Early Church Fathers Scripture Index : Texts
Acts 7:60
There are 12 footnotes for this reference.
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 589, footnote 1 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Anti-Marcion. (HTML)
On the Resurrection of the Flesh. (HTML)
The Change of a Thing's Condition is Not the Destruction of Its Substance. The Application of This Principle to Our Subject. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 7709 (In-Text, Margin)
... give us instances of. The hand of Moses is changed, and it becomes like a dead one, bloodless, colourless, and stiff with cold; but on the recovery of heat, and on the restoration of its natural colour, it is again the same flesh and blood. Afterwards the face of the same Moses is changed, with a brightness which eye could not bear. But he was Moses still, even when he was not visible. So also Stephen had already put on the appearance of an angel, although they were none other than his human knees[Acts 7:59-60] which bent beneath the stoning. The Lord, again, in the retirement of the mount, had changed His raiment for a robe of light; but He still retained features which Peter could recognise. In that same scene Moses also and Elias gave proof that the ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 3, page 716, footnote 8 (Image)
Tertullian (I, II, III)
Ethical. (HTML)
On Patience. (HTML)
The Power of This Twofold Patience, the Spiritual and the Bodily. Exemplified in the Saints of Old. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 9169 (In-Text, Margin)
With this strength of patience, Esaias is cut asunder, and ceases not to speak concerning the Lord; Stephen is stoned, and prays for pardon to his foes.[Acts 7:59-60] Oh, happy also he who met all the violence of the devil by the exertion of every species of patience! —whom neither the driving away of his cattle nor those riches of his in sheep, nor the sweeping away of his children in one swoop of ruin, nor, finally, the agony of his own body in (one universal) wound, estranged from the patience and the faith which he had plighted to the Lord; whom the devil smote with all his ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, page 488, footnote 9 (Image)
Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian, Appendix
Cyprian. (HTML)
The Treatises of Cyprian. (HTML)
On the Advantage of Patience. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3622 (In-Text, Margin)
... times, but seventy times seven times, but, moreover, all his sins altogether; that you should love your enemies; that you should offer prayer for your adversaries and persecutors? Can you accomplish these things unless you maintain the stedfastness of patience and endurance? And this we see done in the case of Stephen, who, when he was slain by the Jews with violence and stoning, did not ask for vengeance for himself, but for pardon for his murderers, saying, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.”[Acts 7:60] It behoved the first martyr of Christ thus to be, who, fore-running the martyrs that should follow him in a glorious death, was not only the preacher of the Lord’s passion, but also the imitator of His most patient gentleness. What shall I say of ...
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 154, footnote 2 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Pseudo-Clementine Literature. (HTML)
The Recognitions of Clement. (HTML)
Book VI. (HTML)
How the Fight Begins. (HTML)
... possible, to share it with all, as given by the good God; yea, even with those who hate and persecute them: for they know that ignorance is the cause of their sin. Wherefore, in short, the Master Himself, when He was being led to the cross by those who knew Him not, prayed the Father for His murderers, and said, ‘Father, forgive their sin, for they know not what they do!’ The disciples also, in imitation of the Master, even when themselves were suffering, in like manner prayed for their murderers.[Acts 7:60] But if we are taught to pray even for our murderers and persecutors, how ought we not to bear the persecutions of parents and relations, and to pray for their conversion?
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, page 784, footnote 6 (Image)
Twelve Patriarchs, Excerpts and Epistles, The Clementina, Apocryphal Gospels and Acts, Syriac Documents
Remains of the Second and Third Centuries. (HTML)
Pseud-Irenæus. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3864 (In-Text, Margin)
“They humbled themselves under the powerful hand by which they are now highly exalted. Then they pleaded for all, but accused none; they absolved all, they bound none; and they prayed for those who inflicted the tortures, even as Stephen the perfect Witness, ‘Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.’[Acts 7:60] But if he prayed for those who stoned him, how much more for the brethren!”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 31, footnote 1 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. (HTML)
Explanation of the First Part of the Sermon Delivered by Our Lord on the Mount, as Contained in the Fifth Chapter of Matthew. (HTML)
Chapter XXII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 220 (In-Text, Margin)
... death, if any one has not withdrawn his love from a brother, but through some infirmity of disposition has failed to perform the incumbent duties of brotherhood. And on this account our Lord also on the cross says, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do:” for, not yet having become partakers of the grace of the Holy Spirit, they had not yet entered the fellowship of the holy brotherhood. And the blessed Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles prays for those by whom he is being stoned,[Acts 7:60] because they had not yet believed on Christ, and were not fighting against that common grace. And the Apostle Paul on this account, I believe, does not pray for Alexander, because he was already a brother, and had sinned unto death, viz. by making ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 279, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the Lord’s Prayer in St. Matthew’s Gospel, Chap. vi. 9, etc. to the Competentes. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 2001 (In-Text, Margin)
... thou hadst had regard to the Lord thy God speaking thus. But perhaps you will say, He did it, but then He did it as being the Lord, as the Christ, as the Son of God, as the Only-Begotten, as the Word made flesh. But what can I, an infirm and sinful man, do? If thy Lord be too high an example for thee, turn thy thoughts upon thy fellow-servant. The holy Stephen was being stoned, and as they stoned him, on bended knees did he pray for his enemies, and say, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.”[Acts 7:60] They were casting stones, not asking pardon, yet did he pray for them. I would thou wert like him; reach forth. Why art thou for ever trailing thy heart along the earth? Hear, “Lift up thy heart,” reach forward, love thine enemies. If thou canst not ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 6, page 396, footnote 4 (Image)
Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels
Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament. (HTML)
On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xxii. 2, etc., about the marriage of the king’s son; against the Donatists, on charity. Delivered at Carthage in the Restituta. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 3028 (In-Text, Margin)
... offended those whom he was rebuking, and was stoned by them. And as he was being overwhelmed and bruised to death by the hands of his furious persecutors on every side, and the blows of the stones, he first said, “Lord Jesus Christ, receive my spirit.” Then after he had prayed for himself standing, he bent the knee for them who were stoning him, and said, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge; let me die in my body, but let not these die in their souls. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.”[Acts 7:60] After these words he added no more; he spake them and departed; his last prayer was for his enemies. Learn ye hereby to have “the wedding garment.” So do thou too bend the knee, and beat thy forehead against the ground, and as thou art about to ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Volume 8, page 22, footnote 6 (Image)
Augustine: Expositions on the Psalms
Expositions on the Book of Psalms. (HTML)
Psalm VII (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 221 (In-Text, Margin)
5. “Arise, O Lord, in Thine anger” (ver. 6). Why yet does he, who we say is perfect, incite God to anger? Must we not see, whether he rather be not perfect, who, when he was being stoned, said, “O Lord, lay not this sin to their charge”?[Acts 7:60] Or does the Psalmist pray thus not against men, but against the devil and his angels, whose possession sinners and the ungodly are? He then does not pray against him in wrath, but in mercy, whosoever prays that that possession may be taken from him by that Lord “who justifieth the ungodly.” For when the ungodly is justified, from ungodly he is made just, and from being the ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 1, page 218, footnote 10 (Image)
Eusebius: Church History from A.D. 1-324, Life of Constantine the Great, Oration in Praise of Constantine
The Church History of Eusebius. (HTML)
Book V (HTML)
The Martyrs, beloved of God, kindly ministered unto those who fell in the Persecution. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 1403 (In-Text, Margin)
5. A little further on they say: “They humbled themselves under the mighty hand, by which they are now greatly exalted. They defended all, but accused none. They absolved all, but bound none. And they prayed for those who had inflicted cruelties upon them, even as Stephen, the perfect witness, ‘Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.’[Acts 7:60] But if he prayed for those who stoned him, how much more for the brethren!”
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 6, page 419, footnote 6 (Image)
Jerome: Letters and Select Works
Treatises. (HTML)
Against Vigilantius. (HTML)
CCEL Footnote 4960 (In-Text, Margin)
... but once we die, the prayer of no person for another can be heard, and all the more because the martyrs, though they cry for the avenging of their blood, have never been able to obtain their request. If Apostles and martyrs while still in the body can pray for others, when they ought still to be anxious for themselves, how much more must they do so when once they have won their crowns, overcome, and triumphed? A single man, Moses, oft wins pardon from God for six hundred thousand armed men; and[Acts 7:59-60] Stephen, the follower of his Lord and the first Christian martyr, entreats pardon for his persecutors; and when once they have entered on their life with Christ, shall they have less power than before? The Apostle Paul says that two hundred and ...
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 10, page 337, footnote 4 (Image)
Ambrose: Select Works and Letters
Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons. (HTML)
Concerning Repentance. (HTML)
Book I. (HTML)
Chapter X. St. John did not absolutely forbid that prayer should be made for those who “sin unto death,” since he knew that Moses, Jeremiah, and Stephen had so prayed, and he himself implies that forgiveness is not to be denied them. (HTML)
47. Did not John himself know that Stephen prayed for his persecutors, who had not been able even to listen to the Name of Christ, when he said of those very men by whom he was being stoned: “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge”?[Acts 7:60] And we see the result of this prayer in the case of the Apostle, for Paul, who kept the garments of those who were stoning Stephen, not long after became an apostle by the grace of God, having before been a persecutor.