Ananias

(grace of Jehovah) — the name of persons mentioned in the Book of Acts and elsewhere: a) (Acts 5:1–10) one of those converted to Christianity through apostolic preaching. When the followers of Christ who owned land sold it and brought the price of what was sold to the apostles, Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, having sold a possession, kept back part of the price and brought and laid the rest at the apostles’ feet. Rebuked by St. Peter the Apostle for his grave sin, for lying to the Holy Spirit, Ananias fell down and gave up the ghost.

His wife Sapphira, who had shared in her husband’s deceit, not knowing of his fatal end, since the young men had carried out his body for burial, upon the apostle’s question — for how much they had sold the land — confirmed Ananias’s lie, and immediately afterward fell down lifeless just as her husband had. As proof of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, St. Peter the Apostle, in the above-mentioned account, directly calls Him God: “Ananias,” he says, “why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost…?” and further notes: “thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God” (Acts 5:3, 4).