(AN: If any of you are fans of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, you will see an obvious influence in this story from that. Therefore, I don't own that either. Now read as one of the first tragedies of our story takes place.)
Stephen
34 AD
So the years passed, and the ministry of the Cult of the Way continued until it became apparent that soon all of Jerusalem, if not all of Israel, would either be dead set for the Gospel of Joshua, or dead set against it.
Regardless of the warnings they had received, and the scourges that followed, the disciples did not relent in their ministry. Yea, after Peter and John had first been arrested, they went into the Upper Room and prayed for help from on High, after which the whole house was shaken and the Ruach HaKodesh came upon them once again. Now they taught with boldness in all of the synagogues, preaching of the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven.
It so happened, on the third Passover after Joshua had been crucified, that Stephen found his way into the court of the Gentiles in the Temple of Jerusalem. He could have gone further, but something beyond his own power compelled him to remain here and speak.
"Behold, people of Israel!" he announced. "And you, sons of Israel from Rome, Cyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia and all of Asia: hear the good news of the Messiah, Joshua of Nazareth. For surely in Him was fulfilled all the things that the prophets have spoken of unto this very day!"
"All things, you say?" one of the Alexandrians queried. "Was He the prophet that Moses foretold?"
"Truly, I tell you," Stephen continued. "Joshua was indeed that very same prophet. For Moses told your fathers, the people of Israel: 'The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me: and you shall hearken unto Him. For the LORD said: "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, and I will put My words in His mouth and He shall speak unto them all that I shall command Him."'
"And all the prophets from then, until now," Stephen continued. "Have prophesied of this very same One, who was fulfilled in the person of Joshua of Nazareth."
"I've heard it said, though," one of the people of Roman Jews interjected. "That He claimed to be the son of HaShem." He looked up at the sky, expecting some fearful rebuke. When none immediately came, he turned to Stephen.
"Yea, and so it is." Stephen returned. "For did not the prophet Daniel see Him in the flames of Babylon, protecting him and his friends from the wrath of the uncircumcised? More than that, who else has HaShem raised up from Sheol and glorified by placing Him at His right hand forevermore?"
While Stephen continued on, some of those in the crowd departed discreetly. Yet he continued to preach. Several minutes later, those who had departed came again, with a young Pharisee and several of the Temple guards.
"Believe in Him, brothers and sisters!" Stephen continued. "Believe that Joshua is indeed the Messiah and Son of HaShem and be baptized, and you shall be saved from the condemnation that shall surely fall upon this generation!"
"You there!" a voice shouted. Stephen turned to the young Pharisee, not much older than he himself. He was bald, possibly from a Nazarite vow he undertook, and had a beard that was like the blade of a sword.
"It was reported to me," Saul, the young Pharisee, said. "That you have spoken grievous blasphemies against Moses and the Torah."
"I can only speak of what I know," Stephen replied. "For I am a witness of Joshua the Messiah." He looked at Saul, and suddenly a smile came upon his face and Saul rose his hand over his own face.
"As are you."
"Liar!" Saul shouted. "He seeks to destroy the Torah! 'Hear, O Israel, HaShem thy God is One!' How can HaShem be One and have a son? You speak blasphemy!"
"I heard," one of the libertines of the crowd stated. "That he claimed that Joshua of Nazareth was the prophet foretold by Moses!"
"Blasphemy!" cried Saul. "He seeks to undermine the foundations of our faith!"
"Nay, but Joshua is the fulfillment of all that the prophets have told until now." Stephen continued. For a very brief moment, what had caused Saul to hide his face was revealed: Stephen's face glowed with light.
Saul then set his back on Stephen and turned to the people. "He is Satan come as an angel of light: do not look upon his face!"
Cries were rising up from the crowd. Many were shouting out insidious accusations and insults at Stephen, who did not so much as turn his head to them. His face, however, was set at Saul.
"My friend," Stephen said to Saul. "You are fighting against the urges of God. You oppose the Ruach HaKodesh, which is a sin beyond the forgiveness of God. I beg you, for the sake of your own salvation, do not fight against the truth. Believe in Joshua the Messiah and you shall be saved." As if to complete the gesture of goodwill, Stephen placed his hand on Saul's shoulder. In response, Saul turned around and struck Stephen down with his fist.
"Damn you!" Saul shouted. "May HaShem damn you and your blasphemies to Gehenna!" He punctuated his curse by spitting directly in Stephen's face. When Stephen did not say anything harsh or hurtful in retort, Saul became angry. His face livid with rage, veins popping out of his neck, he looked up at the crowds and roared at them: "Take him away!"
Once more in the court of the Sanhedrin, where Peter and John had recently been, and where Joshua Himself had once stood: to this place, dedicated to God and used rather for money and political power, Stephen was brought by Saul and the Temple guards. Outside the people who had been in the courtyard were now at the gates, listening to what would happen. Now they came, the leaders of the Sanhedrin: Annas, Caiaphas, Alexander, John the Pharisee and Simeon. They came first to Saul and congratulated him on his efficiency. Then, having taken their seats, they turned to the accused, looking upon him with spiteful expressions and hate in their bosoms.
"Stephen," Caiaphas said. "You have been brought here, charged with spreading the blasphemous doctrines of your heretic messiah Joshua of Nazareth. It has been reported to us, by various reliable sources, that you deliberately repeated the statement of intolerance and disregard for this great Temple, repeating the lie that your false messiah said by saying that He would destroy the Temple. It is furthermore stated that you, knowingly and deliberately, preached that this same false messiah would destroy the sacred rites of Moses and of the Torah!"
Many clamored angrily at Caiaphas' words. Of the Pharisees, they were angry with Stephen for the same reasons they had been angry at Joshua. For those others assembled here, they were angry because their pockets had been filled with gold and their mouths had been given words to speak. Yea, many of these 'various reliable sources' had been well paid-off to bring up false witnesses against Stephen. Caiaphas rose and silenced the crowds with a dramatic wave of his hand, then addressed the accused.
"Do you have any words to speak in your own defense?" he asked. "Or are these accusations against you true?"
Stephen looked up, his face shining just as it had before in the courtyard of the Temple.
"Men, brethren, fathers of Israel," he said to them all. "Harken to my words for a space: HaShem, the God of glory, appeared unto our father Abraham, before he dwelt in Haran, and told him: 'Get thee out of thy country, from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee.' So Abraham left Ur and came into Haran, where his father was buried, and at last into this land where we now dwell. And though HaShem did not give it to him, not so much as a place to land is foot upon, he promised Abraham that, though he had no seed, his children and his children's children would possess the land, after they had been sold into slavery for four hundred years.
"As all of you, I am sure, know all too well, Abraham begot Isaac and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot the twelve fathers of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. And they were envious of their brother Joseph and sold him into slavery in Egypt, but HaShem was with him, and saved him from all of his trials and made him governor of Egypt, second only to the Pharaoh. Then the time of famine came, and Joseph brought his family to Egypt, where, in due time, they were gathered to their ancestors. Now there arose a new Ph..."
"We need no history lesson!" Annas interjected angrily. "Give us your defense!"
"I beg your patience," Stephen said. "I am almost there." He cleared his throat and then continued. "Now there arose a new Pharaoh in Egypt, one who knew not Joseph and placed the children of Israel in bondage for four hundred years. At this time arose Moses, beloved of HaShem, who was raised for three months in his father's house and cast out when the Pharaoh decreed that all male children be killed. Yet Moses was saved and raised in the house of Pharaoh, until he was forty years old and killed the Egyptian overseer, supposing that the children of Israel, his brethren, would understand how HaShem would deliver them by his hand: yet they did not, saying: 'Who made you a prince and judge over us? Do you intend to kill me, even as you killed the Egyptian?'
"This same one, whom your fathers and your fathers' fathers refused, saying 'Who made you a prince and judge over us?' was then accepted by HaShem. He fled into the wilderness to Midian, and dwelt there until he was eighty, after which the summons of HaShem came to him in a burning bush and he was commanded to return to Egypt and deliver Israel. And by the hand of HaShem and His angel, Moses brought the people out of Egypt, and told them that HaShem would bring forth a prophet from out of His people, whom you shall believe.
"Yea, and it was He, this very Joshua the Messiah, that was with the children of Israel in the wilderness, who spake to Moses in Sinai and delivered the Torah unto him." At this, the assembly grew rowdy again. Stephen turned to the elders, his finger raised in righteous indignation in their direction.
"It was He whom your fathers rejected in their hearts, throwing Him from out of their midst and begging to return to the flesh-pots of Egypt! Yet HaShem forgave you, even of the sin of the Golden Calf, and gave you this land to possess, and the Tabernacle of the witness, which went before you in the wilderness. It came into this land with Joshua Bar-Nun in the conquest, and was lost at the hands of the unbelieving sons of Eli, and returned in the days of David the King, beloved of HaShem, who longed to build a house for Him. But his son Solomon built the Temple for Him: and yet, HaShem does not dwell in houses or in temples made with hands." Once again, there were cries of anger from the crowd.
"Isaiah said: 'Thus saith the LORD: "Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool: where, then, shall be the house, My place of rest, that you could make for Me? For all those things hath Mine hand made," saith the LORD.'
When Stephen looked at them now, he seemed angry once more: and it was not the anger of the Pharisees. It was like the anger of a father who, having told his son a hundred times over not to do something, sees with his own eyes a thousand times over that the son directly and deliberately defies his orders.
"But even as Isaiah said, you have rebelled and do resist the Ruach HaKodesh, even as your fathers and elders of blessed memory did!"
"How dare you!" Alexander shouted. "You dare blaspheme and insult the name of the elders and sages of blessed memory!"
"Peace be upon them!" the assembly hissed through clenched teeth.
"Which one of the prophets," Stephen continued. "Have these elders and sages, which you place on so high a pedestal of glory, not persecuted and slain? You received the Torah from the voice of angels, yet you do not keep it! The prophets told beforehand of the coming of the Just One, and you killed them, and betrayed and murdered Him as well!"
Suddenly, Stephen fell to his knees, looking up at the ceiling of the Temple. Tears were streaming from his eyes.
"What now?" Caiaphas roared. "Do you seek to gain the favor of our hearts with your tears of self-piety?"
"I see," Stephen wept in joy. "I see the heavens open: the Son of Man is there!" He smiled, realizing that what he had preached was indeed true. "He is standing at the right hand...of JEHOVAH."
Never before had man become like beast so swiftly as in that moment. Annas brayed in hellish fury, Alexander shouted inane sounds with his hands over his ears, and Caiaphas struck Stephen and chewed on him with his teeth, as a dog tears at the flesh of a carcass. Soon others followed, and Stephen was caught up in a sea of pure, unadulterated human hatred. They bit him, they struck him with their fists, they spat in his face, they kicked him to the ground and ran over him.
So a mob of the Pharisees departed from the Temple, beating their chests and wagging their tongues as if they were brute animals filled with madness. In the middle of their wrath was Stephen, being buffeted and struck at every chance they could get. As they made their way, the Pharisees cried out to anyone they passed by: "Blasphemer! Stone him!"
By the time they reached the gates of the city, the mob had grown to a veritable host of people: men, women and children, desirous to slake their beloved human lust for bloodshed and murder. At the forefront of this bloody ordeal, the Pharisees made a ring about Stephen, even as they had around Miriam that day in the Temple three and a half years ago.
"As father of the High Priest," Annas announced. "I shall be the one to throw the first stone!" He walked over to Saul, threw off his coat and tossed it at his feet. Without another word, he threw a stone in Stephen's direction.
"Do it!" Caiaphas shouted to the others. "HaShem wills that this man be put to death for his blasphemy!"
"Joshua, my LORD," Stephen said. "Receive my spirit."
"May Sheol receive your spirit, blasphemer!" Caiaphas shouted, throwing two stones one after the other in Stephen's direction. "Do it! For HaShem and for Israel!"
And so the stones came at Stephen. One by one, the people of Israel stood up to take aim at him, throwing their coats at Saul's feet. And one by one, as today, the force evil was let loose upon the wicked hearts of men, that they blasphemed and hurled curses out of the depths of their hearts at Stephen. A pity, they thought, that he can only be killed once.
"Where is your false messiah now?" one shouted, as he threw a stone in his direction.
"Let your weak teacher save you, simple fool!" an old Pharisee claimed with a smile on his face as he cast his deadly missile.
"Curse Joshua and die, scum!"
"Death to all of your kind!"
"Kill him! Kill him!"
Stephen was now on his knees, amidst a hail of stones. Yet he did not curse them, or return their insults with the same. Bruised, broken and bloodied, his face still shone like an angel, as it had in the Temple beforehand. And while these faithless ones, crying out in wanton hatred and reveling in the hellish sewer of their damnable plight, Stephen's eyes were still held up to the heavens.
"LORD," he cried, his voice as broken as his body. "Do not lay...this sin...to their charge."
Yet his peace and calm only fueled their rage, and they threw more stones, shouting curses and foul language. At last, one stone struck the right place in Stephen's head. A deafening crunch was heard, and he fell to the ground. His blood lay about everywhere, on every stone that had struck him, and he breathed no more.
(AN: Upon reading the old King James Version of this portion in the book of Acts, I did believe that when it said the Pharisees "gnashed on him with their teeth" and "ran upon him" meant that they bit and trampled him.)
(Yes, I did say refer to bloodlust and the desire to kill as 'beloved human' lusts. Well, just spend any lengthy periods of time around people, especially online, where anonymity means they can be whoever they want to be without fear of judgment or reprisals, and you will see the worst attributes in humanity amplified far beyond the nobler ones.)