Acts 7:58

ἔξω τῆς πόλεως : according to the law, Leviticus 24:14, so in Luke 4:29, our Lord is cast out of Nazareth to be stoned. ἐλιθοβόλουν : as guilty of blasphemy. St. Stephen's closing remarks were in the eyes of his judges a justification of the charge; imperf. as in Acts 7:59, see note below. The judicial forms were evidently observed, at least to some extent (Weiss attributes the introduction of the witnesses to a reviser), and whilst the scene was a tumultuous one, it was quite possible that it was not wholly bereft of judicial appearances. μάρτυρες : whose part it was to throw the first stone, cf. Deuteronomy 17:7 (John 8:7). ἀπέθεντο τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτῶν : to perform their cruel task with greater ease and freedom, cf. Acts 22:20. νεανίου : only used in Acts, where it occurs three or four times, Acts 20:9; Acts 23:17 (18), several times in LXX. It has been thought (Wendt) that the term could not have been used of Saul if he had been married, or if he was at this time a widower, but if νεανίας might be used to denote any man of an age between twenty-four and forty, like Latin adulescens and the Hebrew נַעַר, Genesis 41:12 (Grimm-Thayer), Saul might be so described. Josephus applies the term to Agrippa I. when he was at least forty. Jos., Ant., xviii., 6, 7. See further on Acts 26:10. Σαύλου : “If the Acts are the composition of a second-century writer to whom Paul was only a name, then the introduction of this silent figure in such a scene is a masterpiece of dramatic invention” (Page, Acts, Introd., xxxi.); for the name see below on Acts 13:9, and also on its genuineness, Zahn, Einleitung in das N. T., ii., 49, as against Krenkel. Of Saul's earlier life we gather something from his own personal notices, see notes on Acts 22:3; Acts 23:6; Acts 24:14; Acts 26:4, and cf. Acts 9:13. He was a Hebrew sprung from Hebrews, Philippians 3:5; he was a Roman citizen, and not only so, but a Tarsian, a citizen of no mean city; cf. for the two citizenships, Acts 21:39 (Acts 9:11) and Acts 22:27, “Citizenship,” Hastings' B.D.; Zahn, u. s., p. 48; Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 30. Zahn, u. s., pp. 35, 49, maintains that Saul's family had only recently settled in Tarsus (but see Ramsay, u. s.), and defends the tradition that his parents had come there from Gischala, their son being born to them in Tarsus. On Saul's family and means see notes on Acts 23:16 and Acts 24:26. But whatever his Roman and Tarsian citizenship may have contributed to his mental development, St. Paul's own words clearly lead us to attach the highest and most significant influence to the Jewish side of his nature and character. Paul's Pharisaism was the result not only of his training under Gamaliel, but also of the inheritance which he claimed from his father and his ancestors (Acts 23:6, Φαρισαίων not Φαρισαίου, cf. Galatians 1:14). His early years were passed away from Jerusalem, Acts 26:4 (the force of τε (R.V.) and the expression ἐν τῷ ἔθνει μου, Zahn, u. s., p. 48), but his home-training could not have been neglected (cf. 2 Timothy 1:3), and when he went up to the Holy City at an early stage to study under Gamaliel (Acts 22:3, ἀνατεθραμμένος, on its force see Sabatier L'Apôtre Paul, p. 30) he “lived a Pharisee,” and nothing else than his well-known zeal is needed to account for his selection to his dreadful and solemn office at St. Stephen's martyrdom. As a Pharisee he had been “a separated one,” and had borne the name with pride, not suspecting that a day was at hand when he would speak of himself as ἀφωρισμένος in a far higher and fuller sense, Romans 1:1; Galatians 1:15 (Zahn, u. s., p. 48); as a Pharisee he was “separated from all filthiness of heathenism” around (Nivdal), but he was to learn that the Christian life was that of the true “Chasid,” and that in contrast to all Pharisaic legalism and externalism there was a cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, a perfecting holiness in the fear of God God Who chooseth before all temples the upright heart and pure-(Edersheim, Jewish Social Life, p. 231). On the question whether St. Paul ever saw our Lord in the flesh, see Keim, Geschichte Jesu, i., 35, 36, and references, and for the views of more recent writers, Witness of the Epistles (Longmans), chaps. i. and ii.