Acts 7:59

καὶ ἐλιθ. τὸν Σ. ἐπικ.: imperf., as in Acts 7:58, “quia res morte demum [60] perficitur,” Blass. ἐπικ., present participle, denoting, it would seem, the continuous appeal of the martyr to his Lord. Zeller, Overbeck and Baur throw doubt upon the historical truth of the narrative on account of the manner in which the Sanhedrists' action is divided between an utter absence of formal proceedings and a punctilious observance of correct formalities; but on the other hand Wendt, note, p. 195 (1888), points out with much force that an excited and tumultuous crowd, even in the midst of a high-handed and illegal act, might observe some legal forms, and the description given by St. Luke, so far from proceeding from one who through ignorance was unable to distinguish between a legal execution and a massacre, impresses us rather with a sense of truthfulness from the very fact that no attempt is made to draw such a distinction of nicely balanced justice, less or more. The real difficulty lies in the relations which the scene presupposes between the Roman Government and the Sanhedrim. No doubt at this period the latter did not possess the power to inflict capital punishment (Schürer, Jewish People, div. ii., vol. i., p. 187, E.T.), as is evident from the trial of our Lord. But it may well be that at the time of Stephen's murder Roman authority was somewhat relaxed in Judæa. Pilate had just been suspended from his functions, or was on the point of being so, and he may well have been tired of refusing the madness and violence of the Jews, as Renan supposes, or at all events he may well have refrained, owing to his bad odour with them, from calling them to account for their illegal action in the case before us (see McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 91). It is of course possible that the stoning took place with the connivance of the Jewish authorities, as Weizsâcker allows, or that there was an interval longer than Acts supposes between the trial of Stephen and his actual execution, during which the sanction of the Romans was obtained. In the absence of exact dates it is difficult to see why the events before us should not have been transacted during the interregnum between the departure of Pontius Pilate, to answer before Tiberius for his misgovernment, and the arrival of Marcellus, the next Procurator. If this was so, we have an exact historical parallel in the illegal murder of James the Just, who was tried before the high priest, and stoned to death, since Ananias thought that he had a good opportunity for his violence when Festus was dead, and Albinus was still upon his road (Jos., Ant., xx., 9, 1). But if this suggestion of an interregnum is not free from difficulties, we may further take into consideration the fact that the same Roman officer, Vitellius, prefect of Syria, who had caused Pilate to be sent to Rome in disgrace, was anxious at the same time to receive Jewish support, and determined to effect his object by every means in his power. Josephus, Ant., xviii., 4, 2 5, tells us that Vitellius sent a friend of his own, Marcellus, to manage the affairs of Judæa, and that, not content with this, he went up to Jerusalem himself to conciliate the Jews by open regard for their religion, as well as by the remission of taxation. It is therefore not difficult to conceive that both the murder of Stephen and the persecution which followed were connived at by the Roman government; see, in addition to the above references, Rendall's Acts, Introd., p. 19 ff.; Farrar, St. Paul, i., p. 648 ff., and note, p. 649. But this solution of the difficulty places the date of Saul's conversion somewhat late A.D. 37 and is entirely at variance with the earlier chronology adopted not only by Harnack (so too by McGiffert), but here by Ramsay, St. Paul, 376, 377, who places St. Stephen's martyrdom in A.D. 33 at the latest. In the account of the death of Stephen, Wendt, following Weiss, Sorof, Clemen, Hilgenfeld, regards Acts 7:58 b, Acts 8:1 a, Acts 8:3, as evidently additions of the redactor, although he declines to follow Weiss and Hilgenfeld in passing the same judgment on Acts 7:55 (and 56, according to H.), and on the last words of Stephen in Acts 7:59 b. The second ἐλιθοβόλουν in 59 b, which Hilgenfeld assigns to his redactor, and Wendt now refers to the action of the witnesses, as distinct from that of the whole crowd, is repeated with dramatic effect, heightened by the present participle, ἐπικ., “ruthless violence on the one side, answered by continuous appeals to heaven on the other”; see Rendall's note, in loco. ἐπικ.: “calling upon the Lord,” R.V. (“calling upon God,” A.V.), the former seems undoubtedly to be rightly suggested by the words of the prayer which follow on the force of the word see above, Acts 2:21. Κύριε Ἰησοῦ, δέξαι τὸ πνεῦμά μου : a direct prayer to our Lord, cf. for its significance and reality, Zahn, “Die Anbetung Jesu” (Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten Kirche, pp. 9, 288), Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, lect. vii.; cf. Luke 23:46. (Weiss can only see an imitation of Luke, and an interpolation here, because the kneeling, and also another word follow before the surrender of the spirit; but see on the other hand the remarks of Wendt, note, p. 196.)