1st century
A Pharisee and doctor of the Law, the teacher of the Apostle Paul, who counseled moderation toward the apostles before the council and is honored as a secret believer in Christ.
The Righteous Gamaliel
Gamaliel the Elder was a prominent Pharisee and one of the foremost teachers of the Jewish Law in first-century Jerusalem. He was the grandson of the celebrated rabbi Hillel the Elder, bore the honorific title Rabban ("our master"), and held a seat of high authority in the Sanhedrin. He is known from the New Testament both as the teacher under whose instruction Saul of Tarsus (the future Apostle Paul) was formed (Acts 22:3) and as the voice of moderation in the Sanhedrin when the apostles were arraigned before that body — counselling that if the new movement were of human origin it would perish of itself, but if it were of God, no human effort could overthrow it (Acts 5:34-40).
Orthodox tradition holds that Gamaliel received baptism secretly, along with his son Abibas (Abibus), at the hands of the Apostles Peter and John, and that he similarly facilitated the honourable burial of the Protomartyr Stephen and of Nikodemos after their deaths, receiving their remains at his estate at Caphargamala. He died some years before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 and was buried at his own estate. In AD 415 a priest named Lucian received visions directing him to the site of four forgotten graves, where the relics of Gamaliel, Stephen, Nikodemos, and Abibas were found together. The relics were translated, with Stephen's portion eventually reaching Rome; the remainder passed to Constantinople in 428. The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates Gamaliel on 2 August.
Gamaliel appears in the New Testament in two places. In Acts 5:34-40 he addresses the Sanhedrin during the apostles' trial, urging the council neither to harm nor hinder the new movement lest it prove to be of divine origin. His speech set out a principle of providential discernment that became widely quoted in later theological discussion. In Acts 22:3 Paul identifies himself as a student formed at Gamaliel's feet in the strictest observance of the ancestral law.
The claim that Gamaliel became a believer in Christ is attested in several early Christian sources. Photius the Great cites a tradition that he received baptism from Peter and John alongside his son and remained in the Sanhedrin to protect the Christian community from within. The Clementine Literature alludes to a similar arrangement. The Orthodox Church accepts this tradition and honours him as "Righteous," the title given to figures venerated for holy lives lived outside the monastic or martyric vocations.
Gamaliel died before the broader destruction of Jerusalem, and modern historians approach the tradition of his secret Christianity with caution. The Orthodox commemoration rests on hagiographic tradition preserved in early Church sources.
The narrative of the discovery of the relics is preserved in a letter attributed to Lucian of Caphargamala and widely circulated in the fifth century. It describes three visions in which Gamaliel appeared to the priest and identified the location of the graves. Upon excavation, four tombs were found containing the relics of Gamaliel, Stephen, Nikodemos, and Abibas.
The relics were distributed widely: Stephen's remains became a major pilgrimage focus after being transferred first to Carthage and then to Rome. The relics of Gamaliel, Nikodemos, and Abibas passed to Constantinople in 428.
His relics were found in 415 with those of Stephen, Nikodemos, and his son Abibas.