Stephen ‘Protomartyr’,
like Achior, an Israelite
Part One (b)
Emphasises his Descent from Abraham
by
Damien F. Mackey
‘Then a famine struck all
Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering,
and our ancestors could not find food’.
Acts
7:11
“Achior” of the
Book of Judith was, as I have argued on various occasions, the Israelite Ahikar, a “nephew” of Tobit of the tribe
of Naphtali (Tobit 1:1, 22).
However “Achior”,
when informing “Holofernes” of the identification of the mountain folk who were
resisting the Assyrian army - these folk, too, being Israelites - in a speech reminiscent
of St. Stephen’s to the Sanhedrin, will, unlike Stephen, refer to ‘their
ancestors’.
Stephen, on the
other hand, will claim the same people as ‘our ancestors’.
Firstly, to “Achior”,
who will declare (Judith 5:6-8):
‘These people are the descendants of some
Babylonians who abandoned the ways of their
ancestors in order to worship the God of heaven. Finally, they were driven
out of their land because they refused to worship their ancestors' gods. Then they fled to Mesopotamia, where they
settled and lived for a long time’.
Stephen, by
contrast, will proclaim (Acts 7:2-3, 11-12, 15, 18-19, 37-39, 44-45):
‘Brothers and
fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he
lived in Harran. ‘Leave
your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’
….
Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering,
and our ancestors could not find food.
When Jacob heard that there was grain in
Egypt, he sent our forefathers on
their first visit.
….
Then Jacob
went down to Egypt, where he and our
ancestors died.
….
Then ‘a new
king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. He dealt
treacherously with our people and
oppressed our ancestors by forcing
them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die.
….
This is the
Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me
from your own people.’ He was in the assembly in the wilderness,
with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors; and he received living words to pass on to us.
But our ancestors refused to obey
him.
….
Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the
covenant law with them in the wilderness. It had been made as God directed
Moses, according to the pattern he had seen. After receiving the tabernacle, our ancestors under Joshua brought it with them when they took the
land from the nations God drove out before them. …’.
It is at this
point, however, that St. Stephen will make a dramatic switch of possessive
pronoun. His former use of our
ancestors now becomes - as Stephen reflects back upon those ancestors of his who
had proven to be faithless - ‘your
ancestors’ (Acts 7:51-53):
‘You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and
ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who
predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and
murdered him— you who have received the law that was
given through angels but have not obeyed it’.
