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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
See, once more, the wrong-doers in trouble. Just as the Jews are perplexed, saying, "What are we to do with these men?" so these also are "cut to the heart." And yet it was he that had good right to be incensed, who, having done no wrong, was treated like a criminal, and was spitefully calumniated. But the calumniators had the worst of it in the end. So true is that saying, which I am ever repeating, "Ill to do, is ill to fare." And yet he (in his charges against them) resorted to no calumny, but proved what he said. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
If the Jews wanted to kill Stephen, then why did they not kill him immediately? Because they wanted to present a plausible pretext for their audacity, since the insult he had caused them was not a plausible pretext for killing him; moreover, what they considered an insult to themselves was not his own insult, but rather a rebuke made to the Jews by a prophet. …
Oecumenius
If they had wished to kill him, why did they not immediately kill him then? For they wished to put a credible cause upon the boldness. For to them the outrage was not a reasonable cause for execution, but perhaps for driving him away or chastising him, not for killing him. Otherwise the outrage would not have been his, but the prophet's accusation against them. And they did not wish to seem to be killing him because of the outrages against them, just as they did not wish to kill Christ. …
Western Saints
Cassiodorus
"Now hearing these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed with their teeth. "The unbelieving, unable to tolerate Stephen's preaching, were hastening unanimously to effect his death. Stephen, raising his eyes to heaven, saw the Son standing on the right hand of the Father. When he said this in pure truth, the crowd of madmen ran violently upon him and, having cast him out of the city, pelted him with stones. But Stephen, dying, prayed for them that this crime might not weigh down his persecutors. …
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