Thus, having risen above human nature and been transfigured into angelic beauty, he saw what is inaccessible to sight. Even his murderers marveled when the appearance of his face was changed according to the likeness of angelic dignity. He saw what the eye cannot approach and loudly proclaimed the grace that had appeared to him.
But they stopped their ears and did not wish to hear the account of the vision. In this at least they acted well, for the hearing of the impure was not worthy to receive the account of the divine manifestation. Thus he communicated the grace to all who stood by, conveying through his report to common knowledge what he alone had been counted worthy to behold. "I see," he says, "the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God" (Acts 7:56).
But they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and rushed upon him with one accord. In the narrative about them, their cry is very fittingly numbered among their deeds, to show the kinship of their will with the will of the Sodomites. For their lawlessness too was called a cry by the Judge: "The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah has increased and come up to Me" (Gen 18:20). Thus they cried out so that their cry against Stephen might be heard.
The athlete did not fail to know that through the malice of his murderers he was receiving a benefit. As if crowned within the circle of those stoning him, he accepted what was happening as though the hands of his opponents were weaving him a victor's crown. Therefore he avenged himself on the murderers by blessing them. He did not ask for repayment for what had been done to him, with opposite consequences, so that it would bring life to him but destruction to his opponents. Rather, he prayed that his enemies not be deprived of what he himself was being granted, since they had aided him in attaining the good things.
Thus does one who has beheld Christ know how to deal with enemies. Since he had seen the Lawgiver of patience, he remembered the law commanding us to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, and to pray for those who war against us (Mt 5:44).
Those who madly rise up against the glory of the Spirit call Stephen a participant in their madness. Yet he looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Thus those who distort the doctrines of piety say this: if the Spirit must surely be numbered together with the Father and the Son, how did Stephen, in the vision, see the Son but not the Spirit?
How, then, will Stephen stretch out a helping hand to those deceived by such words? How will he help those who are weak in the art of dispute? In that very passage of Scripture there is help that overthrows the opponent's unbelief. You who fight against the Spirit ask: if the glory of the Father was visible, and the Son was standing at the right hand, where was the Spirit?
If the Spirit were in you, you would not have overlooked the word set forth concerning Him, just as those who have lost their sight pass by gold lying at their feet without recognizing it. At least listen now, if you are not stopping your ears like the Jews. How did Stephen see the glory above the heavens? Who opened the heavenly gates to him? Was this the work of human powers? Or did some angel lift the human nature that was below to that height?
No. The book of Acts does not say of Stephen that he saw what he saw by the force of his own special power, or because he was filled with angelic help. What does it say? "But Stephen, being full of the Holy Spirit, saw the glory of God" and the Only-begotten Son of God (Acts 7:55).
As the prophet says, one cannot see light except by seeing it through light. For he says, "In Thy light shall we see light" (Ps 36:9). Therefore, if the contemplation of light is possible only through light itself, how can one gaze upon the sun while outside the rays of the sun? Since the Only-begotten Son is contemplated in the Light of the Father, that is, in the Holy Spirit who proceeds from Him, Stephen, illumined beforehand by the glory of the Spirit, understands the Glory of the Father and the Son.
Then how shall we call true the Gospel saying, "No one has ever seen God" (Jn 1:18)? How will the words of the Apostle not contradict what has been narrated, when he says, "Whom no man has seen or can see" (1 Tim 6:16)? For if the glory of the Father and the Son is acknowledged to be containable by human nature and power, then the one who said that the vision of the Godhead is impossible for men would certainly be a liar. But we must admit both that he does not lie and that what is narrated is true.
Therefore the evil-mindedness of the Spirit-fighters is clearly revealed, because, according to the testimony of Scripture, like is perceived by like. Stephen beholds the Godhead not while remaining within human nature and powers, but after being filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit, by which he was raised to the contemplation of God. Therefore, if without the Spirit one cannot even "say that Jesus is Lord" (1 Cor 12:3), as the Apostle says, nor understand the glory of the Father, it is plainly revealed that where the Spirit is, there the Son is seen, and the Father's glory is contemplated together with Him.
The fighters against Christ find another weapon of impiety against us in the same narrative. They say that in this event the lower dignity of the Only-begotten is disclosed, because His standing at the right hand of the Father indicates that He is subject to the Father. What then of Paul, I would say to such people? What of the Prophet David, who lived before him? Both, taught by the Spirit, tell of the glory of the Only-begotten. For David says, "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand" (Ps 110:1). And the Apostle says that the Lord sits "at the right hand" of the throne of God (Col 3:1).
Therefore, if standing is a sign of diminution, then sitting is surely a sign of equal honor. Let them either abolish the testimonies concerning the divine dignity, by which the height of being at the right hand is indicated, or let them piously accept this. For each of those who spoke had one teacher: the grace of the Spirit. Stephen saw what he saw while being filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:55), and he recounted what he saw. "David calls Him Lord in the Spirit" (Mt 22:43), as the Gospel says. And Paul, as he himself says, "speaks mysteries in the Spirit" (1 Cor 14:2).
Therefore, if there is one Teacher who does not disagree with Himself, for the Teacher is the Spirit of truth abiding in the God-inspired men, how could anyone suspect any disagreement in the doctrines? But they say that, according to ordinary understanding, one meaning is connected with the idea of sitting and another with the idea of standing. I agree with this. Yet a word, in the meaning in which it is applied to bodily things, cannot properly be applied to incorporeal nature.
In relation to man, sitting signifies the body's resting upon the thighs, so that the knees, bearing the body's weight, do not suffer from constant strain. By contrast, standing signifies a man's upright position on his feet, without the repose of sitting upon the thighs. In relation to the higher nature, however, sitting and standing are not joined to these notions. Both are equally far from the ordinary meaning of these words. For we do not understand the incorporeal as standing on feet, nor what has no outward form as sitting on thighs.
Rather, under each of these words we shall piously understand firmness in every good and immutability in all things. The one who says that the Godhead sits and the one who says that It stands do not disagree at all in meaning, despite the difference of expressions. The former affirms that the Godhead stands firm in the good, and the latter that It abides in it immutably.
Just as the Prophet David and the Apostle Paul, each in his own expressions speaking of the sitting of the Only-begotten, do not thereby imply that the Son sits on the throne while the Father stands, so also in Stephen's words, when you hear of the Son's standing, you would wrongly suppose that sitting belongs to the Father alone. For as in Paul and David the Son's sitting at the right hand presupposes together with it the Father's sitting, although nothing had first been said about the Father, in exactly the same way Stephen's mention of the Son's standing indicates the same position also with regard to the glory of the Father.
For the concept of "image" (Heb 1:3) can be preserved only if we acknowledge that everything we understand and perceive in it is also present in the prototype. As good is in good, light in light, and in all things the archetypal beauty is reflected in the image by corresponding properties, so also in the Son's sitting, whatever this term may cause us to understand, the sitting of the Father is understood together with it. Likewise in His standing, the standing of the Father is understood. Otherwise the concept of image would disappear, as soon as, by a change of properties, it became something other than the Prototype.
This, brethren, is what we have been able to say in passing concerning the question that presented itself, since Stephen's vision gave occasion for our discourse to touch upon this subject. May God grant that we be not only spectators of Stephen's struggle, but also participants in grace, filled with the Holy Spirit, for the overthrow of opponents and for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. To Him be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.
THEOSIS