ANANIAS (Greek 'Ανανίας, from Hebrew Hānanyāh «Jahweh Has Shown Mercy»). - Various figures of the Old and New Testaments.
I. OLD TESTAMENT
1) Fictitious father of the angel Raphael (v.), who calls him "the great," giving himself the name Azariah. In the Greek text, Tobit adds: "I came to know A. and Jonathan, sons of the great Shemei, when they went together to worship in Jerusalem" (Tob. 5:18 ff.).
2) False prophet (Vulgate: Hananias) of Gibeon, opponent of Jeremiah, who exposed his illusory prediction of the Babylonian collapse; he died two months later, in the 7th month of the 4th year (594 B.C.) of Zedekiah (Jer. 28).
3) One of the three young men of the tribe of Judah and of royal stock, deported with Daniel to Babylon. At the court of Nebuchadnezzar his name was changed to Shadrach (Heb. Sadhrakh). Having refused, together with Azariah (v.) and Mishael, to worship the statue of the king erected at Dura, he was cast with them into a burning furnace. After prayers and wondrous hymns to the Creator, the three emerged unharmed. Nebuchadnezzar, marveling at the prodigy, confirmed them in the government of the province of Babylon (Dan. 1:6-20; 3:1-97). Mattathias, as he was dying, would recall their heroic observance of the divine law (1 Macc. 2:59).
4) Levite, firstborn of Shallum the Korahite; he was a maker of the sacred perfumes (1 Chron. 9:31). A descendant of his of the same name, returning from the Babylonian exile, supervised the restoration of a part of the walls of Jerusalem (Neh. 3:8, 23).
5) Head of the birâh (citadel) of Jerusalem (Neh. 7:2; Vulgate: Hananias), of singular virtues, who with Hanani, brother of Nehemiah, was appointed by the latter to guard the city. A few decades later, a Hânanjâh, perhaps a high official of the Persian court, informs the priest Jedoiah that Darius II has prescribed the feast of unleavened bread at Elephantine (Elephantine papyrus 21, ed. Cowley), and he arrives there in the same year 419 B.C.
II. NEW TESTAMENT
1) A Christian of the first community of Jerusalem, husband of Sapphira, with whom he was condemned and struck dead by St. Peter, as a terrible example, for having deceived the Apostle by defrauding the "brethren." With his wife, A. defrauded the Church, since he kept for himself a part of the proceeds from the sale of a field, while asserting instead ("seduced by Satan and lying to the Holy Spirit") that he was handing over all of it (Acts 5:1-11). On the representations of A. and Sapphira in Christian art, see below.
2) A Christian of Damascus, a Jew by birth, esteemed by all; following a vision he went to visit Saul in the house of Judas, on the "Straight Street," restored his sight by laying his hands on him, and baptized him, announcing to him the apostolic mission for which he had been chosen by God (Acts 9:10-18; 22:12-16).
According to E. P. Le Camus (L'œuvre des Apôtres, I, Paris 1891, p. 342), he would be identical with the Jewish propagandist (a Christian, according to Orosius, VII, 6) who converted Izates, son of Monobazus king of Adiabene (Flavius Josephus, Antiq. Iud., XX, 2, 4). According to the Constit. Apostolorum, VIII, 46, 17 (ed. F. X. Funk, I, Tübingen 1905, p. 563) he was a layman; Oecumenius (In Act. 9, 10; PG 118, 170) calls him a deacon; St. Augustine considers him a priest. A Byzantine tradition counts him among the 72 disciples and considers him the first bishop of Damascus and a martyr (Symeon Metaphrastes: PG 114, 1101-10).
An underground chapel (at the Roman level of Damascus) near the Eastern Gate (Bâb el-Sâql), held by the Franciscans since 1820 (destroyed in the massacre of 1860, rebuilt in 1867), has for centuries been venerated by Christians and Muslims as the dwelling of St. A.; it was part of a vanished Byzantine basilica, whose foundations come to the surface. E. de Lorey explored (from 1920 onward) the "house of A." The Greeks celebrate his feast on October 1, the Latins on January 25 (Acta SS. Ianuarii, III, Paris 1863, p. 227 ff.).
3) Jewish high priest, son of Nebedaeus, successor of Joseph son of Camithus; appointed by Herod of Chalcis in 47, he remained in office until 59. He belonged to the family of Annas (v.) or Hanan, and was known for his wealth and his gluttony. In 52 he was sent to Rome by the legate of Syria Quadratus to give an account to Claudius of his conduct in the struggles between the Samaritans, supported by the procurator of Judea Cumanus and his tribune Celer, and the Jews. Through the good offices of Agrippa II and of Agrippina, he returned acquitted, with the triumph of the Jews. He presided over the sanhedrin convened, after the arrest of St. Paul, to accuse him, and had him struck on the face as soon as the Apostle began his defense; Paul cursed him and called him a "whited wall"; but, at the prompting of those present, he added that he did not know that he was the high priest. Shortly afterward he went with the priests and other Jews to accuse Paul before the procurator Felix (Acts 23:2-6; 24:1-9).
Even after being deposed, through his wealth and the favor of the Roman procurators, Albinus and Gessius Florus (62-66), he exercised great influence in Jerusalem, though notorious for his greed. He was assassinated in 66, as a friend of the Romans, by the sicarii led by his son Eleazar, at the beginning of the Jewish revolt (Flavius Josephus, Antiq. Iud., XX, 5, 2; 6, 2; 9, 2; Bell. Iud., II, 12, 6; 17, 6, 9).
4) Another high priest A., son of Masbal, he was killed by order of the Zealot leader Simon, together with Aristeas of Emmaus and 15 other Jewish notables, during the final siege of Jerusalem in 70 (Fl. Josephus, Bell. Jud., V, 13, 1).
5) A., son of Sadoc, was among the first instigators of the Jewish revolt of 66. He was sent by the leader of the rebels, Eleazar, to the commander of the Roman garrison Metilius, to whom he promised his life would be spared if he came out of Jerusalem with his troops; the soldiers, however, were massacred and Metilius was circumcised. Eleazar also sent him as his legate to the Idumeans to ask for help against Ananus II (v. ANNA II), whom he accused of wanting to hand the city over to the Romans (Flavius Josephus, Bell. Jud., II, 17, 10; IV, 4, 1).
Antonino Romeo
III. ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA IN CHRISTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY
The passage of Acts 5:1-10 is documented by Christian sculpture only in the last decades of the 4th century. It has been possible to identify it in a fragment of a sarcophagus from Avignon and probably on another from the cemetery of St. Callixtus, by means of the well-preserved scene on the rear panel of the Brescia lipsanotheca. There, the two phases of the event were combined in a single panel: on the left sits St. Peter questioning Sapphira; between them, on the ground, the bag with the money; on the right, some young men carry away the corpse of A. It is likely that the motif has a doxological character.
Bibliography2 works
Luciano De Bruyne
ANANIENSIS (ANAUNIENSIS), Giovenale Ruffini of Nonsberg: v. GIOVENALE di VAL DI NON.