Righteous Gamaliel, Teacher of the Law

Righteous Gamaliel was a renowned Jewish teacher of the Law, grandson of Hillel, a member (and later head) of the Sanhedrin, the first rabbi to be granted the honorific title "Rabban." It was at his feet, in the Apostle Paul's own words, that Paul was "taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers" (Acts 22:3). In the Acts of the Apostles (5:34-39), Gamaliel is presented as a moderate voice in the Sanhedrin, persuading his fellow countrymen not to deal harshly with the apostles: "if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it." IMPORTANT: the text of Acts itself does not depict Gamaliel's conversion to Christ — this part of his story belongs entirely to later church tradition. According to this tradition, Gamaliel secretly buried the bodies of executed Christians, including the Protomartyr and Archdeacon Stephen, on his estate; toward the end of his life he and his son Abibus were baptized. In 415 Gamaliel appeared in a dream to the presbyter Lucian, revealing the location of his own relics together with those of the Protomartyr Stephen, the Righteous Nicodemus, and his son Abibus — this event became the basis for the feast of the discovery of the relics of the Protomartyr Stephen. His memory is kept on August 2/15.