ANANIAS (' Avaviar; Heb. ;14:.n7 or I.
Son of Nebeckeus, was made high-priest in the time of the procurator Tiberius Alexander, about A.D. 47, by Herod, king of Chalcis, who for this purpose removed Joseph, son of from the high-priesthood (Joseph. Antiq. xx. 5, 2). He held the office also under the procurator Cumanus, who succeeded Tiberius Alexander. Being impli cated in the quarrels of the Jews and Samaritans, Ananias was, at the instance of the latter (who, being dissatisfied with the conduct of Cumanus, appealed to Ummidius Quadratus, president of Syria), sent in bonds to Rome, to answer for his conduct before Claudius Caesar. The emperor decided in favour of the accused party. Ananias appears to have returned with credit, and to have remained in his priesthood until Agrippa gave his office to Ismael, the son of Fabi (Antiq. xx. 7, 8), who succeeded a short time before the departure of the procurator Felix, and occupied the station also under his successor Festus. Ananias, after retiring from his high-priesthood, 'increased in glory every day' (Amtig. xx. 9, 2), and obtained favour with the citizens, and with Albinus, the Roman procurator, by a lavish use of the great wealth he had hoarded. His prosperity met with a dark and painful termina tion. The assassins (skarn), who played so fearful a part in the Jewish war, set fire to his house in the commencement of it, and compelled him to seek refuge by concealment ; but being discovered in an aqueduct, he was captured and slain (Antiq. xx. 9, 2 ; Bell. Yud. ii. 17, 6, 69).
It was this Ananias before whom Paul was brought, in the procuratorship of Felix (Acts xxiii.) The noble declaration of the apostle, ' I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day,' so displeased him, that he commanded the atten dant to smite him on the face. Indignant at so unprovoked an insult, the apostle replied, God shall smite thee, thou whited wall :' a threat which the previous details. serve to prove wants not evidence of having taken effect. Paul, however, immediately restrained his anger, and allowed that he owed respect to the office which Ananias bore. After this hearing Paul was sent to whither Ananias repaired, in order to lay a formal charge against him before Felix, who postponed the matter, detaining the apostle meanwhile, and placing him under the supervision of a Roman centurion (Acts xxiv.) 2. A Christian belonging to the infant church at Jerusalem, who, conspiring with his wife Sapphira to deceive and defraud the brethren, was overtaken by sudden death, and immediately buried.
The members of the Jerusalem church had agreed to hold their property in common, for the furtherance of the holy work in which they were engaged, and hence if any one of them withheld a part, and offered the remainder as the whole, he committed two offences—he defrauded the church, and was guilty of falsehood. This Ananias did, and as his act related not to secular but to religious affairs, and had an injurious bearing, both as an example and as a positive transgression against the Gospel while it was yet struggling into existence, he lied not unto man, but unto God, and was guilty of a sin of the deepest dye. Had he chosen to keep his property for his own worldly purposes, he was at liberty, as Peter intimates, so to do ; but he had in fact alienated it to pious purposes, and it was therefore no longer his own. Yet he wished to deal with it in part as if it were so, sheaving at the same time that he was conscious of his misdeed, by presenting the residue to the common treasury as if it had been his entire property. He wished to satisfy his selfish cravings, and at the same time to enjoy the reputation of being purely disinterested, like the rest of the church. He attempted to serve God and Mammon. The original, ivoa6blaccro, is much more expressive of the nature of his misdeed than our common version, kept back' (part of the price). The Vulgate renders it fraudavit and both Wiclif and the Rheims version employ a corresponding term, defraudid," defrauded.' In the only other text of the New Testament where the word is found (Tit. ii. to), it is translated 'purloining.' It is, indeed, properly applied to the conduct of persons who appropriate to their own purposes money destined for public uses.* It is the more important to place the crime of Ananias and his wife in its true light, because unjust reflections have been cast upon the apostle Peter (Wolfenb. Frag7n. Zzveck fesu, p. 256) for his conduct in the case. Whatever that conduct may have been, the misdeed was of no trivial kind, either in itself or in its possible consequences. If, then, Peter reproves it with warmth, he does no more than nature and duty alike required ; nor does there appear in his language on the occasion any undue or uncalled for severity. He sets forth the crime in its naked heinousness, and leaves judgment in the hands of Him to whom judgment belongs.