Ananias (High Priest)

Biblical Account

Ananias appears in Acts 23 and 24. He was the high priest who presided when Paul stood before the Sanhedrin (the council), the supreme Jewish assembly, after Paul had been caught up in a disturbance at the temple in Jerusalem and taken into custody by Roman troops.

When Paul declared, "I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day," Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike Paul on the mouth (Acts 23:1-2). Paul replied, "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall." When those standing by rebuked him for reviling God's high priest, Paul answered that he had not known that Ananias was the high priest. He then cited the commandment of the law against speaking evil of the ruler of the people (Exodus 22:28; Acts 23:3-5).

Five days later Ananias went down to Caesarea with the elders and an orator named Tertullus. There he brought charges against Paul before the governor Felix (Acts 24:1).

Significance in Scripture

Three men named Ananias appear in the New Testament. Besides the high priest treated in this article, there is the Ananias who died after secretly keeping back part of the price of a piece of land, and Ananias of Damascus, who laid his hands on Paul. In the latter part of Acts, the high priest Ananias is portrayed as representative of the Jewish leadership that accused Paul and brought him to trial.

Paul's expression "whited wall" is a metaphor for hypocrisy that embellishes only the outward appearance. It resembles the whitewashed wall of Ezekiel 13 and the "whited sepulchres" with which Jesus rebuked the Pharisees (Matthew 23:27).

Interpretations and Debates

Interpreters differ over Paul's statement that he did not know Ananias was the high priest. The text itself offers no explanation.

• Some hold that Paul genuinely failed to recognize him, since Paul had long been away from Jerusalem and official vestments were not being worn at the meeting.
• Others link the statement to the conjecture that Paul had poor eyesight.
• Still others read it as irony: Paul could not acknowledge as high priest a man who would issue such an unlawful order.

According to the first-century Jewish historian Josephus, this man was Ananias son of Nedebaeus. Josephus describes him as greedy and violent, and he is reported to have been killed by insurgents around the outbreak of the Jewish War. Some interpreters see this as the fulfillment of Paul's words, "God shall smite thee." Acts itself, however, does not record his end. Scholars also differ in their dating of his tenure.

He is not to be confused with Annas, the high priest who appears in the account of the trial of Jesus.

In the Korean Church

The high priest Ananias is seldom treated as a subject in his own right. He is mentioned chiefly in expository sermons on Acts 23, which also consider Paul's conduct before unjust authority: although he protested, he acknowledged the law's teaching concerning the office. In Sunday schools and Bible studies, he is sometimes presented in a way that distinguishes him from the two other men named Ananias.