attacked and stoned Stephen.(1) The actual stoning(2) is carried out with all regard to legal forms;(3) the victim being taken out of the city,(4) and the witnesses casting the first stone,(5) and for this purpose taking off their outer garments. The whole account, with its singular mixture of utter lawlessness and formality, is extremely improbable,(6) and more especially when the speech itself is considered. The proceedings commence in an orderly manner, and the high priest calls upon Stephen for his defence. The council and audience listen patiently and quietly to his speech, and no interruption takes place until he has said all that he had to sav, for it must be apparent that when the speaker abandons narrative and argument and breaks into direct invective, there could not have been any intention to prolong the address, as no expectation of calm attention after such denunciations could have been natural. The tumult cuts short the oration precisely where the author had exhausted his
subject, and by temporary lawlessness overcomes the legal difficulty of a sentence which the Sanhedrin, without the ratification of the Roman authority, could not have carried out. As soon as the tumult has effected these objects, all becomes orderly and legal again; and, consequently, the witnesses can lay their garments "at a young man's feet whose name was Saul." The principal actor in the work is thus dramatically introduced. As the trial commences with a supernatural illumination of the face of Stephen, it ends with a supernatural vision, in which Stephen sees heaven opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. Such a trial and such an execution present features which are undoubtedly not historical.
This impression is certainly not lessened when we find how many details of the trial and death of Stephen are based on the accounts in the Gospels of the trial and death of Jesus.(1) The irritated adversaries of Stephen stir up the people and the elders and scribes, and come upon him and lead him to the Council.(2) They seek false witness against him;(3) and these false witnesses accuse him of speaking against the temple and the law.(4) The false witnesses who are set up against Jesus with similar testimony, according to the first two Synoptics, are strangely omitted by the third. The reproduction of this trait here has much that is suggestive. The high priest asks: "Are these things so?"(5) Stephen, at
the close of his speech, exclaims: "I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God." Jesus says: "Henceforth shall the Son of Man be seated on the right hand of the power of God."(1) Whilst he is being stoned, Stephen prays, saying: "Lord Jesus, receive my Spirit;" and, similarly, Jesus on the cross cries, with a loud voice: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit; and, having said this, he expired."(2) Stephen, as he is about to die, cries, with a loud voice: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge; and when he said this he fell asleep;" and Jesus says: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."(3) These two sayings of Jesus are not given anywhere but in the third Synoptic,(4) and their imitation by Stephen, in another work of the same Evangelist, is a peculiarity which deserves attention. It is argued by apologists(5) that nothing is more natural than that the first martyrs should have the example of the suffering Jesus in their minds, and die with his expressions of love and resignation on their lips. On the other hand, taken along with other most suspicious circumstances which we have already pointed out, and with the fact, which we shall presently demonstrate, that the speech of Stephen is nothing more
than a composition by the Author of Acts, the singular analogies presented by this narrative with the trial and last words of Jesus in the Gospels seem to us an additional indication of its inauthenticity. As Baur(1) and Zeller(2) have well argued, the use of two expressions of Jesus only found in the third Synoptic is a phenomenon which is much more naturally explained by attributing them to the Author, who of course knew that Gospel well, than to Stephen who did not know it at all.(3) The prominence which is given to this episode of the first Christian martyrdom is intelligible in itself, and it acquires fresh significance when it is considered as the introduction of the Apostle Paul, whose perfect silence regarding the proto-martyr, however, confirms the belief which we otherwise acquire, that the whole narrative and speech, whatever unknown tradition may have suggested them, are, as we have them, to be ascribed to the Author of the Acts.
On closer examination, one of the first questions which arises is: how could such a speech have been reported? Although Neander(4) contends that we are not justified in asserting that all that is narrated regarding Stephen in the Acts occurred in a single day, we think it cannot be doubted that the intention is to describe the arrest, trial, and execution as rapidly following each other on the same day. "They came upon him, and seized him, and
