Acts 6:5

5. Pleased… whole multitude The organic consent of the entire body of both sexes, apparently, without which the measure would not have been adopted.

Full… faith… Holy Ghost Luke pauses after Stephen’s name to add a precious eulogy, premonitory of his future history. It is remarkable that of the names the entire seven are Greek, a uniformity which could not exist without a cause. Hebrews had often indeed Greek names. Of the twelve apostles, as their names appear in the Acts, four are Greek. From the uniformity here it is perhaps too much to infer with some that the whole seven were foreign Greekish Jews added to Hebrew deacons already existing, for, as we have already intimated, the present office was entirely new. We may infer that possibly the Church, magnanimously to the weaker party, chose Greekish Jews alone. Or perhaps three were Hebrews with Greek names, three were foreign Jews, and one proselyte through Judaism from the Gentiles.

Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch First a Gentile, then a Jew, then a Christian. He was led by Moses from Paganism to Christ. Of the seven, two alone, Stephen and Philip, have any history in the New Testament; while a third, this Nicolas, possesses a singular note in ecclesiastical literature. He was said by Irenaeus to have been the founder of the vile sect of Nicolaitans condemned in Revelation 2:14. And this statement is confirmed by the recently discovered work of Hippolytus, an authority considered by Pressense decisive upon this point. It is indeed certain that that infamous sect claimed him as their founder. Yet the statement of Clement of Alexandria, an early and discriminating authority, seems well to account for the assumption of his name by the sect and yet exculpate him from guilt. It was a favourite maxim of Nicolas that “it is right to abuse ( παραχρησθαι ) the flesh.” This maxim was doubtless identical with the maxim that “all evil lies in matter,” or flesh. (See note on Acts 8:8.) Both these maxims could alike be interpreted to mean either that the flesh should be mortified ascetically, or indulged licentiously. It is very possible that Nicolas meant it in an ascetic sense, while a licentious sect used it as a license for infamy and claimed the credit of his name. Just so Epicurus taught in a good sense the maxim that virtue and pleasure coincide, meaning that true pleasure could be attained only by virtue. But the Epicureans made it to mean that the pursuit of pleasure is all the virtue there is.