Acts 6:15

ἀτενίσαντες, see above on Acts 1:10. ὡσεὶ πρόσωπον ἀγγέλου, cf. LXX, Esther 5:2, where Esther says to the king in reverence εἶδόν σε κύριε, ὡς ἄγγελον Θεοῦ; in 2 Samuel 14:17; 2 Samuel 14:20, the reference is not to outward appearance, but to inward discernment (see Wetstein, who refers also to Genesis 33:10, and quotes other instances from the Rabbis, e.g., Dixit R. Nathanael: parentes Mosis viderunt pulchritudinem ejus tanquam angeli Domini: and we have the same expression used by St. Paul in Acta Pauli et Theklœ, 2; ἀγγέλου πρόσωπον εἶχεν. See too Schöttgen, in loco. R. Gedalja speaks of Moses and Aaron when they came to Pharaoh as angels ministering before God). At such a moment when Stephen was called upon to plead for the truth at the risk of his life, and when not only the calmness and strength of his convictions, but also the grace, the beauty of his Master, and the power of His spirit rested upon him, such a description was no exaggeration, cf. a striking passage in Dr. Liddon's Some Elements of Religion, p. 180. It was said of the aged Polycarp, as he faced a martyr's death: τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ χάριτος ἐπληροῦτο and “to have lived in spirit on Mount Tabor during the years of a long life, is to have caught in its closing hours some rays of the glory of the Transfiguration”. But if the brightness on the face of St. Stephen is represented by St. Luke as supernatural (as Wendt admits), we are not called upon to conclude that such a description is due to the glorification of the Saint in Christian legend: “the occasion was worthy of the miracle,” the ministration of the Spirit, ἡ διακονία τοῦ πνεύματος, in which St. Stephen had shared, might well exceed in glory; and a brightness like that on the face of Moses, above the brightness of the sun, might well have shone upon one who like the angels beheld the face of the Father in heaven, and to whom the glory of the Lord had been revealed: “As if in refutation of the charge made against him, Stephen receives the same mark of divine favour which had been granted to Moses” (Humphry). St. Chrysostom speaks of the face of Stephen as being terrible to the Jews, but lovable and wonderful to the Christians (cf. Theophylact, in loco). But although St. Stephen's words must afterwards have proved terrible to his opponents, we scarcely associate the thought of terror with the verse before us; we may speak of such faces as that of the proto-martyr as αἰδέσιμα but scarcely as φοβερά. It is possible that the representation of St. Stephen in sacred art as a young man may be due to this comparison of his face to that of an angel, angels being always represented as in the bloom of youth (Dr. Moore, Studies in Dante, first series, p. 84).