With strange inconsistency on the part of those who deny miracles altogether, unbelievers have accused Peter of cruelly smiting Ananias and his wife with instant death. The sacred narrative, however, ascribes to Peter nothing more than a spirited exposure of their aggravated offence. Their death, the reader is left to infer, was by the hand of God ; nor is any ground afforded in the narrative (Acts v. I-It) for holding that Peter was in any way employed as an immediate instrument of the miracle.
That the death of these evil-doers was miraculous seems to be implied in the record of the transaction, and has been the general opinion of the church. An attempt, however (Amnon. hrit. 7ourn. a'. Meal. Lit. i. 249), has been made to explain the fact by the supposition of apoplexy, caused by the shame and disgrace with which the guilty pair were suddenly overwhelmed at the detection of their baseness. If such an hypothesis might account for the death of Ananias, it could scarcely suffice to explain that of his wife also ; for that two persons should be thus taken off by the same physical cause is, in the circumstances, in the highest degree improbable. A mathematical calculation of the doctrine of chances in the case would furnish the best exposure of this anti-supernatural explanation.
The view now given may serve also to skew how erroneous is the interpretation of those who, like Tertullian, have maintained that the words of Peter were a species of excommunication which the chief of the apostles fulminated against Ananias and his wife.
3. A Christian of Damascus (Acts ix. to ; xxii. ix), held in high repute, to whom the Lord ap peared in a vision, and bade him proceed to the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus : for, behold he prayeth.' Ananias had difficulty in giving credence to the message, remembering how much evil Paul had done to the saints at Jeru salem, and knowing that he had come to Damascus with authority to lay waste the church of Christ there. Receiving, however, an assurance that the persecutor had been converted, and called to the work of preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles, .Ananias went to Paul, and, putting his hands on him, bade him receive his sight, when immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales ; and, recovering the sight which he had lost when the Lord appeared to him on his way to Damascus, Paul, the new convert, arose, and was baptized, and preached Jesus Christ.
Tradition represents Ananias as the first that published the Gospel in Damascus, over which place he was subsequently made bishop ; but, having roused, by his zeal, the hatred of the Jews, he was seized by them, scourged, and finally stoned to death in his own church.—J. R. B.