St. Stephen: first Christian martyr
and anti-Semite
and anti-Semite
As Maria is keen to remind me, today is my name day [ονομαστική εορτή]: a traditional form of celebration in Greece, as in other Orthodox and Catholic countries where the veneration of saints is a popular practice, but which doesn't mean a great deal to me - particularly as I don't even seem to get a cake out of it.
As for the saint to whom I am connected by name, what do I know of him?
St. Stephen was a Greek-speaking Jew who made the fatal mistake of outraging the members of numerous synagogues by his unorthodox teachings inspired by Jesus. Accused of blasphemy and perverting Mosaic Law, he didn't help matters by making a long speech at his trial in which he denounced the authorities who were sitting in judgement upon him whilst keeping a holier-than-thou and supercilious expression on his face; a speech which concludes with the following slur which would resonate to murderous effect through the ages:
"You
stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist
the Holy Spirit.
As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers
not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming
of the Righteous One, whom you also betrayed and murdered; you who
received the law as delivered by angels, but did not keep it." [Acts 7: 51-53]
This so infuriated members of the Sanhedrin and the people who had gathered to witness the proceedings, that they rushed upon him, dragged him outside, and then stoned him to death; thus making Stephen the first Christian martyr and an inspiration to anti-Semites keen to hold the Jews guilty of deicide.
Imitating Christ to the last, Stephen asked that God forgive those who were about to slay him (they know not what they do). More interestingly, sparks were said to fly off his body every time he was struck by a stone; sparks that his later Christian admirers would insist were not of anger, but of love, and which ignited the hearts of those who witnessed his death; sparks which we now know actually helped ignite the Auschwitz crematoria.
