The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 92

The sect of the Pharisees was, on the other hand, the great political as well as doctrinal power of the nation. The people venerated them, the inces [sic] treated them with regard, and Josephus informs us that Alexander Jannacus, being at the point of death, spoke of them to his wife in the following manner: "Allow the Pharisees a greater liberty than usual; for they," he told her, "would, for the favor conferred on them, reconcile the nation to her interest; that they had a powerful influence over the Jews, and were in {537} a capacity to prejudice those they hated and serve those they loved." [Footnote 111]

[Footnote 111: "Antiq.," liv. xili. eh, xv. p. 565.]

The Young Saul enrolled himself with the Pharisees: among them, however, he chose his school. Being sensible of the fact that foreign ideas were insinuating themselves into the bosom of Judaism, some choice minds were at this epoch in search of I know not what compromise between Moses's doctrine and philosophy, in which compromise the two elements might be fused together, and thus form a religion at the same time rational and mystic. This fusion is one of the signs by which this period is distinguished. Uneasy and attentive, every mind was laboring under the want of a universality and unity of belief, whose painful child-birth, twenty times miscarried, was yet submitted to without relaxation. One hundred and fifty years before the epoch we are now in, Aristobulus had attempted this eclecticism, and Philo was soon after to reduce it to system in Alexandria and give it a widely spread popularity in Egypt. Another man, however, took upon himself the business of planting it in the very heart of Palestine.

This man was the famous rabbi Gamaliel, the beloved teacher of Saint Paul. It must be admitted that no man could be better qualified to render it acceptable than he was, on account of his position and character. He was the grandson of Doctor Hillel, whose science as well as his consideration and holiness he had inherited. He was the oracle of his time, and "on his death," the Talmud says, "the light of the law was extinguished in Israel." The Talmudists add that he had been vested with the t.i.tle of _Nasi_, or chief of the council, and the Gospel agrees with the Jewish authors, recognizing in him a just man, wise, moderate, impartial, an enemy to violence, and ruling the different parties by a moral greatness, which secured to him the confidence of all and the unanimity of their regards. He was the first who caused the text of the Bible to be read in Greek at Jerusalem.

This innovation was of itself an immense progress, as it removed that barrier which Pharisaism had raised between the _h.e.l.lenist_ and the _Judaizing_ Jews. He dreamed not, however, of transforming Moses into a Socrates. He gave up nothing of pure Judaism. But, having a thorough knowledge of the Greek, Oriental and Egyptian philosophies, he held them all in check; he took out of each of them what could be reconciled with the law of G.o.d, enriched with it the inheritance of tradition, and boldly applying to ideas that generous and accommodating toleration which he made use of in social life, he allowed them entrance into the Synagogue. [Footnote 112]

[Footnote 112: Niemeyer, "Characteristik der Bibel," p. 638.]

Gamaliel, it seems, kept in Jerusalem what certain authors call an academy. It was frequented, for men of such a character possess a great power of attraction. Young Israelites brought to his feet, and placed at his disposal, for the service of his and their ideas, the intemperate zeal and warm convictions of their age--Christian tradition acquaints us with the names of some of them; among others, of Stephen and Barnabas, whom we shall soon see disciples of a greater master. [Footnote 113] But the most ardent of them all was, without contradiction, the young Saul of Tarsus. Proud, fiery, enthusiastic, he seems to have been pa.s.sionately fond of the Pharisaism of Gamaliel, but mixing with the zeal a violent asperity which, certainly, he had not from his master. No man could be more attached, than he was, to the ancient traditions; it is himself who says so, adding that his proficiency in the interpretation of the law placed him at the head of the men of his time. [Footnote 114]

[Footnote 113: Cornel. a Lapide, in Act. v. 34.]

[Footnote 140: See Epist. to the Galatians, i. 14.]

These Jewish as well as these Greek studies were not lost time in the education of the apostle. They {538} made Saul sensible of the pressing need of a revealer which the world was then laboring under; and they caused those groanings to reach his ears from all parts, which he himself called the groaning of creation in childbed of her redeemer. They did also reveal to him, seeing the inability of sects for it, that redemption could not be the work of man, and they left in his mind that haughty contempt of human wisdom, which would be despair, if G.o.d had not come to reveal a better one possessing the promises both of this world and of the next.

Now, whilst young Saul and the Jewish rabbins were agitating these questions in the dust of schools and synagogue, our Lord Jesus Christ was giving the solution of them in his own life and by his death. His death was even more fruitful than his life, and when the Pharisees believed they had put an end to his doctrine, as they had to his life, it was a great surprise to them to see twelve fishermen, wholly unknown the day before, suddenly appear, preaching that the Son of G.o.d had risen from the dead, that they had seen him gloriously ascending into heaven, and that, in order to give testimony of it to the world, they were ready and would be happy to die. Their miracles, their doctrine, the conversions which they wrought by mult.i.tudes, their baptism conferred on thousands of disciples, the enthusiasm of some, the perplexity of others, the hatred of many, stirred up the politicians and the magistrates. The great council met under these circ.u.mstances. It seems that there was held in it a decisive deliberation, in which the destinies of Christianity were solemnly discussed. The question was to know, whether the new religion should be drowned in blood, or whether it should be allowed the liberty and time of dying by a natural death. It did not occur to any one's thought that it could live; and much less that it could be true: and it is remarkable that not a word was said on the doctrinal question, the most important of all! Thus some of them advised to put those men to death, others feared lest violence should excite a sedition, and there was division of counsel in the a.s.sembly, when Gamaliel rose up in it. Silence followed, the Scripture relates, because he was the sage of the nation. He made no speech. He cited only the names of some seditious men very well known in the city, the false prophet Theodas, and Judas of Galilee, who, after a little noise, had left no trace behind them. Hence he concluded that the new religion would have the same fortune if it was from man, and that if it was, on the contrary, the work of G.o.d, it would prove invincible against all human efforts.

His advice appeared for a moment to prevail, on account of its wisdom; and the apostles, confiding in the future, readily accepted the challenge.

G.o.d had other designs in regard to his church, and it was not peace but war that he had come to bring with him. Wisdom had decided; pa.s.sion executed. After reciting the advice of Gamaliel, the Scripture adds that, before being dismissed, the Apostles were scourged, and that "they went from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jesus." The signal had thus been given, and a pure victim was about to open the era of the martyrs.

We have thus far related only the human history of St. Paul. We now begin to enter into his supernatural and divine history.

Saul had put himself at the head of those who persecuted the Christians. Hence it is that the Scripture represents him to us as laying everything waste, like a rapacious wolf, spreading consternation amidst the flock. His very name was terror to the newly born church; above all the others, however, one Christian roused his jealous rancor.

It was a young man whose name I have already mentioned, and who is believed to have been of the same {539} country with Saul, and his relative. [Footnote 115] He was called Stephanos, which we have modified into Stephen.

[Footnote 115: Corn. a Lapide, in Act. Apost. vi. 18.]

Stephen, as everything indicates, was a Greek, and of the number of those who were then called h.e.l.lenistic Jews. In all probability, he belonged to that synagogue of Cilicians of which Saul, his friend and countryman, must likewise have been a member. Some of the ancients have even believed that he also belonged to the school of Gamaliel; and this is confirmed by the old tradition, which makes the remains of the great rabbin and those of the first martyr rest in the same grave.

[Footnote 116] All these relations between Stephen and Saul, who persecuted him, are worthy of being taken into account. They throw a great light over those events, and define with precision the circ.u.mstances of which they give the key.

[Footnote 116: "Inventio Corporis S. Stephani, Visio S. Luciani,"

viii. te ix.]

The same tradition has taken a pleasure in surrounding the young neophyte with every gift and accomplishment that could make him a most precious victim. The memory which the fathers have preserved of Stephen is that of a youth of rare beauty, in the flower of his age, endowed with wonderful eloquence, and with a candor of soul yet more charming.

"He was a virgin," St. Augustine says of him, "and this purity of heart reflecting upon his features imparted to his face an angelic expression." St. John Damascene speaks in the same strain of that excellent nature which "made the light of grace shine with more brilliant l.u.s.tre." Such souls are very near to Christianity. Stephen had become a Christian. St. Epiphanius affirms that he was such during the life of Jesus Christ, and that he was one of the seventy-two disciples. [Footnote 117] St. Augustine doubts of it. [Footnote 118]

[Footnote 117: "Haer." 21.]

[Footnote 118: Sermo xciv. "De Diversis."]

What we are informed of in the Book of the Acts concerning this point is, that moved by "a murmuring of the Greeks against the Hebrews for that their widows were neglected in the daily ministration," the apostles caused seven men of that nation to be chosen, whom they "appointed over that business." The first named (and perhaps the most preeminent) among them was Stephen, characterized by the inspired historian as "a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost."

This conversion raised storms in the bosom of the synagogue; and as St. Paul, according to his own account, occupied a preeminent rank among the young men of that time, it was easy for him no doubt to breathe his own burning flame into them.

Besides, everything announced a violent crisis, and the whole city experienced that agitation and anxiety which, in troubled times, precede and portend a near commotion and a desperate struggle. As the disciples had not yet been outlawed, as they did not even have any peculiar name which distinguished them from the rest of the people, and their religious belief enjoyed as yet its freedom, they joined everywhere the Jewish a.s.semblies, instilled there their doctrine, taught even in the temple, where they went to pray like the rest. But a deep-rooted dissension, pregnant with tempests, was growing in the heart of every synagogue. These were most numerous at Jerusalem, as it is said that well-nigh five hundred different ones were there in existence, each people possessing their own, about in the same manner as now in the city of Rome every Catholic nation possesses her proper church, for her own use, and in her own name. The synagogue of the Cilicians, is expressly mentioned in the holy Scripture and signalized as one of the most disturbed, and most opposed to the new sect.

[Footnote 119] Interpreters are of opinion that it was there Saul and the deacon Stephen met together in the midst of other Asiatic Jews, their countrymen, {540} hot-headed and subtle, as are all of that country. [Footnote 120] They were of the same age, according to computations made for the purpose, and of equal learning; but Stephen's eloquence had no rival! It was, the Acts say, something at once sweet and powerful, that attracted by its grace, and bore away the soul by its force. One felt in it a higher spirit, it is said, and it was in vain that disputants from all the synagogues arose against Christ and his faith; none could resist that word, "full of wisdom and of the Holy Ghost." Some Greek copies add that he "reprehended the Jews with such an a.s.surance that it was impossible not to see the truths which he announced."

[Footnote 119: Act. vi. 9]

[Footnote 120: Dom Calmet, "Comm. sur les Actes," vi. 9.]

His words gave displeasure on account of this freedom; as they could not refute him they soon resolved to calumniate him, waiting for a pretext to get rid of him. Witnesses were found; they are found everywhere. Stephen had preached that a more perfect worship was about to take the place of the worship of Moses, that the glory and the reign of the temple were soon to have an end, and that a better Jerusalem of larger destinies, was on the point of being built. It was but too easy to turn these words from their spiritual meaning, and convert them into threats against the city and the people. A purely moral and peaceful revolution was a thing, on the other hand, so entirely novel in the history of the world, that one would have naturally persisted in confounding it with a political and civil revolution. It was this gross and voluntary mistake that had furnished the text to the pretended lawsuit against our Lord Jesus Christ; it was equally the foundation of that which his disciples have been subjected to. To these accusations they took care to add that Stephen intended to change the ancient traditions, which thing in the eyes of the Pharisees was decisive.

The young deacon was therefore brought before the high-priest, that same Caiaphas by whom Jesus had suffered. When the accusers had been heard, the pontiff requested Stephen to answer them: "Are these things so?"

He rose up, and as soon as he could be seen, the book of the Acts observes, all the eyes in the a.s.sembly were fixed on him. Did he have already a glimpse of the martyr's crown, and did this vision transfigure him in advance? I know not, but it is said that his face appeared to their eyes as the face of on angel. "It was," says St.

Hilary of Aries, "the flame of his heart overspreading itself upon his forehead; the candor of his soul was reflected on his features in a perfect beauty; and the Holy Ghost residing in Stephen's heart threw upon his face a jet of supernatural light."

The speech of Stephen was simple, but peremptory. To those who charged him with breaking off from the religion of his fathers, he opposed at the very beginning a long profession of faith from the books of Moses.

But the question relating to the temple, whose fall he had foretold, was more serious. He viewed it firmly. He did not retract himself; but presently rising from the region of facts to that of superior principles which facts obey, he began to demonstrate that a material temple is nowise necessary to the honor of G.o.d. As a proof of this he pointed back to the times in which the patriarchs made their prayers on the top of the high places; when the Lord manifested his presence in a flame of fire in a bush; and when the Hebrew people carried through the desert the tabernacle, which was the sanctuary and the altar at the same time. When he had come to the time of the first temple he concluded, and his discourse suddenly a.s.sumed the character of a vivid and eloquent exaltation. Elevating himself from the imperfection of a national worship to the ideal of a universal and spiritual one, which would {541} have its sanctuary chiefly within man's soul, he said: "Yet the Most High dwelleth not in houses made by hands, as the prophet saith: 'Heaven is my throne, and the earth my footstool; what house will you build me, saith the Lord, or what is the place of my resting? Hath not my hand made all these things?"

Such a harangue was a manifesto. He did not abolish every temple, nor every worship, as some people are pleased to insinuate; but he erased at a single stroke the exclusive privilege of the temple of Jerusalem, he extended it's boundaries, and for the old Jewish monopoly subst.i.tuted the catholicity of a new church, as large as the world.

The Jews understood him too well. They were already trembling with rage against him, when, from the accused becoming the accuser, Stephen charged them with the murder of the prophets, and princ.i.p.ally with that of the G.o.d, our Saviour, whom they had crucified. "You have received the law by the disposition of angels," he said to them, "and have not kept it." On hearing these words, their rage, incapable of longer restraint, burst out; "they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed with their teeth at him," as the Acts relate. Stephen felt that his last hour was at hand.

The Holy Ghost filled him as it were with a holy rapture. He looked steadfastly to heaven, where the glory of G.o.d began to shine on him, and there, in the midst of that glory, recognizing and saluting Jesus Christ, who extended his hand to him, "Behold," he exclaimed, "I see the heavens opened, the Son of Man standing on the right hand of G.o.d."

These words sealed his doom. On hearing him, the Jews, shaking with horror, "cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and with one accord ran violently upon him," as wild beasts do on their prey.

No judgment was pa.s.sed on him. A text in the book of Deuteronomy allowed any one to be put to death, who enticed the people into idolatry. This summary justice sometimes tolerated by the Roman pro-consul, was termed the _judgment of zeal_. To apply this _judgment_ to the young deacon, was found more convenient than to go through the formalities of a regular sentence; and they seized him to put him to death. By a last relic of Pharisaism, however, they took care to observe the practices of the law, even in such an arbitrary and cruel deed. To the end, therefore, that the holy city should not be stained with blood, the innocent victim was "cast forth without"

the walls of Jerusalem.

They went out by the northern gate along that side which leads to country of Kedar. At the west of the valley crossed by the Kedron, on a desolate places and at the right of the distant mountains of Galaad, the crowd stopped. The witnesses began by raising their hands over the head of Stephen, which was the rite of devoting a victim to death; then stones innumerable, as thick as hail, fell upon him. The atrocious deed went on with unrelenting fury, and the body of the heroic martyr was now noting but a wound; but he held his eyes immovably fixed on that celestial vision, and as life was gradually receding from his breast, he was ever "invoking and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!"

The Acts of the Apostles conclude this narrative, with giving us the name of the person who was the most noted accomplice in this murder: "_Saulus autem erat consentiens neci ejus_."

St. Luke, the disciple of St. Paul, says nothing further concerning his master in this business. But St. Paul came afterward, who, humbly giving a public testimony of his cruel error, denounced himself as the instigator of that iniquity. "When the blood of Stephen was shed," he said one day to the Jews, "I was the first, and over the others,"

_Super ad stabam_. [Footnote 121] It is the sense of the Greek text.

Had {542} he for such a thing a mandate of the Sanhedrim, as we shall soon see him vested with full powers against the brethren of Damascus?

Everything would make one believe so. The fathers and commentators say, it was for this reason that he kept the garments of those men of blood: and they, in fact, show us those murderers as going the one after the other, deferentially to lay their garments at the feet of Saul, as an homage, so to speak, paid to him, from whom they had the power and the command to strike.

[Footnote 121: Act. xxii. 20.]

Stephen saw him, and revenged himself in his way--the divine way. At the point of death, covered with blood, he lowered his eyes to the earth for the last time, and sadly resting them on his persecutors, perhaps he saw through their impious crowd one of them apart, more furious than the rest. He was moved to compa.s.sion for his soul; and then it was that "falling on his knees, he cried with a loud voice,"

not of anger, but of grace, and said: "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." He rose no more, and so saying, Stephen "fell asleep in the Lord."

He could sleep in peace, indeed, for he had just made a magnificent conquest. "If Stephen had not prayed," St. Augustine says, "the church had not won St Paul; the martyr fell, the Apostle rose." [Footnote 122] These subst.i.tutions are the most mysterious secrets of Providence. By an admirable law of a bond _in solido_, of fraternity and of love, G.o.d has willed that we, like himself, can, at the price of a little blood, or even of some tears, pay the ransom of souls, and secure to them a future for which they are indebted to us. He has permitted that the life and the death of Christians, like those of their Master, should be a redemption, completing the great redemption of Calvary, according to the saying of St. Paul himself. Coloss. i. 24

[Footnote 122: St. Aug. Sermo 1. "De Sanctis."]

It was meant that this should be the first apostleship of all, and the most fruitful. In the midst of scaffolds, ever full of victims, and the catacombs which incessantly recruited new children of G.o.d, Tertullian proclaimed that "the blood of the martyrs was a seed of Christians." He gave thus form to a beautiful law, which the blood of Stephen, after the blood of G.o.d himself, had before inaugurated. The soul of Saul, therefore, was that day a conquered soul. It is in vain that on the road to Damascus he struggles and "kicks against the goad:" he is under the yoke of G.o.d; he carries a mark of blood on him which points him out, and which saves him; and Jesus, whenever he will, has only to show himself to throw him down and make him obey.

This is admirable. Moses had written in the book of Leviticus, "The priest shall command him that is to be purified to offer for himself two living sparrows which it is lawful to eat, ... . and he shall command one of the sparrows to be immolated, ... . but the other that is alive he shall dip ... . in the blood of the sparrow that is immolated; ... . and he shall let go the living sparrow, that it may fly into the field." (Levit xiv. 4-7.) It was according to this rite that the transaction was accomplished. Stephen had been the chosen victim; and when Saul had covered himself with his redeeming blood, that blood set him free: he had no more to do but to spread his wings, and to start on his flight.