Acts 6:12Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

“And they set up false witnesses who said: This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words.” Earlier they said of the Apostles that they preached the resurrection and that a multitude of people flocked to them.

Now they say that they healed. O madness! They condemned the very things for which they ought to have given thanks.

Those who were mighty in deeds they hoped to overcome by words, as they also did with Christ. They constantly tried to catch them in their words.

They were ashamed to seize them openly, because they had nothing with which to accuse them.

And observe: the judges do not bear false witness themselves, for they would have been exposed. Instead, they bribe others, so that the affair might not appear to be violence.

We see the same thing with Christ. Have you seen the power of the preaching, how it acts even when the preachers are not only scourged, but stoned?

They are not only brought to judgment, but driven out from everywhere. Here too, despite the false witness, the enemies not only failed to overcome them.

They were not even able to withstand them, though they were exceedingly shameless. With such power the preaching struck them, although they devised many schemes.

So also against Christ they used all their strength to put Him to death. Afterward it became clear to all that this was not a struggle between men.

It was a struggle between God and men. See what the false witnesses say, set up by those who wickedly dragged him into the tribunal.

Thus, when they did not slander the Apostles, Scripture says nothing of the kind. But since here everything is slander, God naturally refutes it even by Stephen’s appearance.

The Apostles were not slandered, but forbidden. Stephen, however, is slandered. Therefore before anything else, his very face defends him.

Perhaps it was this that put the high priest to shame.

Then the crowd forgot all his benefactions and rose against him with implacable malice. Stephen's enemies knew this very well.

So they instructed certain men to say, "We heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God" (v. 11). The people believed them, and Stephen was seized as an evildoer.

This was exactly what the members of the Sanhedrin wanted. They quickly convened a formal assembly and opened the trial of Stephen.

The false witnesses stated the accusation: "This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place," that is, the temple, "and the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us" (vv. 13-14).

The charge was grave. The eyes of all present turned involuntarily toward the place where the accused stood.

But as they looked at him, they saw his face as the face of an angel. The grace of God, with which Stephen's soul was filled, was reflected at that moment on his face with heavenly light. He looked like a dweller of heaven.

However false the accusation made against Stephen by the false witnesses was, some truth must have lain at its root.

Of course, it could not be that Stephen "spoke blasphemous words against Moses and God, against this holy place and the law." That would mean that he spoke disrespectfully, even insultingly, about the temple of Jerusalem and all the institutions and rites of the Mosaic law.

On the contrary, the apostolic Christians were zealous in visiting the temple during divine service (Acts 2:46; Acts 3:1; Acts 5:12).

Clearly, they not only did not regard observance of the rites of the Old Testament, God-given law as contradicting the Christian religion. They even treated them with reverence and took part in their observance.

Therefore it could not be that Stephen, a most pious member of the Christian community, spoke in any way insultingly about the holy temple and the law during his disputes with his opponents.

Yet a Christian preacher could not dispute with Jews about matters of faith without touching on the thought of the temporary significance of the Old Testament religion.

Stephen also expressed this, among other things, before his opponents. This is clear from the following words of the accusation: "We have heard," the false witnesses said, "how he said that Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us."

This thought concerned the merely preparatory significance of the Old Testament religious institutions. Therefore they are now neither necessary nor obligatory for those who recognize, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the promised Messiah who has appeared.

Stephen, of course, expressed this thought with full reverence for the God-given law of Moses.

But the false witnesses tore this thought out from the sequence of other thoughts in Stephen's speeches. They tried to present it in the form and character of an insult, a blasphemy against the holy temple and the law.

These false testimonies were all the more dangerous because they were based on a distortion of the truth. St. Stephen had indeed preached that Christ had brought the whole Old Testament divine economy to its completion and abolition.

But this abolition was to be accomplished not through violence, but through the inward action of the Spirit of God. It had already begun to take place.

Stephen wished solemnly to explain this truth before the Sanhedrin itself. Despite all its prejudice against the preacher of the hated name, it could not fail to marvel at the beauty and God-enlightened face of this man.

It “saw his face as the face of an angel.”

Were not the instigators of this hostility toward Stephen and the Christians the cunning enemies of Christ, who managed the affairs of the Sanhedrin?

They feared again to persecute the Apostles openly and publicly (Acts 5:26). They also seemed, for a time, persuaded by Gamaliel’s wise counsel (Acts 5:40).

Yet, again inflamed by envy and hatred toward the Christians, did they not wish to conduct the matter more cunningly?

By stirring up popular indignation, they could direct it not against the Apostles personally, but against one of the newly appointed deacons.

Then, once popular anger was inflamed, they could turn it against the whole Christian community, with the Apostles at its head.

In this case the matter took the turn desired by the enemies of Christianity. Against the Christians they used not the official persecution of judicial authority, but popular dissatisfaction and disturbance.

The beginning of the persecution would seem to belong not to the known enemies of Christ and the Apostles, but to the people and their displeasure.

How they were able to stir up against Stephen a people well disposed toward the Christians is shown by the writer of Acts. They accused Stephen of blasphemy, the gravest crime under the law of Moses.

As at the judicial accusation of the Lord Himself, the people lightly believed this slander. They were cunningly led into revolt against the supposed blasphemer and against those among whom he belonged.

“Falling upon him” may mean that they attacked him while, fulfilling his duties, he was walking along the street to the poor.

“They seized him and brought him to the Sanhedrin,” which, as is evident, quickly assembled in an extraordinary session.

The latter spread even more quickly and take firmer hold. Everywhere there are more evil people, capable of wicked deeds, than people capable of lofty thoughts and virtuous actions.

In the same week the people first cried to Jesus Christ Himself, “Hosanna” (Mt 21:9; Mk 11:9; Jn 12:13). Then they cried, “Crucify, crucify Him!” (Lk 23:21; Jn 19:6).

Moreover, the disturbance was directed only against one man, whose bond with the respected Apostles may have been unknown.

The accusation against the persecuted man was such that it could always stir up a disturbance in any land. Who would not rise against a blasphemer and overthrower of the sacred laws of his fathers?

Such was the man St. Stephen was declared to be.

Concerning the scribes, it is reported that “in the learned and literate Jewish circle three groups were distinguished among them. Teachers of the law were the most learned among the Jews.

They explained the law and publicly taught and instructed the people in the law. To them the honorable title ‘rabbi’ became attached.

Lawyers were experts in the law, practical jurists and casuists, occupied with resolving disputed questions and doubtful cases. Scribes were generally men skilled in book learning.

From among them were distinguished the people’s scribes, whose duty consisted in copying the Holy Scriptures.” Evidently scribes of every kind were gathered here without distinction.