Saint Stephen

Thus he possessed all the qualities one could wish for in an apostolic minister. The sacred text attributes to him five fullnesses: a fullness of faith, because he believed with invariable firmness in the mysteries of our religion, because he had a particular gift for explaining and persuading them, and because he had given proofs of irreproachable fidelity; a fullness of wisdom, because, being sovereignly enlightened on eternal truths and the most beautiful secrets of Holy Scripture, he spoke of them in a completely divine manner and with such force and eloquence that his adversaries could in no way resist him; a fullness of grace, which is the praise the Gospel gives to the Savior and the Blessed Virgin, because you possessed them all; for not only did he have that which we call sanctifying, which rendered his soul perfectly pleasing to God, but he also had all the gratuitous ones; grace was even spread upon his face and his lips, and all his actions had a celestial air that charmed those who witnessed them; a fullness of strength, because there were no great things he was not ready to undertake, nor any torments, however atrocious they might be, that he would not have willingly suffered for the glory of God, and because, moreover, he had the courage to despise all the advantages that the world could lead him to hope for, in order to embrace the poverty and humility of Christianity; finally, a fullness of the Holy Spirit, whether he had received it on the day of Pentecost, when it spread over the entire nascent Church, or whether he had only received it since then through the laying on of the hands of the Apostles, because he possessed the person and all the gifts of the Spirit, both those that belonged to his own sanctification and those that could make him a perfect preacher of the Gospel.

Saint Augustine does not doubt that he was a virgin and that he even possessed a very eminent chastity, since, notwithstanding his youth and his excellent beauty, the Apostles did not hesitate to give him the stewardship of the widows. The same holy Doctor does not hesitate to compare him to the Apostles, his masters, and to say that at the very least he was to the first deacons of the Church what Saint Peter was to the entire apostolic college. Such an admirable virtue soon appeared in the midst of Jerusalem. Stephen preached Jesus Christ with intrepid courage a nd proved Jérusalem Holy city where the Cross was lost and subsequently recovered. evidently, by the testimonies of the entire Old Testament, that He was the true Messiah. What is more surprising is that, young as he was, he performed extraordinary and unheard-of miracles, which the sacred text calls for this reason prodigia et signa magna "prodigies and great signs," by which he admirably confirmed the truths he taught, and he attracted by this means a multitude of Jews and even Doctors to Christianity.

These happy successes aroused the jealousy of his schoolmates, such as Saint Paul, who was then called Saul, and othe Saul Apostle cited by Saint Jerome to illustrate divine decrees. r young men. Partly out of this secret envy, and partly out of a false zeal for the Law, which they imagined was being destroyed by the Gospel, they began to dispute with him and to try to confound him. The Acts of the Apostles note in particular some from the synagogue of the Freedmen—that is, those who, having been born of fathers made slaves by the Romans, had been set free—and from the synagogues of the Cyrenians, the Alexandrians, the Cilicians, and the Asians. They held various conferences with our Saint and employed all the subtlety of their minds to destroy his doctrine; but he always gloriously prevailed; the spirit of wisdom that spoke through his mouth rendered them mute, and he answered all their arguments so perfectly that they remained without reply.

The shame of having been defeated led these proud men to an entirely unworthy extreme. They suborned false witnesses to accuse him of having uttered blasphemies against Moses and against God. They spread the rumor on all sides and thereby so stirred up the people, even the Elders and the Scribes, that they seized this innocent deacon and led him with violence to the great council of the Jews to answer and be judged there on this accusation. The false witnesses appeared there immediately and shamelessly maintained that he did nothing but speak against the temple and against the law and that they had heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth would destroy this place and that he would change the traditions of Moses. Those who composed this council cast their eyes upon him and saw his face all resplendent with light and similar to that of an angel. Saint Augustine says that it shone like the sun and Saint Hilary assures that he had the countenance of the glorious resurrection.

The high priest, without regard for this heavenly sign, asked him if what was being said against him was true. The blessed Levite could easily refute these slanders and show the malice and impiety of his accusers; but, without stopping for his own defense, wishing to proclaim the glory of his Master in the midst of this illustrious assembly of pontiffs and doctors, he began to set before their eyes, starting from the first appearance of God to their father Abraham, the inestimable graces and favors that their nation had received from His divine goodness, and on the other hand the hardness, ingratitude, and continuous revolts of their fathers, who had never been able to suffer the yoke of the Lord, but who had shaken it off an infinite number of times. Then, apostrophizing them directly, he said to them: "Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit: your fathers did it, and you do it in their imitation. Which of the prophets did they not persecute? Did they not put to death those who predicted the coming of the Just One? And you others, what have you done? Have you not delivered Him into the hands of the Gentiles, and have you not rendered yourselves His murderers? You received the law by the ministry of angels; but you have not kept it at all."

This just reprimand that the Holy Spirit placed in the mouth of Stephen for their conversion only excited their rage. They were furious, and one could even see them gnashing their teeth against him. Then the sky opened, as if to applaud the generosity of this great preacher, and, filled with the Holy Spirit, he lifted his eyes on high, and saw the glory of God and

Jesus standing at His right hand; which made him cry out, full of admiration and joy, and burning with zeal for the conversion of his listeners: "Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." The heavens were opened to him because an admirable light strengthened his sight, and it illuminated the whole space in between so much that he had no difficulty in discovering even the throne of Jesus Christ in heaven. He saw the Savior standing because, says Saint Peter Damian, this adorable Master showed Himself to him in the posture of a combatant and a victor.

At these words, the high priests, the priests, the doctors, and all the others who composed the assembly, along with the troop of accusers, stopped their ears, as if they had heard a horrible blasphemy, and, throwing themselves impetuously upon him, they dragged him with violence out of the city. There appears here no judgment or sentence, nor that they had obtained the consent of Pilate or any other magistrate for the Romans; nevertheless, these impious men stoned our innocent deacon, and the witnesses who had slandered him, having given their garments into the keeping of Saul, who was extremely joyful at this execution, took the first stones and threw them at him.

The first word of the holy Martyr was to recommend his soul to Jesus Christ: Domine Jesu, he said, suscipe spiritum meum: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then, the charity of this divine Master pressing upon him, and the memory of what He had done on the tree of the cross being always present to him, he knelt down and cried out with all his strength: "Lord, do not hold this sin against them!" And it was in this eminent act of charity that he rendered his spirit and fell asleep in Our Lord: Et cum hoc dixisset, obdormivit in Domino. It was the 26th of December in the year 35 of Our Lord. He gave us by this means the rarest example of the love of enemies and of a perfectly Christian death; of the love of enemies, because three things elevate this love and render it more heroic: the first, when one has been persecuted very unjustly and against all manner of right; the second, when the persecution has been very violent and very cruel; the third, when the love one bears them, notwithstanding these violences, is filled with cordiality and benevolence. These three things were met with in the love that Saint Stephen had for his persecutors. His persecution could not have been more unjust, nor the ill-treatment he received more cruel, and his affection for his enemies could not have been more ardent or more tender; and we can say, after Saint Augustine, that it earned for the Church the great Paul, doctor of the nations: Si Stephanos non orasset, Ecc le grand Paul Apostle cited by Saint Jerome to illustrate divine decrees. lesia Paulum non haberet: "If Stephen had not prayed, the Church would never have had Saint Paul."

He also gave us the example of the most beautiful and most desirable of all deaths: for he died in the flower of his innocence, in the rigor of martyrdom, and in the actual exercise of charity toward God, toward the Church, and toward his own enemies. The Christians mourned this great man as one of their principal supports, and they rendered him the final duties with the care and honors due to a martyr who had in a short time won very signal victories over Judaism, and whose blood was to be the seed of an infinity of Christians and martyrs. He was stoned outside of Jerusalem, at the Northern Gate, in a valley destined for the execution of blasphemers, who, according to the law of Moses, were to be put to death by stoning. There, a platform in the form of a scaffold was erected, where the criminal was made to ascend; then the 26 - DECEMBER. denouncer or the principal witness threw the first stone, and then the others continued until the patient was beaten to death. His body had remained for a day and a night exposed at the very place of his torment, so that it might be devoured by beasts: but the doctor Gamaliel had it removed and transported to his country house, Gamaliel Doctor of the Law who had the body of Stephen buried. six or seven leagues from the city; this is the place where it was found, as we have said on August 3rd, the day on which the Church celebrates the feast of the Invention of his body.

Saint Stephen is represented: 1° kneeling under the blow of death, his eyes turned toward the Savior who appears to him; 2° carrying on a book or in the raised fold of his dalmatic a few pebbles, the instruments of his martyrdom; 3° in a group, with Saint Lawrence, be saint Laurent Deacon and martyr often associated with Saint Stephen. cause they are the honor and the model of their Order.

Saint Stephen is the patron of Agde, Agen, Arles, Auxerre, Besançon, Bourges, Brisach, Cahors, Karlsruhe, Cattaro, Châlons-sur-Marne, Châlons-sur-Saône, Dijon, Épinal, Gien-sur-Loire, Halberstadt, Limoges, Lyon, Mâcon, Marsal, Meaux, Metz, Mulhouse, Nijmegen, Passau, Pavia, Périgueux, Regensburg, Saint-Brieuc, Sens, Speyer, Toul, Toulouse; of Bavaria, Lorraine, the Palatinate, and of stonemasons and slingers.

## CULT AND RELICS.

The memory of the first martyr Saint Stephen has always been highly venerable among Christians: France, above all, has always shown him a singular devotion, dedicating to his honor a great number of chapels, priories, abbeys, parishes, collegiate churches, and cathedrals.

The oratory of Saint-Étienne of Metz, today a cathed ral, Metz City where the saint received his theological training. was, according to Saint Gregory of Tours, one of the most famous in Gaul for its antiquity and its miracles. The oldest chronicles attribute its foundation to Saint Clement, the first bishop of Metz and a disciple of the Prince of the Apostles. The holy bishop is said to have endowed it with distinguished relics and in particular a stone, which i s said caillou Instrument of martyrdom preserved as a relic. to have been used in the stoning of the first Martyr, and was still stained with his blood. But the most precious relic is a vial of the blood of this glorious Martyr. Saint Gregory of Tours attests to the existence of the relics of the body of Saint Stephen in the oratory of Metz in the 5th century. Paul the Deacon also notes, in the 8th century, the presence of the precious blood of the deacon martyr, which was preserved fresh and vermilion without corruption. The same fact is attested by Charlemagne in a charter addressed to Saint Auguiramne, bishop of Metz, and by all the chroniclers who had occasion to speak of this famous sanctuary, in particular the deacon Donat, in the Life of Saint Trudon, the two authors of the Life of Saint Glossende, writers of the 9th and 10th centuries, and finally Saint Notker of Saint Gall, a writer of the 9th century, in his Hymns in honor of the first Martyr, addressed to Robert, bishop of Metz. But the event that gave the most celebrity to the oratory of Saint-Étienne is its miraculous preservation in the Attila Leader of the Huns responsible for the destruction of Besançon. midst of the sack of the city by Attila.

The oratory of Saint-Étienne became from then on the most venerated sanctuary of the province, and its reputation spread throughout all of Gaul: the confession of the holy Martyr, illustrated by striking miracles, was the most sacred and inviolable asylum. Offerings flowed there from all sides. Saint Bertrand, bishop of Le Mans, a disciple of Saint Germain of Paris, made several donations to it confirmed in his will, so that his name would be inscribed in the diptychs, and that he could have a share in the prayers that were said in this famous sanctuary. Saint Remaclus, bishop of Maastricht, encouraged the young Trudon, lord of Hasbain, to dedicate his immense wealth to it. The bishops of Metz, above all, enriched it in competition with precious ornaments and the very relics of the holy deacon martyr. Saint Arnulf, Saint Godric, and their successors made magnificent gifts to it, which made the treasury of the cathedral of Metz one of the richest in Europe. Theodoric II, in the 11th century, procured for the church of Saint-Étienne an arm of the holy Martyr. In 1376, Thierry Bayer de Boppart gave it the very head of Saint Stephen, which he held from the liberality of Emperor Charles IV, to whom Pope Urban V had presented it. Thus, the treasury of Saint-Étienne of Metz became like a sacred mine, from which, at different times, the bishops of Metz drew precious relics of the holy Martyr to enrich other churches. Thus Hildsart, bishop of Halberstadt, obtained, in 956, from the blessed Theodoric I, blood of Saint Stephen, and two articles of the fingers of the holy Martyr, which he transported to his church. But the most glorious monument raised to the memory of Saint Stephen by the piety of the people of Metz is the basilica still consecrated today under his invocation. The Church of Metz no longer possesses today, of all these precious relics of the first Martyr, anything but the stone that served for his stoning and some portions of his bones. A large number of churches in the diocese, in particular the old collegiate churches that were under the Chapter of Metz, have Saint Stephen as their patron. The Church of Metz possessed, according to the chronicles, in the Rouergue, since the conquests of Theodoric I, king of Austrasia, over the Visigoths, the small bishopric of Aristium, a kind of coadjutorship in the beginning, which was lost presumably in the 8th century. Aristium has kept as a souvenir of the jurisdiction of the bishops of Metz the consecration of its churches to Saint Stephen. There are still ten of this title remaining now, and it is believed that they indicate by their location the circumscription of the old diocesan territory.

Above the crypt consecrated by Saint Benignus in Dijon, a basilica was built around the year 343, which became a cathedral church in 1731. In 1141, there was a vial of the blood of Saint Stephen in the main altar.

Before the Revolution, a notable relic of the first Martyr was kept at Cluny, which had passed from the chapel of the emperors of Constantinople into the treasury of the Church of Edessa. The archbishop of that city gave to Geldoin, a monk of Cluny, a finger of the holy Martyr, which was brought to Peter the Venerable. This notable relic was received at the abbey with the greatest honors and enshrined in a splendid crystal phylactery, enhanced with gold and enriched with precious stones.

In Rome, the church of Santo Stefano Rotondo possesses a lovely small Greek temple that contains relics of Saint Stephen. The body of the holy Martyr rests in a crypt behind the high altar of the basilica of San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, next to Saint Lawrence. The basilica is dedicated to both Martyrs. On the feast day of Saint Stephen, two of the stones brought from Jerusalem, which were used for the stoning of the Saint, are displayed in a silver reliquary. This basilica was restored and greatly em bellis Pie IX Pope who canonized Josaphat in 1867. hed by Pope Pius IX.

The skull of Saint Stephen is found in Vienna, in the metropolitan church, placed under the invocation of the holy Martyr. This relic had been given to the church of Our Lady of Wetzlar by Hermann and Udo, Counts of Habsburg; at the time of the Reformation, Emperor Leopold had it brought to Vienna.

When one leaves the city of Jerusalem to come into the Kidron Valley, one passes through the Saint Stephen's Gate. It is in this place that the Jews dragged the holy Martyr, who reproached them for the hardness of their hearts, and stoned him. The rock upon which Stephen fell while praying for his persecutors is shown, as is the place where they laid their garments at the feet of Saul.

We have supplemented the account of Father Giry with local Notes; the Holy Places, by Mgr Mielin; the Life of the Saints of Dijon, by Abbé Dupins; the Legendary of Autun, by Abbé Pequignot; the Hagiology of Nivernais, by Mgr Croxnier; the History of the Seventy-Two Disciples, by Abbé Maistre; and the Characteristics of the Saints, by the Rev. Fr. Cahier.