of the officials. By the power of working out broad and general principles in detail and idealizing the routine work of adminis- tration he may fairly be placed among the great administrators by whom (far more than by statesmen and politicians) the Prus- sian state has been built up, and he was singularly fortunate in that his life fell at a time when by perfecting the administration of the newly founded imperial post he took no small part in strengthening the national idea and binding together the German nation. In 1897 blood-poisoning, arising from a wound in the foot, made amputation of the leg necessary, and he died from the effects of the operation, on the 8th of April 1897.
See E. Knickeberg, H. v. Stephan (Berlin, 1897). (J. W. He.)
STEPHANITE, a mineral consisting of silver sulphantimonite,
Ag5SbS4; containing 68·5% of silver, and sometimes of importance
as an ore of this metal. Under the name Schwarzerz
it was mentioned by G. Agricola in 1546, and it has been
variously known as “black silver ore” (Ger. Schwarzgültigerz),
brittle silver-ore (Sprödglanzerz), &c. The name
stephanite was proposed by W. Haidinger in 1845 in honour of
the archduke Stephan of Austria; French authors use F. S.
Beudant’s name psaturose (from the Greek ψαθυρός, fragile).
It frequently occurs as well-formed crystals, which are orthorhombic
and occasionally show signs of hemimorphism:
they have the form of six-sided prisms or flat tables terminated
by large basal planes and often modified at the edges by numerous
pyramid-planes. Twinning on the prism-planes is of frequent
occurrence, giving rise to pseudo-hexagonal groups like those of
aragonite. The colour is iron-black, and the lustre metallic
and brilliant; on exposure to light, however, the crystals soon
become dull. The mineral has a hardness of 212 and is very
brittle; the specific gravity is 6·3. Stephanite occurs with
other ores of silver in metalliferous veins. Localities which
have yielded good crystallized specimens are Freiberg and
Gersdorf near Rosswein in Saxony, Chañarcillo in Chile, and
exceptionally Cornwall. In the Comstock lode in Nevada
massive stephanite and argentite are important ores of silver.
(L. J. S.)
STEPHANUS BYZANTINUS (Stephen of Byzantium), the
author of a geographical dictionary entitled Ἐθνικά, of which,
apart from some fragments, we possess only the meagre epitome
of one Hermolaus. This work was first edited under the title
Περὶ πόλεων (Aldus, Venice, 1502); the best modern editions
are by W. Dindorf and others (4 vols., Leipzig, 1825), A. Westermann
(Leipzig, 1839), and A. Meineke (vol. i., Berlin, 1849).
Hermolaus dedicates his epitome to Justinian; whether the first
or second emperor of that name is meant is disputed, but it
seems probable that Stephanus flourished in the earlier part of
the 6th century, under Justinian I. The chief fragments remaining
of the original work (which certainly contained lengthy
quotations from classical authors and many interesting topographical
and historical details) are preserved by Constantine
Porphyrogennetos, De administrando imperio, ch. 23 (the
article Ἰβηρίαι δύο) and De thematibus, ii. 10 (an account of
Sicily) ; the latter includes a passage from the comic poet Alexis
on the Seven Largest Islands. Another respectable fragment,
from the article Δύμη to the end of Δ, exists in a MS. of the
Seguerian library.
See the editions of Westermann, Dindorf and Meineke, above noticed; the article “Stephanus Byzant.,” in Smith’s Dictionary of Ancient Biography, vol. iii.; E. H. Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, i. 102, 135, 169; ii. 669–671 (London, 1883); Riese, De Stephani Byzant. auctoribus (Kiel, 1873) ; J. Geffcken, De Stephano Byzantio (Göttingen, 1886); Spuridon Kontogones, Διορθωτικὰ εἰς τὰ Ἐθνικά (Erlangen, 1890) ; Paul Sakolowski, Fragmenta d. S. von B. ; E. Stemplinger, Studien zu d. Ἐθνικά.
STEPHEN, the “proto-martyr” (as he is called in certain
MSS. of Acts xxii. 20), in some senses the greatest figure in
primitive Christianity prior to Paul’s conversion, was one of
“the Seven” (xxi. 8, nowhere called “deacons”) set over the
“daily ministration” towards the needy members of the
Jerusalem community. But, like Philip and perhaps others of
his colleagues (vi. 3), he had higher gifts than his office would
suggest. We read that he was “full of faith and of the holy
Spirit”; and as his spiritual power seems to have shown itself in
mighty deeds as well as words (vi. 5, 8), he became a marked
man in Jerusalem. Himself a Jew of Greek culture, he naturally
tried to win over his fellow Hellenists (vi. 9).
It is here that Stephen’s advance upon the Apostolic teaching becomes apparent. His special “wisdom” lay in greater insight into the merely relative nature and value of the externals of Israel’s religion, and particularly those connected with the Temple. His fellow Hellenists were as a body eager to disprove the feeling of the native “Hebrews” that they were only half Jews; accordingly reaching which minimized the value of the sacred “customs which Moses had delivered” (vi. 14)—by making salvation turn immediately upon faith in Jesus as Messiah—would cause deep resentment in such circles, in spite of their more liberal attitude to things non-Jewish. They may have met Stephen’s appeal for faith in Jesus as Messiah by saying that full fellowship with God was theirs by observance of the Mosaic customs, centring in the Temple, which in Jerusalem overshadowed men’s thoughts touching the Divine presence. To this he would reply by warning them in Jesus’ own words, supported by those of the prophets, that the heart is the true seat of the Shekinah; and that if they refused God manifest in His Messiah, the final embodiment of Divine righteousness, no holy “customs”—no, not the Temple itself — could save them from the displeasure of the living God. Nay, God might have to make good Messiah’s words as to His person being more essential to fellowship with God than the Temple itself (cf. Matt. xii. 6), which might even be destroyed, as it had been in the past, without loss to true religion. In all this he was but reasserting the prophetic rather than the scribal view of the Mosaic Law and its institutions, viz. that the inner spirit, that which could be written on the heart, was the only thing really essential. But they could not rise to this conception and treated his words as “blasphemous against Moses and against God,” and roused “the people and the elders and the scribes” against him.
He was seized and brought before the Sanhedrin on the charge of speaking “against the Temple and the Law” (vi. 11–14). His defence against this twofold charge took the form of a survey of Israel’s religious past, with a view to show: (1) that “the God of Glory” had covenant relations with their fore-fathers before they had either Holy Place (Land or Temple) or Law (vii. 1–17); (2) that the first form of visible meeting place between God and His people was far other than that for which absolute sanctity was now claimed. Nay, the form of “the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness” (no Holy Land) had more divine sanction[1] than any later Temple (44–47) ; (3) that, after all, the presence of “the Most High” was in no way bound up with any structure of human hands, as Isaiah witnessed (48–50). The moral of all this was plain: Israel’s forms of fellowship with the Most High had all along been relative and subject to change. Particularly was this so with the external forms of cultus then represented by the Temple. Hence there was no “blasphemy” in suggesting that in the Messianic age yet another change might come about, and that observance of Temple services could prove little as to acceptance with God. But there is another and more actual line of pleading. This is found in the elaborate section dealing with the person and work of Moses, the great lawgiver (17–38)—a section full of extra-biblical touches—followed by one on Israel’s hardness of heart towards him and the “living oracles” he mediated, together with its result, the Exile (39–43). Pure and original Mosaism, embodied in Moses and his ministry to Israel, is represented as something which in its full spiritual intention had been frustrated by Israel’s stiff neckedness (39, 42 seq.). The figure of Moses is made to stand forth in ideal outlines, the thinly-veiled Christian application shining through. “This is that Moses who said unto the children of Israel, ‘A prophet
- ↑ The solemn language in v. 44 suggests that to Stephen, as to the writer to the Hebrews (and perhaps Hellenists generally), the Biblical Sanctuary, as corresponding to the heavenly archetype, was more sacred than the Temple of Herod, which owed what sanctity it had to the older features it still preserved.
