Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. — Here again we cannot help finding proof, not only that the mind of Stephen was after the mind of Christ, but that the narrative of the Crucifixion, as recorded by St. Luke, was, in some measure, known to him. The resemblance to the prayer of Christ, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34), could hardly have been accidental. We may well think of the prayer as having for its chief object him who was the foremost of the accusers. The old words of Augustine (Serm. 314-318), that we owe the conversion of Saul to the prayers of Stephen, may be accepted as the expression of a great spiritual fact. This prayer, like that which preceded it, was addressed, it will be noted, to the Lord Jesus.
He fell asleep. — The thought and the phrase were not altogether new. (Comp. John 11:11, and Note.) Even a heathen poet had said of one who died the death of the righteous —
“When good men die, it is not death, but sleep.”
— Callimachus, Epig. 10.