Acts 7:5Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

See how he draws them away from the earth. He did not say, "He will give," but, "He did not give," showing that everything comes from Him and nothing from them. For Abraham went out, leaving relatives and fatherland behind. Why then "did He not give" it? Because this land was a type of another, which God promised to give him. Do you see that Stephen does not conduct his speech simply? "He did not give it to him," he says, "but promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, while he still had no child." Again from this the omnipotence of God is revealed. So is the way He accomplishes everything that seems impossible. When Abraham was still in Persia and at such a distance, God said that He would make him master of Palestine. By the expression "promised," Stephen indicates that the promise was given before the place, before circumcision, before the sacrifice, and before the temple. He shows that they received both circumcision and the law not according to their own worth. The land was the reward solely for Abraham's obedience. Even the fulfillment of the promise took place before the institution of circumcision. All these things were types. Such were the leaving of fatherland and relatives at God's command, for the fatherland is where God leads. Such also was his not receiving an inheritance here. Stephen also shows that the Jews are a branch of the Persians, if one investigates properly. He shows that God's words must be obeyed even without signs, even if something grievous should be encountered. For the patriarch left his father's grave and everything out of obedience to God. If his father did not accompany him in his migration to Palestine because he did not believe in the true God, then still more will his descendants not share in this. This is so even if they have traveled the greater part of the way, because they did not imitate the virtue of their forefather. "He promised," he says, "to give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him." Here both the great love of God for mankind and Abraham's faith are indicated. Abraham's confidence in this "while he still had no child" proves both his obedience and his faith. The circumstances appeared contrary. After coming, he did not receive even "a foot's breadth," and he had no son. This could have hindered faith. Knowing this, let us also accept everything that God promises, even if contrary things sometimes occur. Yet with us there are no contrary things. Everything is altogether consistent. Where pleasant things are promised and the opposite happens, there truly is contradiction. With us it is the opposite. Here He promised tribulations, and there blessedness. Why then confuse the times? Why make the things above into things below? Tell me, are you grieved because you live in poverty, and are you troubled by this? Do not be troubled. What is worthy of grief is if you must be tormented there. Present sorrow may become a cause of blessedness. "This sickness," the Lord says, "is not unto death" (Jn 11:4). Future sorrow is punishment. Present sorrow is instruction and correction. The present life is a time of struggle. Therefore one must struggle. Here there is war and battle. In war no one seeks rest. In war no one thinks about pleasures. No one worries about property. No one is anxious about a wife. He cares about one thing alone: how to overcome the enemies. Let us act in the same way. If we conquer and return with trophies, God will give us everything. We need care about one thing alone: how to overcome the devil. Better still, even this is not the work of our efforts, but all is of the grace of God. We need care about one thing alone: to acquire His grace and to obtain His help for ourselves. "If God is for us, who is against us?" it is said (Rom 8:31). Let us care about one thing alone: that He not become our enemy and that He not turn away from us. The endurance of misfortunes is not evil. Sin is evil. It is a great calamity, even if we live in pleasures. I do not mean only in the future life, but in the present as well. What do you think it means to experience the gnawing of conscience? Is this not worse than any torture? I would like carefully to question those who live in evil. Do they not sometimes think about their sins? Do they not tremble then, and fear, and grieve? Do they not call blessed those who live in fasting, in the mountains, and in wisdom? Do you wish to receive blessedness there? Then endure here for Christ's sake. Nothing can compare with this blessedness. The apostles rejoiced when they were scourged. Paul also exhorts to this when he says, "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Phil 4:4). How, they say, can one rejoice where there are chains, tortures, and courts? Precisely there one can rejoice most of all. Listen to how one can rejoice under these conditions. The one who knows nothing against himself will always be in great joy. Thus the more you speak to him of misfortunes, the more pleasure you give him. Tell me, does a soldier who has received many wounds and finished the battle not return home with great pleasure? In his very wounds he has the ground of confidence, glory, and renown. And you, if you could say what Paul said, "I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus" (Gal 6:17), could become great, glorious, and renowned. But now there are no persecutions? Rise up against vainglory. If someone says something against you, do not fear to hear evil about yourself for Christ's sake. Rise up against the tyranny of pride. Rise up against the assaults of anger and the torments of desire. These too are wounds, and these too are sufferings. Tell me, which of all torments is most dreadful? Is it not when the soul is tormented and torn? In bodily torments the body suffers more. Here everything concerns the soul. It is sick when a person grows angry, envies, or does something of that kind. Better said, it is sick when it suffers. To have anger or envy does not mean to act, but to suffer, paschein. Therefore they are called passions of the soul, pathe, wounds and sores. Truly this is suffering, and suffering more dreadful than suffering itself. Understand then, you who grow angry, that you do this from passion. Therefore the one who does not grow angry does not suffer. Do you see that the one who suffers is not the one who endures injuries, but the one who inflicts them, as I have already said? That he truly suffers is clear both from the fact that this state is called passion and from his very body. Diseases arise from anger: dimness of sight, madness, and many others. But, you will say, he insulted my son, my servant. Do not think it would be weakness on your part if you yourself do not do the same. Tell me, would it be good to do so? I think it cannot be said that it is good. Therefore do not do what is not good. I know what angry movements arise at this point. But what, you say, if he shows contempt, or again causes annoyance? "Reprove, rebuke, exhort" (2 Tim 4:2). Anger is overcome by meekness. Go to him and rebuke him. Yet for ourselves we should not do even this. For others, however, it is necessary to do it. Do not count the insult done to your son as an injury to yourself. Have pity also on that other man, but not as though you yourself had been insulted. When your son suffered evil, you did not suffer. The one who did the evil suffered. Tame anger, this sharp sword. Let it remain in the sheath. If we draw it, then, carried away by it, we shall often use it at the wrong time. If it remains hidden, then even if need arises, anger will be tamed. Christ does not wish us to be angry even for Him. Listen to what He said to Peter: "Put your sword back into its place" (Mt 26:52). And you grow angry for your son? Teach your son also to be wise. Tell him of the sufferings of the Lord. Imitate your Teacher. When the apostles were about to endure reproaches, He did not say, "I will take revenge." What did He say? "They persecuted Me; they will persecute you also." Therefore endure bravely. You are not greater than I (Jn 15:20). Say the same to your son and servant: you are not greater than your master. But do these exhortations of wisdom seem insufficient? Alas, by word one cannot express what can be learned by experience itself. When you stand between two hostile sides, be on the side of those who are injured, not those who injure. Then you will know whether victory will not be on your side, and whether you will not receive splendid crowns. See how God, though insulted, answers meekly and mercifully. "Where," He says, "is Abel your brother?" What does Cain answer? "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" (Gen 4:9). What could be more arrogant than this answer? If someone heard such a thing even from a son or brother, would he not take it as an insult? Yet God again answers meekly: "The voice of your brother's blood cries out to Me." But God, you say, is above anger. For this very reason the Son of God came down, to make you like God, as far as this is possible for man. But, you say, this is impossible for me as a man. Then we shall present human beings to you as examples. Do not think that I will point to Paul or Peter. No, I will point to people lesser and far beneath them. Eli the servant insulted Hannah, saying, "How long will you be drunk?" What could be more insulting than this? But what did she say? "I am a woman grieving in spirit" (1 Sam 1:14-15). Truly, there is nothing better than sorrow. It is the mother of wisdom. This same woman had a rival, yet she did not insult her. What did she do? She fled to God, and during prayer she did not even mention her. She did not say, "Such a woman insults me; avenge me on her." So full of wisdom was this woman. Let us men be ashamed, since you know that nothing equals jealousy. The publican, insulted by the Pharisee, did not return insult for insult, though he could have done so if he wished. He bore it with wisdom, saying, "God, be merciful to me a sinner!" (Lk 18:13). Mephibosheth, accused and slandered by his servant, said and did nothing evil to him, even before the king himself (2 Sam 16:3; 1 Chr 8:35). Do you wish to hear of the wisdom of the sinful woman also? Listen to what Christ said when she wiped His feet with her hair: "tax collectors and harlots enter the Kingdom of God before you" (Mt 21:31). You know how she stood, wept, and washed away her sins. See then how she did not grow angry at the Pharisee when she was insulted by him. "If He knew," he says, "that this woman is a sinner, He would not have allowed her to come to Him" (Lk 7:39). But she did not say to him, "Tell me, are you yourself clean from sins?" Instead she was still more contrite, grieved still more, and poured out hotter tears. If a woman, publicans, and harlots practice wisdom, and this before the reception of grace, what forgiveness shall we receive? With such grace, we are worse than wild beasts, showing enmity, biting, and tearing one another. There is nothing more shameful than anger. Nothing is more dishonorable, more dreadful, more unpleasant, or more harmful than it. I say this not so that we may be meek only toward men, but so that you may endure it even if your wife annoys you with words. Let your wife also be for you a field of struggle and a school. Is it not foolish to engage in exercises that bring no benefit and even exhaust the body, while not making one's own house a school? This school gives us a crown even before the contests. Does your wife insult you? Do not be a woman yourself. Insulting belongs to a woman. It is a sickness of the soul, a vice. Do not count it dishonor when your wife insults you. It is dishonor if you insult her, while she practices wisdom. Then you act basely. Then you suffer harm. But if you are insulted and endure it, this is great proof of your strength. I say this not to incline women to give insults. Far be it. I say it so that if this should ever happen through satanic instigation, you may endure it. It belongs to men, as the stronger, to endure injuries from the weak. If even a servant contradicts you, endure it with wisdom. Do not say and do what he deserves from you, but what you need to say and do.

“And He gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot’s breadth.” Observe how, by speaking of the promised land, he leads them toward the truth.

Why did the Lord not give Abraham an inheritance? Because this land was a type of another land.

“And He promised to give it to him.” Do you notice that he repeats this again not without reason? He says, “He did not give,” but “He promised to give.”

If Abraham was a foreigner and a sojourner, and after a time had to move on, how could he possess this land?

Therefore Abraham’s inheritance is preserved through his seed, which is Christ. With Christ the saints too will reign, according to Scripture: “when He comes in the glory of His Father, reigning over all nations” (Mt 16:27; Mt 25:31).

Abraham waited for what God had promised and did not wish to appear to receive from men what God had promised to give him.

For God spoke thus: “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates” (Gen 15:18).

Therefore, if God promised him the land as an inheritance, and he did not receive it during his whole life, then he must receive the inheritance with his seed in the resurrection of the righteous (Lk 14:14).

His seed means those who fear God and believe in Him. For his seed is the Church, which receives adoption to God through the Lord.

As John the Baptist said, “God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Mt 3:9).

In the speech which Stephen delivered in the hall of the Sanhedrin, in answer to the high priest’s interrogation, he recalled before his judges the history of the people of God. He began with their forefather Abraham and ended with Solomon (vv. 1-50).

In conclusion he reproached the persecutors of Christians for their resistance to the Holy Spirit, Who was calling them to salvation (vv. 51-53).

Stephen’s speech is both defensive and accusatory. The accusation reported that he had spoken blasphemous words against the Law of Moses and the Jerusalem temple, and against Moses and God.

“He gave him no inheritance in it,” that is, no hereditary landed possession which he would own as master and could bequeath to his descendants.

This statement does not contradict the account in Genesis that Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite a field and a cave as his own possession (Gen. 23). Precisely the fact that Abraham had to buy the field and cave from the natives, for Sarah’s burial, shows that God had not given him landed property in that country. Otherwise he would have had no need to buy it.

Moreover, the speech here concerns only the first period of Abraham’s dwelling in that country, before his circumcision (v. 8). At that time Abraham truly had there not even a foot’s breadth of land of his own.

“He promised”: this is unfolded further in verses 6 and 7.

Archdeacon Stephen’s explanation of the conditions under which Abraham possessed the promised land, where the city of Jerusalem also stood, is directed to this point: even Abraham himself was not the full owner of that land, not even of the smallest part of it.

Everything was promised to him and to his posterity, while he was still childless, for temporary use, as to strangers and sojourners.

Furthermore, God revealed to Abraham that his posterity would be settlers abroad, dwelling in Egypt first in honor and then in bondage for four hundred years.

St. John Chrysostom gives special attention to this: “Stephen shows that the promise was given before the place, before circumcision, before sacrifice, before the temple.”

The first of these doubts, against Gen 23:17, is resolved in this way. By the name inheritance, Stephen understands hereditary land for dwelling and possession, serving the necessities of life. A burial ground, though one's own property, is never reckoned as an inheritance.