4. One of the priests who stood at the right hand
ANANIAS
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of Ezra while reading the law (1 Esdr. ix, 43) ; the Anaiah (q. v.) of the genuine text (Neh. viii, 4).
5. One of the Levites who aided Ezra in expound- ing the law (1 Esdr. ix, 48) ; the Hanan (q. v.) of the true text (Neh. viii, 7).
6. A person called "Ananias the Great," the son of " that great Samaias," the brother of Jonathas, and father of Azarias, of the family of Tobit ; who the angel that addressed Tobit assumed to be (Tob. v, 12, 13). The names are apparently allegorical (see Fritzsche, Han lb. in loc).
7. The son of Gideon and father of Elcia, in the an- cestry of Judith (Judith viii, 1).
8.*The Greek form (Song of Three Children, ver. 66) of the original name, Hananiah (q. v.), of Shadrach, (Dan. i, 7). See also in 1 Mace, ii, 59.
9. One of the Jewish ambassadors in Samaria, to whom the decree of Darius in favor of the Jews was addressed (Josephus, Ant. xi, 4, 9).
10. A son of Onias (who built the Jewish temple at Heliopolis), high in favor with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra (Josephus, Ant. xiii, 10, 4), who made a league with Alexander Jannneus at his instance as general of her army in Palestine (lb. 13, 2).
11. 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 (Acts v, 1 sq.), A.D. 29.
The Christian community at Jerusalem appear to have entered into a solemn agreement that each and all should devote their property to the great work of furthering the Gospel and giving succor to the needy. Accordingly they proceeded to sell their pos- sessions, and brought the proceeds into the common stock of the church. Thus Barnabas (Acts iv, 36, 37) "having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet." The apostles, then, had the general disposal, if they had not also the imme- diate distribution, of the common funds. The contribu- tions, therefore, were designed for the sacred purposes of religion. — As all the members of the Jerusalem Church had thus agreed to hold their property in com- mon for the furtherance of the holy work in which they were engaged, 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 guilt}- of falsehood ; 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, An- anias lied, not unto man, but unto God, and was guilty of a sin of the deepest dye. Had Ananias 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, showing, at the same time, that he was conscious of his misdeed, by present- ing the residue to the common treasurj- as if it had been his entire propertj\ 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.
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. That this incident was no mere physical consequence of Pe- ter's severity of tone, as some of the German writers have maintained (Amnion, KrU. Journ. d. theol. L't. i, 249), distinctly appears by the direct sentence of a similar death pronounced by the same apostle upon his wife Sapphira a few hours after. See Sapphira. It is, of course, possible that Ananias's death may have been an act of divine justice unlooked for by the apos- tle, as there is no mention of such an intended result in his speech ; but in the case of the wife, such an idoa
is out of the question. Niemeyer (CJiaracteristik der Bibel, i, 574) has well stated the case as regards the blame which some have endeavored to cast on Peter in this matter (Wolfenb. Fragm. p. 256) when he says that not man, but God, is thus animadverted on : the apostle is but the organ and announcer of the divine justice, which was pleased by this act of deserved se- verity to protect the morality of the infant church, and strengthen its power for good.
The early Christian writers were divided as to the condition of Ananias and Sapphira in the other world. Origen, in his treatise on Matthew, maintains that, being purified by the punishment they underwent, they were saved by their faith in Jesus. Others, among whom are Augustine and Basil, argue that the severity of their punishment on earth showed how great their criminality had been, and left no hope for them hereafter. — Kitto, s. v. ; Smith, s. v.
See, generally, Blbl.-hermen. Unters. p. 375 sq. ; Hohmann, in Augusti's Theol. BUM. ii, 129 sq. ; Nean- der, Planting, i, 31 sq. ; Vita Ep:phan. in his Op. ii, 351 ; Wetstein, ii, 483; comp. Schmidt's Allgem. Bibliotk. d. theol. Lit. i, 212 sq. ; also Medley, Sermons, p. 363 ; Bulkley, Disc, iv, 277; Mede, Works, i, 150; Simeon, Works, xiv, 310; Durand, Sermons, p. 223. Special treatises are those of Walch, De Sepultura Anan. et Sapphir. (Jen. 1755) ; Mcerheim, Ananice et Sapph. sa- crili glum (Wittenb. 1791) ; Ernesti, Hist. Ananice (Lips. 1679-1680) ; Franck, De crimine Ananice et Sapph. (Ar- gent. 1751).