7. Of the seven men appointed to attend to the management of the general treasury and to the claims of the poor, the chief was Stephen. His exceeding prominence in public work, his very extensiveknowledge of the Law, and his aggressive ability in defending the gospel gave great offence to some of the Jews. The result was his arraignment before the Sanhedrin and examination upon the two points which to the Jews were the dearest of all, namely, the sanctity of the Temple and the supremacy of the Law.
Stephen answered the inquiry of the high-priest, Acts 7:1, by a history accompanied by unmistakable Scripture proof that although Solomon himself was the builder, the Temple was no better than the worshippers, and he quoted the prophecy of Isaiah, 66:1, 2, to show that the temple which the Lord honored was the poor and contrite spirit. He then immediately charged the Sanhedrin as being unworthy of the Temple themselves and in heart violaters of the Law in that they had both betrayed and murdered the one of whom the Law spoke, thus ending the address with the most terrific charges of infidelity both to the Temple and to the Law. No such words had ever been uttered before the Sanhedrin since it had existed.
He was immediately dragged out of the city and stoned to death. Stephen was the first Christian martyr.
8. This death was the signal for the first persecution. The immediate effect of this persecution was to scatter the members of the Christian community of Jerusalem not only throughout Samaria and Galilee, but even to Phœnicia, Antioch,and Cyprus, and they went preaching the same doctrines which had been taught in Jerusalem, Acts 11:19.
The city of Samaria was at this time one of the most beautiful in Palestine. It was presented to Herod the Great by Augustus,and in honor of the emperor Herod named it Sebaste.[182]
9. One of “the seven,”[183] of whom we have spoken was Philip, who went to this city and preached the new doctrine with great success.
One of the visitors from distant lands was an officer of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. He had come from that country to attend the celebration at Jerusalem and was returning, when by divine direction Philip left Samaria to join him on the homeward road. This officer accepted the company of Philip on the way, and the latter presented the new doctrine with such ability that the Ethiopian officer, who was well acquainted with the Scriptures through the Greek translation (the Septuagint), became the first recorded convert from that distant country of Ethiopia.
CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL.
10. At the stoning of Stephen there was a young man present who made himself conspicuous by keeping the outer garments of those who engaged in the act of stoning the martyr. This man was Saul, a Hebrew name, afterward changed into theRoman form of Paul. He was a native of Tarsus, a large and celebrated city of Cilicia, a district on the northern coast of the Mediterranean, but the most eastern on that coast. Tarsus was a city of learned institutions and learned men. The tutors of two emperors of Rome dwelt there, and it was a favored city in many respects, being a place of large commerce. Young Saul was sent to Jerusalem at an early age and became a pupil of Gamaliel.
This Gamaliel was considered not only one of the most learned in the Hebrew literature but also in the Greek, and he was president of the Sanhedrin. He afterward transferred the locality of the Sanhedral schools from Jerusalem to Jamnia, the Jabneel of Josh. 15:11.