Ananias

A 'disciple' who lived in Dama-scus, and to whom the Lord appeared in a vision, bid<Iing him go and baptize Saul of Tarsus. Saul had been prepared for his coming by a vision. A. hesitated at first, knowing Saul's re]>utation as a persecutor ; but, being encouraged by the Lord, went and laid his hands upon Saul, who received his sight, arose, and was baptized. Such is the account in Ac 9'°"". In St. Paul's speech to the multitude at Jems. (Ac 22""") we are told that A.

was a man ' devout according to the law ' and one ' to whom witness was borne by all the Jews that dwelt' at Damas- cus ; and some further words of his to St. Paul are given in which he speaks of Christ as ' the Just One.' He is not mentioned in St. Paul's speech to Agrippa. The tnulitionB about htm are not of a primitive kind.

In Pseudo-Itorotheus liBt of the 72 disciplca (and also in the Hippo- lytean list) he occun fifth in order, after ThafldmuB and before Stephen, and is represent^Kl aa Hishop of Damascus. In the Bk of the Uee by Solomon of liosra (1222), (c xlix. ed. Walhs Budife), A. is numbered amonp the seventy. He was the disciple of tile Baptist, and tau^'ht m DamoAcus and ArbCl, He was slain by I'ol, the jj^enernl of the annv of AreUis, and whs laid in the clmrch which he built at ArbCl. The Gr.

ilcnaa (Oct. 1) ■ay that he did many cures in I'amoscus and Eleutheroix>lis (bein^ bislmp of the former place), and was tormented with ■oour>;int; and buniin^f by Lucian the Prefect (Itom, Mart. LlciniuM), and was finally cast out of the cit^ anrl stoned. The Basilian Menolot^y o/lds that he was ordamed by Peter and Andrew, and ifives a pictiire of him lieinf; stoned by two men. Tlie Al)ya*4iniun Calendar con.niemorates him on the 6th of Tekcmt. In the Rom. Mart>Tolo^^y he occurs on Jan.

25 ; in the Annenian on Oct. 16. The full Gr. acts of his martyrdom have never been printed, but the Hollandists, under Jan. 25, i^ive a Lat. V8 of them, in which the scene of his yireochintf is said to have been Hetha- ffaure or Betat;abra, near Kloutheropolis. He is liltely to have been amon^ the l^ersonal disciples of the Ixinl, and bos a bettor claim to stand in the list of the seventy discinles than most of those who appear In the work of Psoudo-Dorulneus. M. K. James. ANANIAS C\va.

vlai = \U\i. T3jq 'J" hath been gracioii.f ').—!. A son of Ivnimer (1 Es 9") = Hananl of Ezr 10'^. 2. A son of Bebai (1 Es 9^) = Hananiah of Ezr 10^. 3. One of those who stood at Ezra's right hand at tlie reading of the law (1 Es 9") = Anaiah of Neh S^. 4. A Levite (1 Es 9«) = Hanan of Neh 8'. 5. The name which the angel Raphael g.ave as that of his father, when he introduced himself to Tobit vmder the assumed name of Azarias (To S'^- "). 6. An ancestor of Judith (Jth 8'). 7.

The husband of Sapi.hira. He fell down dead at the rebuke of St. Peter, and the same fate, three hours afterwards, befell his wife (Ac 5'^-). The intention of this narrative is some- times misunderstood as regards both the offence of the.se persons and the cause of their death. It is quite a mistake to suppose that a rigid system of communism was enforced in the Jerusalem Cliurch, and that A. and Sapphira by ' keeping back part of the price' violated a riile they had pledged themselves to obey.

St. Peter's words suliice to refute this notion : ' "Whiles it remained, did it not rcm/iin thine oxen > and after it was sold, was it not in thy power f ' But it was inexcusable hypocri.sy to retain part of the price and pretend to surrender the whole. ' They wished to serve two masters, but to appear to serve only one ' (Meyer). As to the fact of their sudden death, even Baur and Weizsiicker admit that a genuine tradition under- lies the narrative.

As to its cause, whatever this may liave been from a secondary point of view, there can be no doubt that in Acts it is traced to the deliberate will and intentivn nf St. Peter. (Note esp. v.* and cf. the parallel case of St. Paul and Elymas in Ac 13".) LiTERATURR.— Baur, Paulut, i. 28 fl. ; Neander, Planting o, Chrtsdamti/, Bohn's tr. i. 27 ff. ; Weizsacker, Apott, Age, i. 24, 55 f. : Comm. of Aliord, Meyer, etc. 8. See preceding article. 9. The high priest before whom St.

Paul was brought by Claudius Lysias (Ac 23'"'-), and whose outrageous conduct upon this occasion provoked the apostle to ajijily to him the contemptuous epithet ot ' whited wall.' The same A. shortly afterwards appeared at Ca;sarea amongst St. Paul's accusers before Felix (Ac24"'')- He was the son of Nedeba;us, and hold the high priesthood from c. 47-59 A.D. He owed his appointment to the otlice to Herod of Chalcis.

During his administration there were bitter qtiarrels between the Jews and the Samaritans, and these seemed on one occasion likely to lead to his deposition. On account of a massacre of some Galilicans hy the Samaritans, the latter had been attacked and many of tiieir villages plundered by the Jews. A. was accused of complicity in these acts of violence, and was sent by (Jundratus, the governor of Syria, to stand his trial at Koiiio.

Powerful inlhicnce was at work at the imperial court on the side Ijoth of the Samaritans and the Jews ; but, thanks to the elt'orts of the youngci Agrippa, Claudius gave his decision in favour of the high priest, and A. returned to discharge the functions of an ollice which he disgraced by his rapacity and violence.

It was no uncommon thing for him to send his servants to the thrcsliing-lloDrs to take the tithes by force, while he defrauded the inferior priests of their dues, and left some of them to die of starvation. His own end was a miserable one. His syinpathics had always been with the Romans, anil he had thus incurred the hatred of the nationalist party. When the great rebellion broke out which ended in the siege and destruction of Jems., A.

concealed himself, but was discovered, and murdered by the fanatical populace. LlT»aATiR».— Jos. Ant. ll. v. 2, vi. U. S, ll. ii. 3 ; Il'ors n xtU. B; Schiirer, HJP L U. 173, 188 f., 211, ii. I. iv.' ■.'"filT. J. A. Selbib. 92 ANANIEL ANDREW ANANIEL ('Ayavi-/i\), one of the ancestors of Tobit, To 1'. A Gr. form of Sx^jn. AKATH (njvj, the father of Sharagar, Jg 3" 5«. 'Anftt is the name of a goddess worshipped in Pal. , cf.

Jg 1=0, Jos 15 Is lO* ; it is found on Egyptian monuments from the 18th dynasty. G. A. COOKK. ANATHEMA. See Accursed.