The Martyrdom of St Stephen
Stephen was the first person to lose his life because he was a follower of Jesus Christ.
34
Roman Empire 27 BC - AD 1453
Stephen was the first person to lose his life because he was a follower of Jesus Christ.
34
Roman Empire 27 BC - AD 1453
In about AD 34, St Stephen became the first person to be executed for his belief in Jesus Christ. Most of what is known about him comes from St Luke in his ‘Acts of the Apostles’, though Eastern tradition adds a little more.
GAMALIEL, one of the most respected teachers in Jerusalem, was a moderate. But his pupil Saul became a firebrand, dedicated to purifying Judaism of Greco-Roman culture and especially of the Christians, who had already seduced a Greek-culture Jew named Stephen.
The Apostles had chosen Stephen as one of seven deacons serving other Greek-culture converts in Jerusalem. But now radicals accused him of saying that Jesus would destroy the Temple in Jerusalem, and of contempt for Moses and for Israel’s culture and government.
Brought to trial in the capital, Stephen tried to explain that they had misunderstood him and the Scriptures. But that, and Stephen brazenly quoting Jesus’s own words before the same court, only made the judges angrier. They stoned Stephen, who prayed for God to forgive them, while Saul watched on approvingly. Gamaliel and his son Abibas came by night and took him for secret burial at their country residence, where Nicodemus became a frequent visitor to his grave.