Ananias the High Priest

Biblical Account

Ananias the high priest appears in Acts 23 and 24. After Paul was seized in the temple at Jerusalem, he stood before the Sanhedrin (the supreme Jewish council) and declared that he had served God in all good conscience. Ananias then commanded those standing by to strike Paul on the mouth (Acts 23:1-2). Paul retorted, "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall: for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?" (Acts 23:3). When the bystanders asked whether he would revile God's high priest, Paul answered that he had not known he was the high priest and quoted the command, "Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people" (Exodus 22:28; Acts 23:4-5).

Five days later Ananias went down to Caesarea with certain elders and an orator named Tertullus and brought charges against Paul before the governor Felix (Acts 24:1). Scripture records nothing further about him.

Significance in Scripture

Acts recounts in detail the series of hearings Paul underwent between his arrest in Jerusalem and his journey to Rome. In this narrative Ananias represents the Jewish leadership that was hostile to Paul. Although the shared name can cause confusion, he is a different person from the Ananias of the account of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) and from Ananias of Damascus, who laid hands on Paul (Acts 9). He is also distinct from Annas, the high priest who questioned Jesus in the Gospels (John 18:13).

Interpretations and Points of Debate

• The meaning of "I wist not": Several interpretations have been proposed. One view holds that Paul failed to recognize the high priest because of poor eyesight, citing the "infirmity of the flesh" mentioned in Galatians 4 and the statement that the Galatians "would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me" (Galatians 4:15). Another view holds that because the gathering was not a formal trial, Paul did not know who the high priest was. Some read the remark as irony, meaning that Paul could not acknowledge as high priest a man who broke the law; others take it as Paul's candid admission that he had spoken hastily.
• "Whited wall": The phrase refers to a wall whitewashed only on the surface. Some interpreters connect it with the wall daubed with untempered mortar in Ezekiel 13:10-15 or with the "whited sepulchres" of Matthew 23:27, reading it as a rebuke of hypocrisy.
• Extrabiblical sources: The first-century Jewish historian Josephus reports that Ananias son of Nedebaeus served as high priest. According to Josephus he was a greedy man, and he is said to have been killed by rebel forces around AD 66, when the Jewish War broke out. His tenure is generally placed from the late 40s to the late 50s, though scholars differ. The high-priestly families of the period are generally thought to have been closely associated with the Sadducees. Some interpreters see his death as the fulfillment of Paul's words "God shall smite thee," but the biblical text does not say so.

In the Korean Church

Sermons devoted to Ananias himself are rare. He is usually mentioned in preaching on the account of Paul's hearing in Acts 23. The expression "whited wall" is sometimes cited as a warning against a faith whose outward appearance does not match its inner reality. Some sermons hold up as an example Paul's readiness to acknowledge his mistake and yield to the word of Scripture. In Sunday school he appears only briefly in lessons on Paul's arrest and trials.