Acts 7:54

54-60. The exasperation of the Sanhedrim was the more intense, from the fact that the denunciation hurled upon them was not a sudden burst of passion, but the deliberate and sustained announcement of a just judgment. They had not been able to resist, in debate, the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke, and now their efforts to convict him of crime had recoiled terribly upon their own heads. They had no course now left them, but the usual resort of unprincipled partisans when totally discomfited, and to this they rushed with fearful rapidity. (54) "When they heard these things, they were exasperated, and gnashed their teeth upon him. (55) But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, (56) and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. (57) Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and rushed upon him with one accord, (58) and cast him out of the city, and stoned him. And the witnesses laid off their garments at the feet of a young man called Saul. (59) And they stoned Stephen, calling on the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. (60) And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. And Saul was consenting to his death."

This was a strange way for a court to break up; the whole body of seventy grave rabbis, whose official duty it was to watch for the faithful and regular proceedings of law, leaving their seats, and rushing with the wild mob, amid hideous outcries and tumultuous rage, to the sudden execution of a prisoner absolutely untried and uncondemned. But the maddest pranks ever played upon this mad earth are witnessed when wicked men set themselves in uncompromising opposition to God and his holy truth. So uniformly has this been true in history, that, at the present day, when such opposition is to be sustained, whether on great or insignificant occasion, no well-informed man expects aught else than disregard of all the rules of justice and propriety. If the infuriated scenes which have been enacted under such circumstances, in the history of Christianity, could be dramatically represented, the performance might be appropriately styled, The Madman's Drama.