St. Paul's acknowledgment
The debt he owes to St. Stephen
Imagine that St. Paul had saved his epistles, and tried to sell them as a collection in book form.* In his Acknowledgments, he would have had to put St. Stephen at the top of the list.
Consider two passages from the description of Stephen’s martyrdom, related in the Acts of the Apostles:
• As the first Christian martyr died, “the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.” Stephen was a witness to Jesus Christ; Saul was a witness to the killing of Christ’s witness. He approved of the killing, and thus willingly accepted responsibility for it.
• But then just moments later, Stephen prayed for those who were stoning him (and by extension for Saul): “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” How could the Lord refuse this prayer, made by a faithful disciple with his final breath? How could the Lord of Mercy turn down a bid for mercy: an echo of his own prayer to the Father to forgive the Roman soldiers who crucified Him?
So it seems reasonable to conclude that when Stephen died, the debt that Saul incurred by his complicity in the killing was cancelled.
No doubt something else happened to Saul at the same time. Even if he thought it right to stone Stephen, he must have been impressed by the courageous witness of his articulate young man. The image of Stephen’s courage, of his calm acceptance of death, must have been burned into Saul’s memory. Then some time later, when another searing vision knocked him off his horse, the memory of that martyrdom would have come into proper focus. When he encountered Jesus, Paul understood Stephen. When he preached about Jesus, Paul continued Stephen’s mission.
* Here I confess that my imagination turns in a silly direction. If St. Paul were to approach a publisher with his collected epistles, it would be a tough sell. One can imagine the skeptical response: “Do you realize, sir, that these letters are already available in print: in the best-selling book of all time?”