accustomed to weigh evidence must be that the words cannot even prove
the existence of our synoptic at the time the letter was written.

"But, if our author disposes of the coincidences with the third
Gospel in this way" (proceeds Dr. Lightfoot), "what will he say to
those with the Acts? In this same letter of the Gallican Churches we
are told that the sufferers prayed for their persecutors 'like
Stephen, the perfect martyr, "Lord, lay not this sin to their
charge.'" Will he boldly maintain that the writers had before them
another Acts, containing words identical with our Acts, just as he
supposes them to have had another Gospel, containing words identical
with our Third Gospel? Or, will he allow this account to have been
taken from Acts vii. 60, with which it coincides? But in this latter
case, if they had the second treatise, which bears the name of St.
Luke, in their hands, why should they not have had the first also?"
[143:1]

My reply to this is:

"There is no mention of the Acts of the Apostles in the epistle, and
the source from which the writers obtained their information about
Stephen, is, of course, not stated. If there really was a martyr of
the name of Stephen, and if these words were actually spoken by him,
the tradition of the fact, and the memory of his noble saying, may
well have remained in the Church, or have been recorded in writings
then current, from one of which, indeed, eminent critics (as Bleek,
Ewald, Meyer, Neander, De Wette) conjecture that the author of Acts
derived his materials, and in this case the passage obviously does
not prove the use of the Acts. If, on the other hand, there never
was such a martyr by whom the words were spoken, and the whole story