Red-Letter Day
Deacon & First Martyr
December 26 · d. 35
also known as Stephen, St. Stephen, Protomartyr
The first Christian to be killed for the name of Christ, and the first to be asked to forgive it. Acts makes him one of seven men set over a quarrel about food, and never once calls him a deacon; the Church gave him that title later, and has kept his day since at least 411, the morning after Christmas. He died praying for the men throwing the stones, and one of the coats at that execution belonged to Saul of Tarsus.
He comes into the story over a complaint about food. The Jerusalem church was keeping its widows, and the Greek-speaking families said theirs "were neglected in the daily ministration." The Twelve would not take it on themselves: "It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables." So seven men were chosen, and the first named is Stephen, "a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost," and the apostles laid hands on them.
He did not stay at the tables. He argued in the synagogues of the Greek-speaking Jews, and they could not answer him, and so they did what people do when they cannot answer: they found men to say he had spoken "blasphemous words against Moses, and against God," and against the Temple and the law. He was taken before the council. And Luke, who has been writing plainly, stops to say something strange about his face. Everyone sitting there, "looking stedfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel."
Asked whether the charges were true, Stephen answered with a history lesson, and it is the longest speech in Acts. He went through it all, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, the wilderness, the tabernacle, Solomon's temple, and the burden of it was that God had never been contained by a building and Israel had never much liked its prophets. Then he turned it on the men in front of him. It was too much. They stopped their ears and rushed him, and while they were doing it he looked up and said he could see heaven open, "and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God."
They took him outside the city and stoned him, and the witnesses who threw the first stones took off their coats and left them with a young man named Saul. Stephen said two things as he died, and the Church has never got over either. The first was a prayer to Jesus: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." The second he knelt to say, and said loudly, so that the men killing him would hear it: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Then, Luke says, he fell asleep.
That is nearly the whole of what is known about him. The rest of his story is other people's. Saul, who was "consenting unto his death," went on to make havoc of the church, and then to be stopped on a road and given a new name, and Augustine would say four centuries later that Stephen's prayer is why the Church has Paul at all: "He was still rampaging around, and already Stephen was being heard on his behalf." In 415 a priest at a village outside Jerusalem said he had been shown in a dream where the body lay, and the bones were dug up and carried into the city on the twenty-sixth of December, which was already Stephen's day and had been for generations. Pieces of him went across the Mediterranean, and at Hippo the bishop kept count of what happened at the shrine, and wrote that the recorded miracles came to "almost seventy at the hour at which I write."
The hard thing about Stephen is not that he died. It is the sentence he chose to spend his last breath on. He had every right to the other kind of last words, and the speech he had just given shows he was perfectly capable of them; he had been telling that council exactly what he thought of it. Then the stones started, and he knelt, and asked God not to charge it to them. Notice he did not say they were not guilty. He asked that the guilt not be reckoned. Those are different things, and the second is harder, because it concedes the wrong and refuses the payment anyway. Notice too that it was heard. Somewhere behind the men throwing was a young man minding their coats, and the whole of the Church's mission to the nations came out of him. Stephen never knew that; he died and it had not happened yet. You are unlikely to be asked for anything on this scale, but you will be asked for a smaller version of it, probably this month, probably by someone who is not sorry and has not asked. What would it take to stop insisting that the account be settled, before you can see what it might come to?
Stephen appears in Acts 6 to 8 and nowhere else in the New Testament, and the page's own title needs a footnote. Acts never calls him a deacon. The Greek noun diakonos, the office-word, does not occur anywhere in Acts, in either the critical or the Byzantine text. What occurs is the ordinary verb and its abstract noun, doing double duty: the Twelve decline "to serve tables" in order to give themselves to "the ministry of the word," so the same root describes the apostles' own work. Acts calls the group simply "the Seven," and later introduces Philip as "one of the seven," not one of the deacons.
The title is the Church's reading of the passage, and it is old. Irenaeus, writing around the 180s, calls him "Stephen, who was chosen the first deacon by the apostles," and from there it is settled. The Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1911 noted that the connection between the Seven and the later diaconate "is questioned by a large and increasing number of modern scholars, on the ground that 'the Seven' are not called deacons in the New Testament and do not seem to have been identified with them till the time of Irenaeus." Common Worship's own preface for the day still makes the claim plainly, that "as a deacon he preached the good news of your Kingdom." The page keeps the title the calendars give him, and says where it came from.
Whether the killing was an execution or a lynching is likewise unsettled, and the text supports both readings. There is a council, suborned witnesses, a high priest's question, and the legal form of witnesses casting the first stones with their clothes laid aside. There is also a crowd that stops its ears and rushes him, and no verdict is recorded. The question is sharpened by John's Gospel, where the authorities say "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death," and by a rabbinic tradition that the Sanhedrin gave up capital cases some forty years before the Temple fell. Neither settles it. Bartlet's judgement in 1911 remains the fair one: the martyrdom is "tumultuary in character, though the legal forms of stoning for blasphemy were observed," and "our knowledge of Jewish history is not full enough to warrant denial of the historicity of this feature of the narrative simply on the score of its illegality."
The feast is older than almost anything else in the Christmas season. A Syriac martyrology copied at Edessa in 411, translated from a lost Greek calendar that scholars think predates 360, opens its year with him: "the first martyr at Jerusalem, the apostle Stephen, the chief of the martyrs," on the twenty-sixth of December. Whether that was the day he died is not knowable, and it may instead mark a translation of his relics. What can be said is that when the body was found at Caphargamala in 415 and carried into Jerusalem, the day chosen was the twenty-sixth of December: the feast came first, and the relics arrived on it.
In the West the day has been the twenty-sixth of December since the record begins; the Greeks keep it on the twenty-seventh, as the third day of the Nativity, and the sixth-century Calendar of Carthage shows the older variety, with John the Baptist and James on the twenty-seventh rather than John the Evangelist. Medieval England made the twenty-sixth the feast of Deacons, as the twenty-seventh was the feast of Priests and the twenty-eighth the feast of Children.
The English collects for the day are one family, and all of them are built out of Acts 7. The 1662 collect asks that "in all our sufferings here upon earth, for the testimony of thy truth, we may stedfastly look up to heaven," and that we "may learn to love and bless our persecutors by the example of thy first Martyr Saint Stephen, who prayed for his murderers." Its borrowings are exact: stedfastly look up to heaven is Acts 7:55, and the Christ who "standest at the right hand of God" is Stephen's own vision at 7:56. It is also one of the very few collects in the book addressed not to the Father but to Christ, which is precisely the Christology of the Greek at 7:59, where Stephen's dying invocation is made to the Lord Jesus. Common Worship keeps the petition and softens the horror, praying for grace "to seek forgiveness for those who desire our hurt"; the American books turn "murderers" into "persecutors," and the 1979 collect turns the prayer into a thanksgiving.
Augustine preached on Stephen more than on almost any other martyr, and kept returning to the coats at Saul's feet. "Do you suppose Saul heard these words?" he asked. "He heard all right, but he jeered; and yet he was included in Stephen's prayer." And, to Paul: "The one you killed has been praying for you."
Further reading. For Acts, R. B. Rackham's The Acts of the Apostles: An Exposition (Westminster Commentaries, 1901) is the Anglican standard, and F. J. Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake, The Beginnings of Christianity, Part I, remains the reference work on the Hellenist question. On the origin of the diaconate, the classic treatment is J. B. Lightfoot's dissertation "The Christian Ministry," printed with his Saint Paul's Epistle to the Philippians (1885).
Online resources. Irenaeus calling Stephen the first deacon is in Against Heresies III.12; Augustine's account of the shrine at Hippo is City of God XXII.8. The Latin of Lucian's account of the discovery of the relics, with the first English translation, is published by Oxford's Cult of Saints database, which also prints the Syriac martyrology of 411.
Stephen is as much to say in Greek as crowned, and in Hebrew example to other for to suffer. Or Stephen is as much to say as nobly and truly speaking, teaching and governing,or as a friend of the widow women; and he was deputed of the apostles to keep the widows. Then he was crowned, for he began first to be a martyr, example for the ensample of his patience and good life, nobly speaking for right noble predication, and well governing for the good enseignments and teaching of widows.
S. Stephen was one of the seven deacons in the ministry of the apostles. for when the number grew of people converted, some began to murmur against the Jews that were converted because that the widows and wives of them were refused to serve or because they were more grieved every day than the other in service. For the apostles did this because they should be more ready to preach the word of God. When the apostles saw their great murmur, they assembled them all together, and said: It is not right that we leave the word of God for to administer and serve at the tables, and the gloss says that the feeding of the soul is better than the meat of the body. And consider you fair brethren, men of good renown among you, that be replenished of the Holy Ghost and of wisdom, what we shall establish upon this work so that they administer and serve, and we shall be in prayer and preaching. And this word pleased to them all, and they chose seven men, of whom the blessed Stephen was the first and the master, and sith he brought them to the apostles, and they set their hands upon them, and ordained them. And Stephen, full of grace and strength made great demonstrances and great signs to the people. Then the Jews took him and would surmount him in disputing, and assailed him for to overcome him in three manners, that was by bringing witnesses, by disputations, and by torments. And in every each one of them was aid and help given to him from heaven. In the first, the Holy Ghost administered his words, in the second, the angelic face that feared the false witnesses. In the third, he saw Jesu Christ ready to help him, which comforted him to his martyrdom. In every battle he had three things; the assault in battle, the aid given, and the victory. And in advising and beholding shortly the history, we may well see all these things. As the blessed Stephen did many things, and preached oft to the people, the Jews made the first battle to him for to overcome him by disputations. And some arose of the synagogue called libertines, of a religion so named of them that were the sons of them that had been in bondage and were made free, and thus they that first repugned against the faith were of a bond and thrall lineage, and also they of Cyrenia and Alexandria, and of them that were of Cilicia and Asia, all these disputed with Stephen. This was the first battle, and then he puts the victory after, and they might not resist his wisdom, for the Holy Ghost spake in him: and when they saw that by this manner they might not overcome him they returned maliciously. And at the second time because they might overcome by false witnesses, they brought two false witnesses for to accuse him of four blames, and brought him to the judgment. And then the false men accused him of four things, that was of blaspheming of God in the law of Moses, in the tabernacle, and in the temple, and this was the second battle. And then all they that were in judgment saw the face of S. Stephen like as the face of an angel: and this was by the help of God, and this was the victory of the second battle. For when the false witnesses had all said, the prince of the priests said to him: What sayst you? Then Stephen excused him by order of all that which the false witnesses had said. And first of the blaspheming of God, saying: God that spake to our fathers and prophets, that is God of glory, and praised him in three things after this word glory, which is expounded right sweetly. The God of glory is given of glory, as it is said in the book of Kings: Whosoever shall see my name, I shall glorify him. The God of glory may be said, containing glory, as is said in the Proverbs, the eighth chapter: Riches and glory be with me, the God of glory, to whom glory is due. And thus praised he God in three manners; in that he is glorious, glorifying, and to be glorified. And after he excused him of the blame in Moses, in praising him much, and especially in three things, that is to wit: of fervour of love, for he slew the Egyptian that smote the Hebrew, and of the miracles that he did in Egypt or desert, and of the familiarity of God, when he spake to him many times amiably. And after this he excused him of the third blame that was in the law, in praising the law in three manners; first because of the giver, that was God; the second of the minister, which was Moses, that was a great prophet; and the third because of the for it gives life perdurable. And after, he purged him of the blame of the tabernacle, and of the temple, in praising the tabernacle in four manners, one was because he was commanded of God to make it, and was showed in vision it was accomplished by Moses, and that the ark of witness was therein, and he said that the temple succeeded tabernacle. And the blessed Stephen purged him of that which was laid to him, of which the Jews saw they might not overcome him in that manner. And then they took the third battle against him, that they should surmount him by torments. And when the blessed S. Stephen saw this, he would keep the commandment of our Lord, and enforced him to them in three manners; that was by shame, by dread, and by love. First by shame in blaming the hardness of their hearts, and said to them: You contrary alway the Holy Ghost by your hard heads, and hearts not piteous. Like as your fathers that persecuted the prophets, and slew them that showed the coming of God. And the gloss says that in three manners they were malicious. clothes taken from the altar and laid on them that were sick, were a medicine to many.
For as it is said in the eighth chapter of the same book, these flowers taken upon the altar of S. Stephen were laid on the eyes of a woman that was blind, and anon she had again her sight. And also said he in the same book that a man that was master of a city, and was named Marcial, and was a paynim and would not be converted; and it happed that he was strongly sick, and his son in law that was a right good man, came into the church of S. Stephen, and took the flowers, and laid them under the head of his lord; and anon, when he had slept thereupon, on the morning he cried that the bishop should be brought to him, and the bishop was not in the town, but the priest came to him and bade him to believe in God, and baptized him; and ever as long as he lived after he had alway in his mouth: Jesu Christ receive my spirit. And yet he knew not that those words were the words that S. Stephen last spake. And also he rehearses another miracle in the same place, that a lady called Petronia had been sick much grievously, and had sought many remedies for to be healed of her malady, but she felt no heal. But in the end she had counsel of a Jew, which gave to her a ring with a stone, and that she should bind this ring with a lace to her bare flesh, and by the virtue of that stone she should be whole. And when she saw that this helped her not, she went to the church of the protomartyr, and prayed the blessed S. Stephen for her health, and anon, without breaking of the lace or of the ring, the ring fell down to the ground, and she felt herself anon all whole.
Item, the same recounts another miracle, not less marvellous: that in Cæsarea of Cappadocia, was a lady much noble, of whom the husband was dead, but she had ten children, seven sons and three daughters. And on a time, when they had angered their mother, she cursed them, and the divine vengeance ensued suddenly the malediction of the mother, so that all the children were smitten with one semblable and horrible sickness on all their members, for which thing they might not dwell in the country for shame and for the sorrow that they had, and began to go follily through the world. And in whatsoever country they went, ever each man beheld them. And it happed that two of them, that is to wit a brother and a sister came to Hippo, and the brother was named Paul, and the sister Palladia. And there they found Austin the bishop and told to him and recounted what was happed. Then they haunted the church of S. Stephen by the space of fifteen days, and it was tofore Easter, and they prayed strongly the saint for their health. And on Easter-day when the people was present Paul entered suddenly within the chancel and put him to prayer by great devotion, and with great reverence tofore the altar, and as they that were there abode upon the end of the thing, he arose up apparently all whole of his trembling. Then S. Austin took him and showed him to the people, and said that on the morn he would tell them the case. And as he spake to the people the sister was there trembling on all her members, and she arose up and entered into the chancel of S. Stephen, and anon she slept, and after arose suddenly all whole, and was showed to the people as was done tofore of her brother, and then graces and thankings were given to S. Stephen for the health of them both.
When Orosius came from Jerusalem he brought to S. Austin of the relics of S. Stephen of whom many miracles were showed and done. It is to wit that the blessed S. Stephen suffered not death on the day of his feast, but it was on the day that his Invention is on, in the month of August. And if it be demanded why the feast is changed, it shall be said when his Invention shall be said. And this may suffice you for this present, for the church will also ordain the feasts which follow the nativity of Jesu Christ, for two causes. The first is to Jesu Christ which is head and spouse, to the end that the accompanies be joined to him, for Jesu Christ spouse of the church in this world adjoins to him three companies, of which companies is said in the Canticles: My white soul and ruddy, chosen of thousands. The white is as to S. John the Evangelist, a precious confessor, and the ruddy or red is as to S. Stephen the first martyr, and chosen of thousands, is to the virginal S John company of the innocents. The second reason is that the church assembles also together, the manners of the martyrs, the same by will and by work, the second by will and not by deed, the third by deed and not by will. The first was the blessed Stephen, the second was in S. John the Evangelist, the third was in saints and glorious innocents which for God suffered passion.
And next follows of S.
O Glorious Lord, your servant Stephen looked up to heaven and prayed for his persecutors: Grant that in all our sufferings here upon earth we may love and forgive our enemies, looking steadfastly to Jesus Christ our Lord, who sits at your right hand and intercedes for us; and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Jeremiah 26:1–9(10–11)12–15Psalm 31:1–6(7–27)vActs 6:8–7:2a, 51–60Matthew 23:29–39
British (Received Pronunciation): Augustine /ɔːˈɡʌstɪn/