He was of the sect of the Pharisees and a doctor of the law in the highest reputation at Jerusalem. St. Paul recommended himself to the Jews by saying that he had been his scholar. When the Jews were deliberating to put the apostle to death, St. Gamaliel prevented such a resolution and indirectly showed the Christian religion to be the work of God; yet this he did with so much prudence as not to incur any suspicion. Though he had not then embraced the faith, his conversion was earlier than that of St. Paul. Having buried St. Stephen at his own estate twenty miles from Jerusalem he was afterward himself interred in the same sepulcher and discovered his relics to Lucian in a vision in 415.