Who is a Saint?

17 April 2026  Acts 5:34-42

Friday of the Second Week of Easter

“Gamaliel…said to the Sanhedrin, ‘Take care what you do with these men.’” (Acts 5:34-35)

Saint Gamaliel?

There is a pious tradition that Gamaliel, one of the most revered teachers in Second Temple Judaism, and grandson of the equally great Hillel, secretly became a Christian and was baptized by Peter and John along with another secret Christian, Nicodemus. It is further held that Gamaliel decided to keep his conversion on the down low so that he could remain in the Sanhedrin, and give surreptitious help to other Christians who might run afoul of the Jewish authorities. 

It would be better all around if there were more evidence about the nearness of heaven, and who is in it.   Saint You? Saint Me? It would be better all around if we were the evidence.

In the early days of the Church, some people acquired sainthood by public acclamation – they were such great favorites in some places that the local bishop permitted the people to call them Saints. That is how Gamaliel came to be called Saint Gamaliel.

Starting around the tenth century, popes started to get more involved in the saint-making process, and stricter standards of evidence of sanctity were required, which had the effect of slowing the process way down. Joan of Arc died in 1431, but didn’t become St. Joan until 1920. The Venerable Bede had to wait over a millenium (died A.D. 735, canonized 1899).

There is a book of all the officially recognized Saints of the Roman Catholic Church called The Roman Martyrology. It lists all those saints who are eligible to be recognized in the daily liturgy. Up until 1956, Saint Gamaliel was listed in The Roman Martyrology with a Feast Day of August 3. Subsequent editions of the Martyrology, however, applied stricter evidential standards, and a number of saints were delisted. Most notable among them was the still-popular St. Christopher, and also Saint Gamaliel. It was determined that in both of these, and other, cases there was simply not enough evidence that they ever converted to Christianity. Delisting doesn’t mean they are no longer saints, but only that there is not enough historical evidence to justify universal public veneration, i.e. they don’t get a Feast Day.

So, Saint Gamaliel?

The debate goes on to this day. Was he really a believer? It is true that he intervened with the Sanhedrin to protect the Apostles in the earliest days of the Church (cf. Acts 5:34-39), and it says that the Sanhedrin “took his advice” (5:40). But in scarcely a heartbeat they abandoned his advice, and had the Apsotles flogged before releasing them. Then they lynched St. Stephen for being rude (7:54-8:1), and then dispatched Saul of Tarsus to travel as far as Damascus to round up more believers to punish them (9:1-2). Saul made it to Damascus, of course, but not before becoming St. Paul along the way (9:3-30), and the mother of all headaches to the Sanhedrin. St. Paul would later mention that he had been a student of Gamaliel (22:3), but offered no details about anything Gamaliel had taught him.

So, Saint Gamaliel? It’s hard to say. There just isn’t enough evidence about what Gamaliel thought about Jesus, whether he ever made up his mind that Jesus was the Messiah and Son of God.

It would be better all around if there were more evidence about the nearness of heaven, and who is in it.

Saint You? Saint Me? It would be better all around if we were the evidence.