to be faint-hearted, to despond, to be dim. But as Blass points out it is used by Hippocrates; indeed it would seem that its use is almost altogether confined to medical writers (Hobart, Zahn). It is therefore a word which may probably be referred to St. Luke’s employment of medical terms; Hobart, Medical Lan- guage of St. Luke, p. 37, for instances of its use not only in Hippocrates but in Galen and Aretaeus (Lumby refers to Acta Andr, et Matth. Apocr., 19, where the word is also used of men suddenly falling down dead). In classical Greek ἀποψύχειν (βίον), or ἀποψ. absolutely is the term employed. There can be no doubt that the narrative implies the closest connection between the guilt of Ananias and his sudden death. It there- fore cannot be regarded as a narrative of a chance occurrence or of the effect of a sudden shock caused by the discovery of guilt in St. Peter’s words. No one has shown more clearly than Baur (Paulus, i., 27-33, especially against Neander) that all such explanations are unsatisfactory (see also Zeller and De Wette). In the early history of the Church, Origen, Tract. ix. in Matt., had espoused the view that Ananias had died overcome by shame and grief at the sudden detection of hissin. But no such explanation could: account for the death of Sapphira which Peter foretells as about to follow without delay. That the narrative is not without historical foundation is frankly admitted by Wendt, and also by Baur, Zeller, Overbeck, and most recently by Weizsacker, Holtzmann, Spitta. But this stern condemnation of any attempt to lie unto God is a stumbling-block even to those who with Wendt recognise not only some historical fact underlying the
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μέγας ἐπὶ πάντας τοὺς ἀκούοντας ταῦτα. ” νεώτεροι συνέστειλαν αὐτόν, καὶ ἐξενέγκαντες έθαψαν.
narrative, but also the danger and culpa- bility of the action of Ananias and his wife. It may however be justly ob- served that our Lord Himself had con- demned no sin so severely as that of hypocrisy, and that the action of Ananias and Sapphira was hypocrisy of the worst kind, in that they sought by false pre- tences to gain a reputation like the Pharisees for special sanctity and charity; the hypocrisy of the leaven of the Phari- sees had entered the Church (Baum- garten), and if such a spirit had once gained ground in the Christian com- munity, it must have destroyed all mutual affection and all brotherly kind- ness, for how could men speak the truth, every one with his neighbour, unless their love was without hypocrisy ? Rom. xii. 9 ; how could they claim to be citizens of a city, into which none could enter who ‘““madealie” ? Rev. xxi. 27, xxii.15. The sin before us was not one sin but many (Chrys., Hom., xii., on ver. 9), and in its deliberateness it came perilously near that sin against the Holy Ghost which, whatever else it may mean, certainly means a wilful hardening against divine guidance. For further considerations on the necessity of this unhesitating con- demnation of such a sin at the outset of the life of the Church, see St. Chrysos- tom’s remarks. We must guard against supposing that St. Peter had imprecated the death-penalty upon Ananias (as Porphyry asserted, see against such a view, Jerome, Efist., 130). St. Jerome speaks of Ananias and Sapphira as not only deceitful, but also as timid stewards, keeping backa part of the price ‘‘ through fear of famine which true faith never fears’. On his judgment that the aveng- ing stroke was inflicted, not in cruelty to them, but as a warning to others, see below.—xai ἐγένετο φόβος µέγας κ.τ.λ., i.é., upon all who were present, as distinct from νετ. 11—but see Page’s note. Over- beck, with De Wette, regards the re- mark as proleptical, as if the writer hurried to describe the impression made —but why should the words not include the judgment uttered by St. Peter? for the construction see Luke i. 65, iv. 36. On the characteristic reference to φόβος as following upon the exhibition of divine miraculous power both in St. Luke’s Gospel and the Acts, see Friedrich, Das Lucasevangelium, p. 77, and above on ii, 43.