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Saint Stephen and Early Alexandrian Christianity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

L. W. Barnard
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The message of Stephen and its relationship to flrst-century Judaism and early Christian theology has recently been the subject of several studies. It is, I suppose, universally agreed that Stephen was a hellenistic Jew of the Diaspora who came into acute conflict with other Diaspora Jews of a more conservative kind domiciled in Jerusalem and that these took the initiative in effecting his arrest and trial. But that is as far as agreement goes. The attempt to understand further Stephen's message and influence has produced the widest divergence of opinion. To some he is the originator of the mission to the Gentiles and Christian universalism whose conception of Christianity was adopted by later preachers and teachers with momentous consequences for Christian history. To others he remained in essence a Jew, albeit of a liberal kind, even after his conversion, whose aim was to propagate a type of Judaism which was strongly anti-Temple and anti-cultus. On this view Stephen stands in the line of Nathan, Hosea, Trito-Isaiah, the Rechabites, some Essene circles and the Ebionites, as pictured in the Pseudo-Clementine writings, in asserting a non-material form of worship, independent of the Temple cultus, as being authentic Judaism. Still others believe that Stephen cleverly preached Jesus in his interpretation of Joseph, Moses and Joshua; on this view he is a typologist whose aim is to show that Jesus' passion has been pre-figured in the persecutions which God's righteous servants have always had to endure. It is not our purpose here to examine and criticize these conflicting opinions in detail but to seek to answer two questions, namely (i) Was Stephen's position an isolated ine in first-century Judaism and in the early Church? (ii) And, if so, is it yet possible to trace his influence on Alexandrian Christianity when it comes into historical perspective in the early second century of our era?

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New Testament Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , October 1960 , pp. 31 - 45
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1960

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References

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page 32 note 1 Schoeps, H. J., Theologie und Geschwhte des Judenchristentwns (1949), p. 411, believes that the ideas developed in Stephen's speech are those of James, Jesus' brother, and that Stephen himself is a mythical figure. Such a radical view, which plays fast and loose with Acts, seems to me to be wide of the mark.Google Scholar

page 32 note 2 Die älteste Geschichte Israels im Rahmen lehrhafser Darstellungen (1917).Google Scholar

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page 33 note 1 iv. 8–12. Simon, J.E.H. pp. 536–7.Google Scholar

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page 33 note 3 The verba Christi concerning the destruction of the temple which appear on the lips of the false witnesses in Mark xiv. 58.Google Scholar

page 34 note 1 Op. cit. pp. 25–46.Google Scholar

page 34 note 2 op. cit. p. 36. Simon's further criticisms in St Stephen, pp. 100–4, seem to me decisive.Google Scholar

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page 35 note 2 The Origins of the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (1946), pp. 109–13.Google Scholar

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page 37 note 1 St Stephen, pp. 104 and 507.Google Scholar

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page 37 note 4 Suet. Jul. 76.Google Scholar I have dealt with the dating of Barnabas in the j. Egyptian Archaeology, XLIV (1958), pp. 101–7 where fuller details are given.Google Scholar

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page 41 note 1 Dial. xix. 6.Google Scholar

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page 45 note 1 Eus. H.E. II. 16.Google ScholarRoberts, C. H. plausiblysuggests, in J.T.S. L. (1949), pp. 155–68, that Eusebius' reference is a reminiscence of the arrival of Mark7apos;s Gospel in Alexandria.Google Scholar