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The Dossier on Stephen, the First Martyr

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 August 2003

François Bovon
François Bovon
Affiliation:
Harvard Divinity School
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Extract

Today, New Testament scholars interpret the book of Acts and its account of the Hellenists—Stephen's martyrdom in particularSee Acts 6–8.—while historians of Christianity study the cult of Saint Stephen and the healing power of his relicsParticularly in the eyes of Augustine; see De civitate Dei, 22.8; also p. 290, below.. In contrast to the situation in earlier scholarship, there is, alas, little dialogue between the two groups, because the first does not investigate the reception of the book of Acts,Even in the German collection Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, whose intention is to respect the Wirkungsgeschichte, Rudolf Pesch's commentary on the book of Acts presents only one reference to a Christian text influenced by Luke's account of Stephen's martyrdom, the story of the martyrs of Lyon preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea, Hist. eccl. 5.2.5; see Rudolf Pesch, Die Apostelgeschichte. 1.Teilband (Apg 1–12) (2d ed.; EKK 5.1; Solothurn: Benzinger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1995) 267. and the second does not bridge the gap between the time of the New Testament and the fourth century, when the cult of the saint begins to be well attested. My long-term intention is to establish links between the two scholarly fields and to consider Stephen's career in the New Testament and his role in the life of the church as two phases of a continuous history. This paper, an expression of my short-term intention, fulfills two preliminary tasks: to present the modern research on the hagiography of the first martyr and to collect the ancient material on Stephen. As far as I can judge, such a file or “dossier” on Stephen, the first martyr, does not exist.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 96 , Issue 3 , July 2003 , pp. 279 - 315
Copyright
© 2003 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Caroline Kelly, Brent Landau, and Taylor Petrey who helped in the paper preparation. I am grateful to the staff of Andover-Harvard Theological Library, particularly Michelle Gauthier, Gloria J. Korsman, and Renata Kalnins. I thank also Eugene McGarry for his excellent work as copyeditor of this paper. The most important abbreviations used in this paper are: BHG (Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca; see nn. 92–93, below); BHL (Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina, ed. Society of the Bollandists; Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1900–1901; for the Novum Supplementum, see n. 142, below); BHO (Bibliographia Hagiographica Orientalis; see n. 151, below); EMML (Ethiopian Manuscripts Microfilmed for the Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library, Addis Ababa, and for the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, St John's Abbey and University, Collegeville, Minnesota). For the other abbreviations, see Patrick H. Alexander et al., The SBL Handbook of Style for Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Early Christian Studies (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999). Because they belong to the dossier on Stephen, the first martyr, and may be useful to some readers, I include articles and books even if I was not able to read them. In some bibliographical references the readers will find numbers printed in superscript: these numbers indicate the position that a document devoted to Stephen occupies in a manuscript or a book.