Acts 7:59

Now although, in proving that the flesh shall rise again we ipso facto prove that no other flesh will partake of that resurrection than that which is in question, yet insulated questions and their occasions do require even discussions of their own, even if they have been already sufficiently met. We will therefore give a fuller explanation of the force and the reason of a change which (is so great, that it) almost suggests the presumption that it is a different flesh which is to rise again; as if, indeed, so great a change amounted to utter cessation, and a complete destruction of the former self. A distinction, however, must be made between a change , however great, and everything which has the character of destruction . For undergoing change is one thing, but being destroyed is another thing. …

With this strength of patience, Esaias is cut asunder , and ceases not to speak concerning the Lord; Stephen is stoned, and prays for pardon to his foes. Oh, happy also he who met all the violence of the devil by the exertion of every species of patience! whom neither the driving away of his cattle nor those riches of his in sheep, nor the sweeping away of his children in one swoop of ruin, nor, finally, the agony of his own body in (one universal) wound, estranged from the patience and the faith which he had plighted to the Lord; whom the devil smote with all his might in vain. …

16. What beyond; that you should not swear nor curse; that you should not seek again your goods when taken from you; that, when you receive a buffet, you should give your other cheek to the smiter; that you should forgive a brother who sins against you, not only seven times, but seventy times seven times, but, moreover, all his sins altogether; that you should love your enemies; that you should offer prayer for your adversaries and persecutors? Can you accomplish these things unless you maintain the stedfastness of patience and endurance? And this we see done in the case of Stephen, who, when he was slain by the Jews with violence and stoning, did not ask for vengeance for himself, but for pardon for his murderers, saying, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” It behoved the first martyr of Christ thus to be, who, fore-running the martyrs that should follow him in a glorious death, w …

73. But the question before us is rendered more urgent by what the Apostle John says: “If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and the Lord shall give him life for him who sinneth not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.” For he manifestly shows that there are certain brethren for whom we are not commanded to pray, although the Lord bids us pray even for our persecutors. Nor can the question in hand be solved, unless we acknowledge that there are certain sins in brethren which are more heinous than the persecution of enemies. Moreover, that brethren mean Christians can be proved by many examples from the divine Scriptures. …

16. I see some ground on which I may comfort not some few only, but the multitude of Christians: and I know that ye are longing to hear it. Christ hath said, “Forgive, that ye may be forgiven.” And what do ye say in the Prayer which we have now been discussing? “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” So, Lord, forgive, as we forgive. This thou sayest, “O Father, which art in heaven, so forgive our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” For this ye ought to do, and if ye do it not, ye will perish. When your enemy asks pardon, at once forgive him. And is this much for you to do? Though it were much for thee to love thine enemy when violent against thee, is it much to love a man who is a supplicant before thee? What hast thou to say? He was before violent, and then thou hatedst him. …

9. So then, have faith with love. This is the “wedding garment.” Ye who love Christ, love one another, love your friends, love your enemies. Let not this be hard to you. What then do ye lose thereby, when ye gain so much? What? dost thou ask of God as some great favour, that thine enemy may die? This is not “the wedding garment.” Turn thy thoughts to the Bridegroom Himself hanging upon the Cross for thee, and praying to His Father for His enemies; “Father,” saith He, “forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Thou hast seen the Bridegroom speaking thus; see too the friend of the Bridegroom, a guest “with the wedding garment.” Look at the blessed Stephen, how he rebukes the Jews as though in rage and resentment, “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye have resisted the Holy Ghost. …

5. “Arise, O Lord, in Thine anger” ( ver. 6 ). Why yet does he, who we say is perfect, incite God to anger? Must we not see, whether he rather be not perfect, who, when he was being stoned, said, “O Lord, lay not this sin to their charge”? Or does the Psalmist pray thus not against men, but against the devil and his angels, whose possession sinners and the ungodly are? He then does not pray against him in wrath, but in mercy, whosoever prays that that possession may be taken from him by that Lord “who justifieth the ungodly.” For when the ungodly is justified, from ungodly he is made just, and from being the possession of the devil he passes into the temple of God. …

See, once more, the wrong-doers in trouble. Just as the Jews are perplexed, saying, “What are we to do with these men?” so these also are “cut to the heart.” ( ch. iv. 16 .) And yet it was he that had good right to be incensed, who, having done no wrong, was treated like a criminal, and was spitefully calumniated. But the calumniators had the worst of it in the end. So true is that saying, which I am ever repeating, “Ill to do, is ill to fare.” And yet he (in his charges against them) resorted to no calumny, but proved (what he said). So sure are we, when we are shamefully borne down in a matter wherein we have a clear conscience, to be none the worse for it. “If they desired,” say you, “to kill him, how was it that they did not take occasion, out of what he said, that they might kill him?” They would fain have a fair-seeming plea to put upon their outrage. …

He mentions the cause of his (angelic) appearance (Recapitulation, vii. 54; viii. 2 .); “But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God.” And when he said, “I see the heavens opened, they stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord.” ( v. 56, 57 .) And yet in what respect are these things deserving of accusation? “Upon him,” the man who has wrought such miracles, the man who has prevailed over all in speech, the man who can hold such discourse! As if they had got the very thing they wanted, they straightway give full scope to their rage. “And the witnesses,” he says, “laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man, whose name was Saul.” ( v. 58 .) Observe how particularly he relates what concerns Paul, to show thee that the Power which wrought in him was of God. …

5. A little further on they say: “They humbled themselves under the mighty hand, by which they are now greatly exalted. They defended all, but accused none. They absolved all, but bound none. And they prayed for those who had inflicted cruelties upon them, even as Stephen, the perfect witness, ‘Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.’ But if he prayed for those who stoned him, how much more for the brethren!”

6. For you say that the souls of Apostles and martyrs have their abode either in the bosom of Abraham, or in the place of refreshment, or under the altar of God, and that they cannot leave their own tombs, and be present where they will. They are, it seems, of senatorial rank, and are not subjected to the worst kind of prison and the society of murderers, but are kept apart in liberal and honourable custody in the isles of the blessed and the Elysian fields. Will you lay down the law for God? Will you put the Apostles into chains? So that to the day of judgment they are to be kept in confinement, and are not with their Lord, although it is written concerning them, “They follow the Lamb, whithersoever he goeth.” If the Lamb is present everywhere, the same must be believed respecting those who are with the Lamb. …

47. Did not John himself know that Stephen prayed for his persecutors, who had not been able even to listen to the Name of Christ, when he said of those very men by whom he was being stoned: “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge”? And we see the result of this prayer in the case of the Apostle, for Paul, who kept the garments of those who were stoning Stephen, not long after became an apostle by the grace of God, having before been a persecutor.