Judging from the names of the Seven Deacons, there seems good reason for supposing that they were all or most of them Grecians or {19} Hellenists. St. Stephen was undoubtedly a Hellenist, and his early training made him a ready instrument for the work to which the Holy Ghost had called him. Freed by education from many of the associations and feelings which bound his Hebrew brethren to the Holy City and the Temple, he could realize more plainly than they could do, the future of the Christian Church apart from both these, and boldly proclaimed his convictions. [Sidenote: St. Stephen's preaching rouses Hebrew prejudices.] By this conduct he aroused all the deeply-rooted prejudices and exclusive pride of the Jewish mind, even amongst those who, like himself, were Hellenists, and to whom he seems more particularly to have addressed himself. Up to this time, what opposition there was to the teaching of the Apostles, seems to have come chiefly from the unbelieving sect of the Sadducees[44]; for the people had espoused the cause of the Christian teachers[45], and the Pharisees had advocated lenient conduct towards those who confessed, as they themselves did, a belief in the Resurrection[46]. [Sidenote: The Pharisees join with the Saducees in opposition to the Church.] But now all was altered; priests and people, Sadducees and Pharisees, were alike vehement against those who ventured to assert that the "Holy Place and the Law" should ever give way to a Holier than they; and foremost amongst the persecutors was the fiery, earnest, intellectual man who was afterwards the holy Apostle Paul[47]. [Sidenote: St. Stephen's speech a direct Inspiration.] The defence of the heavenly-minded Deacon before {20} his malicious and bloodthirsty enemies must be looked upon as a direct Inspiration of the Holy Ghost, a fulfilment of our Blessed Lord's promise to His Church[48], and a Divine commentary on Old Testament History, showing that God's mercies were not restrained to any particular place or country, and upbraiding the Jews with their abuse of their many privileges and their rejection of the Saviour. But the words of this first Christian "Apology against Judaism" fell for the time on unheeding ears; and its only present apparent result was the violent and yet triumphant death of him who had been chosen to utter it. [Sidenote: His blessed martyrdom.] Beneath the stoning of the enraged multitude, the First Martyr "fell asleep," blessed in his last moments with a foretaste of the Beatific Vision[49]. Section 9. _Results of St. Stephen's Martyrdom._ [Sidenote: A.D. 34. Good brought out of evil for the Church.]