean Stanley
without recognising how intolerant he was towards his political
opponents; how blind he was to those good motives which inspire the
timorous, the ignorant, and the aged, when brought face to face with
changes which appear to them thickly charged with the most dangerous
results. Charity towards opponents is sadly needed in the political as
well as in the religious world. And as it has been in politics so has
it been in religion. Men reverence the past, and that reverence easily
glides into an idolatry blind to its defects and hostile to any
improvement. It is in religion too as in politics; a thousand other
interests--money, office, expectations, memories of the loved and
lost--are bound up with old religious forms, and then when the prophet
arises with his Divine message, as Stephen arose before the Sanhedrin,
the ancient proverb is fulfilled, the corruption of the best becomes
the worst, the good motives mingle with the evil, and are used by the
poor human heart to justify the harshest, most unchristian deeds done
in defence of what men believe to be the cause of truth and
righteousness. Let us be just and fair to the aggressors as well as to
the aggrieved, to the persecutors as well as to the persecuted. But
let us all the same take good heed to learn for ourselves the lessons
this narrative presents. Reverence is a good thing, and a blessed
thing; and without reverence no true progress, either in political or
spiritual things, can be made. But reverence easily degenerates into
blind superstitious idolatry. It was so with the Sanhedrin, it was so
at the Reformation, it has ever been so with the opponents of true
religious progress. Let us evermore strive to keep minds free, open,
unbiassed, respecting the past, yet ready to listen to the voice and
fresh revelations of God's will and purposes made to us by the
messengers whom He chooses as He pleases. Perhaps there was never an
age which needed this lesson of Stephen's speech and its reception
more than our own. The attitude of religious men towards science and
its numerous and wondrous advances needs guidance such as this
incident affords. The Sanhedrin had their own theory and
interpretation of God's dealings in the past. They clung to it
passionately, and refused the teaching of Stephen, who would have
widened their views, and shown them that a grand and noble development
was quite in accordance with all the facts of the case, and indeed a
necessary result of the sacred history when truly expounded. What a
parable and picture of the future we here find! What a warning as to
the attitude religious men should take up with respect to the progress
of science! Patience, intellectual and religious patience, is taught
us. The Sanhedrin were impatient of St. Stephen's views, which they
could not understand, and their impatience made them lose a blessing
and commit a sin. Now has it not been at times much the same with
ourselves? Fifty or sixty years ago men were frightened at the
revelations of geology,--they had their own interpretations of the
past and of the Scriptures,--just as three centuries ago men were
frightened at the revelations and teaching of modern astronomy.
Prejudiced and narrow men then strove to hound down the teachers of
the new science, and would if they could have destroyed them in the
name of God. Patience here, however, has done its work and has had its
reward. The new revelations have been taken up and absorbed by the
Church of Christ. Men have learned to distinguish between their own
interpretations of religion and of religious documents on the one hand
and the religion itself on the other. The old, human, narrow,
prejudiced interpretations have been modified. That which could be
shaken and was untrue has passed away, while that which cannot be
shaken has remained.
The lesson taught us by these instances of astronomy and geology ought
not to be thrown away. Patience is again necessary for the Christian
and for the scientist alike. New facts are every day coming to light,
but it requires much time and thought to bring new facts and old
truths into their due correlation, to look round and about them. The
human mind is at best very small and weak. It is blind, and cannot see
afar off, and it is only by degrees it can grasp truth in its fulness.
A new fact, for instance, discovered by science may appear at first
plainly contradictory to some old truth revealed in Scripture. But
even so, we should not lose our patience or our hope taught us by this
chapter. What new fact of science can possibly seem more
contradictory to any old truth of the Creeds than St. Stephen's
teaching about the universal character of God's promise and the
freeness of acceptable worship must have seemed when compared with the
Divine choice of the temple at Jerusalem? They appeared to the
Sanhedrin ideas mutually destructive, though now we see them to have
been quite consistent one with another. Let this historic retrospect
support us when our faith is tried. Let us welcome every new fact and
new revelation brought by science, and then, if they seem opposed to
something we know to be true in religion, let us wait in confidence
begotten of past experience that God in His own good time will clear
up for His faithful people that which now seems difficult of
comprehension. Patience and confidence, then, are two lessons much
needed in this age, which St. Stephen's speech and its reception bring
home to our hearts.
II. We have now spoken of the general aspect of the discourse, and the
broad counsels we may gather from it. There are some other points,
however, points of detail as distinguished from wider views, upon
which we would fix our attention. They too will be found full of
guidance and full of instruction. Let us take them in the order in
which they appear in St. Stephen's address. The mistakes and
variations which undoubtedly occur in it are well worthy of careful
attention, and have much teaching necessary for these times. There are
three points in which Stephen varies from the language of the Old
Testament. In the fourteenth verse of the seventh chapter Stephen
speaks thus: "Then sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob to him,
and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls;" while, if we turn
to the Pentateuch, we shall find that the number of the original
Hebrew immigrants is placed three times over at seventy, or threescore
and ten, that is in Gen. xlvi. 27, Exod. i. 5, and Deut. x. 22. This,
however, is only a comparatively minor point. The Septuagint or Greek
version of the Pentateuch reads seventy-five in the first of these
passages, making the sons of Joseph born in Egypt to have been nine
persons, and thus completing the number seventy-five, at which it
fixes the roll of the males who came with Jacob. The next two verses,
the fifteenth and sixteenth, contain a much more serious mistake. They
run thus:--"So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our
fathers, and were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulchre
that Abraham bought for a sum of money of the sons of Emmor the father
of Sychem." Now here there occur several grave errors. Jacob was not
carried over and buried at Sychem at all, but at the cave of
Machpelah, as is plainly stated in Gen. l. 13. Again, a plot of ground
at Sychem was certainly bought, not by Abraham, however, but by Jacob.
Abraham bought the field and cave of Machpelah from Ephron the
Hittite. Jacob bought his plot at Sychem from the sons of Emmor. There
are in these verses, then, two serious historical mistakes; first as
to the true burial-place of Jacob, and then as to the purchaser of the
plot of ground at Sychem. Yet, again, there is a third mistake in the
forty-third verse, where, when quoting a denunciation of Jewish
idolatry from Amos v. 25, 26, he quotes the prophet as threatening, "I
will carry you away beyond Babylon," whereas the prophet did say,
"Therefore I will cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus." St.
Stephen substituted Babylon for Damascus, two cities between which
several hundred miles intervened. I have stated the difficulty thus
as strongly as possible, because I think that, instead of constituting
a difficulty, they are a real source of living help and comfort, as
well as a great practical confirmation of the story. Let us take this
last point first. I say that these mistakes, admitted mistakes which I
make no vain attempt to explain away, constitute a confirmation of the
story as given in the Acts against modern rationalistic opponents. It
is a favourite theme of many of these writers that the Acts of the
Apostles is a mere piece of fancy history, a historical romance
composed in the second century for the purpose of reconciling the
adherents of St. Paul, or the Gentile Christians, with the followers
of St. Peter, or the Jewish Christians. The persons who uphold this
view fix the date of the Acts in the earlier half of the second
century, and teach that the speeches and addresses were composed by
the author of the book and put into the mouths of the reputed
speakers. Now, in the mistake made by St. Stephen, we have a
refutation of this theory. Surely any man composing a speech to put
into the mouth of one of his favourite heroes and champions would not
have represented him as making such grave errors when addressing the
supreme Jewish senate. A man might easily make any of these slips
which I have noticed in the heat of an oration, and they might have
even passed unnoticed, as every speaker who has much practice in
addressing the public still makes precisely the same kind of mistake.
But a romancer, sitting down to forge speeches suitable to the time
and place, would never have put in the mouth of his lay figures grave
errors about the most elementary facts of Jewish history. We conclude,
then, that the inaccuracies reported as made by St. Stephen are
evidences of the genuine character of the oration attributed to him.
Then again we see in these mistakes a guarantee of the honesty and
accuracy of the reports of the speech. The other day I read the
objections of a critic to our Gospels. He wished to know, for
instance, how the addresses of our Lord could have been preserved in
an age when there was no shorthand. The answer is, however, simple
enough, and conclusive: there was shorthand in that age.[131]
Shorthand was then carried to such perfection that an epigram of
Martial (xiv. 208), a contemporary poet, celebrating its triumphs may
be thus translated:--
"Swift though the words, the pen still swifter sped;
The hand has finish'd ere the tongue has said."
[131] See p. 108 above, where I have touched on this point.
While even if the Jews knew nothing of shorthand, the human memory, as
we have already noted, was then developed to a degree of which we have
no conception. Now, whether transmitted by memory or by notes, this
address of St. Stephen bears proofs of the truthfulness of the
reporter in the mistakes it contains. A man anxious for the reputation
of his hero would have corrected them, as parliamentary reporters are
accustomed to make the worst speeches readable, correcting evident
blunders, and improving the grammar. The reporter of St. Stephen's
words, on the contrary, gave them to us just as they were spoken. But
then, I may be asked, how do you account for St. Stephen's mistake?
What explanation can you offer? My answer is simple and plain enough.
I have no other explanation to offer except that they are mistakes
such as a speaker, filled with his subject, and speaking to an excited
and hostile audience, might naturally make; mistakes such as truthful
speakers every day make in their ordinary efforts. Every man who
speaks an extemporaneous discourse such as Stephen's was, full of
references to past history, is liable to such errors. Even when the
memory retains the facts most accurately, the tongue is apt to make
such lapses. Let a number of names be mingled up together in a speech
or sermon where frequent mention has to be made of one now and of
another again, how easily in that case a speaker substitutes one for
another. But it may be objected that it is declared of Stephen that he
was "full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom," that "he was full of faith
and power," and that his adversaries "were not able to resist the
wisdom and the spirit with which he spake." But surely this might be
said of able, devoted, and holy men at the present day, and yet no one
would say that they were miraculously kept from the most trivial
mistakes, and that their memories and tongues were so supernaturally
aided that they were preserved from the smallest verbal inaccuracies.
We are always inclined to reverse the true scientific method of
enquiry, and to form notions as to what inspiration must mean, instead
of asking what, as a matter of fact, inspiration did mean and involve
in the case of the Bible heroes. People when they feel offended by
these mistakes of St. Stephen prove that they really think that
Christianity was quite a different thing in the apostolic days from
what it is now, and that the words "full of the Holy Ghost" and the
presence of the Divine Spirit meant quite a different gift and
blessing then from what they imply at the present time. I look upon
the mistakes in this speech in quite a different light. St. Luke, in
recording them exactly as they took place, proves, not merely his
honesty as a narrator, but he also has handed down to us a most
important lesson. He teaches us to moderate our notions and to chasten
our _à priori_ expectations. He shows us we must come and study the
Scriptures to learn what they mean by the gift and power of the Holy
Spirit. St. Luke expressly tells us that Stephen was full of the Holy
Ghost, and then proceeds to narrate certain verbal inaccuracies and
certain slips of memory to prove to us that the presence of the Holy
Ghost does not annihilate human nature, or supersede the exercise of
the human faculties. Just as in other places we find Apostles like St.
Peter or St. Paul spoken of as equally inspired, and yet the
inspiration enjoyed by them did not destroy their human weakness and
infirmities, and, full of the Holy Ghost as they were, St. Paul could
wax wroth and engage in bitter dissension with Barnabas, his
fellow-labourer; and St. Peter could fall into hypocrisy against which
his brother Apostle had publicly to protest. It is wonderful how
liable the mind is, in matters of religion, to embrace exactly the
same errors age after age, manifesting themselves in different shapes.
Men are ever inclined to form their theories beforehand, and then to
test God's actions and the course of His Providence by those theories,
instead of reversing the order, and testing their theories by facts as
God reveals them. This error about the true theory of inspiration and
the gifts of the Holy Ghost which Protestants have fallen into is
exactly the same as two celebrated mistakes, one in ancient, the other
in modern times. The Eutychian heresy was very celebrated in the fifth
century. It split the Eastern Church into two parts, and prepared the
way for the triumph of Mahometanism. It fell, too, into this same
error. It formed an _à priori_ theory of God and His nature. It
determined that it was impossible for the nature of Deity to be united
to a nature which could feel hunger and thirst and weakness, because
that God cannot be affected by any human weakness or wants. It denied,
therefore, the real humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ and the reality
of His human life and actions; teaching that His human body was not
real, but merely a phenomenal or apparent one, and then explaining
away all the statements and facts of Gospel history which seemed to
them to conflict with their own private theory. In the West we have
had ourselves experience of the same erroneous method of argument. The
adherents of the Church of Rome argue for the infallibility of the
Pope in the same way. They dilate on the awful importance of religious
truth, and the fearful consequences of a mistake in such matters.
Hence they conclude that it is only natural and fitting that a living,
speaking, teaching, infallible guide should be appointed by God to
direct the Church, and thence they conclude the infallibility of the
Pope; a method of argument which has been amply exposed by Dr. Salmon
in his work on the Infallibility of the Church. The Roman Catholics
form their theory first, and when they come to facts which conflict
with their theory, they deny them or explain them away in the most
extraordinary manner.
Protestants themselves, however, are subject to the same erroneous
methods. They form a theory about the Holy Ghost and His operations.
They conclude, as is true, that He is Himself right, and just, and
true in all His doings, and then they conclude that all the men whom
He chose in the earliest age of the Church, and who are mentioned in
Scripture as endued with His grace, must have been as free from every
form of error as the Holy Spirit Himself. They thus fashion for
themselves a mere _à priori_ theory like the Eutychian and the
Romanist, and then, when they apply their theory to passages like St.
Stephen's speech, they feel compelled to deny facts and offer forced
explanations, and to reject God's teaching as it is embodied in the
divinely taught lessons of history. Let us be honest, fearless
students of the Scriptures. St. Stephen was full of the Holy Ghost,
and as such his great, broad, spiritual lessons were taught by the
Spirit, and commend themselves as Divine teaching to every Christian
heart. But these lessons were given through human lips, and had to be
conveyed through human faculties, and as such are not free from the
imperfections which attach themselves to everything human here below.
Surely it is just the same still. God the Holy Ghost dwells with His
people as of old. There are men even in this age of whom it still may
be said, that in a special sense "they are full of the Holy Ghost," a
blessing granted in answer to faithful prayer and devout communion and
a life lived closely with God. The Holy Spirit speaks through them and
in them. Their sermons, even on the simplest topics, speak with power,
they teem with spiritual unction, they come home with conviction to
the human conscience. Yet surely no one would dream of saying that
these men are free from slips of speech and lapses of memory in their
extemporaneous addresses, or in their private instructions, or in
their written letters, because the Holy Ghost thus proves His presence
and His power in His people as of old. The human heart and conscience
easily and at once distinguish between that which is due to human
weakness and what to Divine grace, according to that most pregnant
saying of an Apostle himself gifted above all others, "We have this
treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be
of God and not of us." This view may be startling to some persons who
have been accustomed to look to the Bible as some persons look to the
Pope, as an oracle which will give them infallible guidance on every
topic without the exercise of any thought or intelligence on their own
part. Yet it is no original or novel notion of my own, but one that
has been luminously set forth by a devout expositor of Scripture,
dealing with this very passage many years ago. Dr. Vaughan, in his
lectures on the Acts, preaching at Doncaster when vicar of that place,
thus states his conclusions on this point:--"Now I will address one
earnest word to persons who may have noticed with anxiety in this
chapter, or who may have heard it noticed by others in a tone of cavil
or disbelief, that in one or two minor points the account here given
of Jewish history seems to vary from that contained in the narrative
of the Old Testament. For example, the history in the book of Genesis
tells us that the burying-place bought by Abraham was in Mamre or
Hebron, not at Sychem; and that it was bought by him of Ephron the
Hittite, Jacob (not Abraham) being the purchaser of the ground at
Shechem of the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father. My friends, can you
really suppose that a difference of this nature has anything to do,
this way or that, with the substantial truth of the gospel revelation?
I declare to you that I would not waste the time in endeavouring (if I
was able) to reconcile such a variance. It is to be regretted that
Christian persons, in their zeal for the literal accuracy of our Holy
Book, have spoken and written as if they thought that anything could
possibly depend upon such a question. We all know how easy it is to
get two witnesses in a court of justice to give their stories of an
occurrence in the same words. We know also how instant is the
suspicion of falsehood which that formal coincidence of statement
brings upon them. Holy Scripture shows what I may indeed call a noble
superiority to all such uniformity. Each book of our Bible is an
independent witness; shown to be so, not least, by verbal or even
actual differences on some trifling points of detail. And they who
drink most deeply at the fountain head of Divine truth learn to
estimate these things in the same manner; to feel what we might
describe as a lordly disdain for all infidel objections drawn from
this sort of petty, paltry, cavilling, carping, creeping criticism.
Let our faith at last, God helping us, be strong enough and decided
enough to override a few or a multitude of such objections. We will
hear them unmoved; we will fearlessly examine them; if we cannot
resolve them, then, in the power of a more majestic principle, we will
calmly turn from them and pass them by. What we know not now, we may
know hereafter; and if we never know we will believe still." These are
wise words, very wholesome, very practical, and very helpful in this
present age.
III. Let us briefly gather yet another lesson from this passage. The
declaration of the Church's catholicity and the universal nature of
Christian worship contained in verses 47-50 deserve our attention.
What did St. Stephen say?--"But Solomon built Him a house. Howbeit the
Most High dwelleth not in houses made with hands; as saith the
prophet, The heaven is My throne, and the earth the footstool of My
feet; what manner of house will ye build Me? saith the Lord; or what
is the place of My rest? Did not My hand make all these things?"
These words must have sounded as very extraordinary and very
revolutionary in Jewish ears, because they most certainly struck at
the root of the exclusive privilege claimed for Jerusalem, that it was
the one place upon earth where acceptable worship could be offered,
and where the Divine presence could be manifested. It seems no wonder
that they should have roused the Sanhedrin to the pitch of fury which
ended in the orator's judicial murder. But these words have been at
times pressed farther than Stephen intended. He merely wished to teach
that God's special and covenanted presence was not for the future to
be limited to Jerusalem. In the new dispensation of the Messiah whom
he preached, that special covenanted presence would be found
everywhere. Where two or three should be gathered in Christ's name
there would God's presence be found. These words of Stephen have
sometimes been quoted as if they sounded the death-knell of special
places dedicated to the honour and glory of God, such as churches are.
It is evident, however, that they have no such application. They
sounded the death-knell of the exclusive privilege of one place, the
temple, but they proclaimed the freedom which the Church has ever
since claimed, and the Jewish Church of the dispersion, by the
institution of synagogues, had led the way in claiming teaching that
wherever true hearts and true worshippers are found, there God reveals
Himself. But we must bear in mind a distinction. Stephen and the
Apostles rejected the exclusive right of the Temple as the one place
of worship for the world. They asserted the right to establish special
places of worship throughout the world. They rejected the exclusive
claims of Jerusalem. But they did not reject the right and the duty of
God's people to assemble themselves as a collective body for public
worship, and to realize Christ's covenanted presence. This is an
important limitation of St. Stephen's statement. The absolute duty of
public collective worship of the Almighty cannot be too strongly
insisted upon. Men neglect it, and they support themselves by an
appeal to St. Stephen's words, which have nothing to do with public
worship more than with private worship. The Jews imagined that both
public and private worship offered in the Temple had some special
blessing attached, because a special presence of God was there
granted. St. Stephen attacked this prejudice. His words must, however,
be limited to the exact point he was then dealing with, and must not
be pressed farther. Private prayer was binding on all God's people in
the new and freer dispensation, and so, too, public worship has a
special covenant blessing attached to it, and the blessing cannot be
obtained if people neglect the duty. Public worship has been by
Protestants looked at too much, as if it were only a means of their
own edification, and thus, when they have thought that such
edification could be as well or better attained at home, by reading a
better sermon than they might chance to hear in the public
congregation, they have excused their absence to their own conscience.
But public worship is much more than a means of edification. It is the
payment of a debt of worship, praise, and adoration due by the
creature to the Creator. In that duty personal edification finds a
place, but a mere accidental and subsidiary place. The great end of
public worship is worship, not hearing, not edification even, though
edification follows as a necessary result of such public worship when
sincerely offered. The teaching of St. Stephen did not then apply to
the erection of churches and buildings set apart for God's service,
or to the claim made for public worship as an exercise with a peculiar
Divine promise annexed. It simply protests against any attempt to
localise the Divine presence to one special spot on earth, making it
and it alone the centre of all religious interest. St. Stephen's words
are indeed but a necessary result of the ascension of Christ as we
have already expounded its expediency. Had Christ remained on earth,
His personal presence would have rendered the Church a mere local and
not an universal institution; just as the doctrine of Roman Catholics
about the Pope as Christ's Vicar, and Rome as his appointed seat, has
so far invested Rome with somewhat of the characteristics of Jerusalem
and the Temple. But our Lord ascended up on high that the hearts and
minds of His people might likewise ascend to that region where, above
time, and sense, and change, their Master evermore dwells, as the
loadstone which secretly draws their hearts, and guides their
tempest-tossed spirits across the stormy waters of this world to the
haven of everlasting rest.