The First Case of Discipline

Community or goods. Sin of Ananias and Sapphira. Their doom pronounced by peter, special apostolic gifts. The Church increased.

“These things which Luke hath hitherto reported, show that that company which was gathered together under the name of Christ was rather a company of angels than men. But now he showeth that Satan had invented a shift to get into that holy company, and that under colour of such excellent virtue, for he hath wonderful wiles of hypocrisy to insinuate himself.” — Calvin.

“This was doubtless the divine seal and attestation to St Peter’s Apostolic mission and doctrine, and given when the Apostles were setting up the spiritual kingdom of the Messias. Like as Korah and his company were struck dead for their great wickedness, upon the denunciation of Moses, when he was erecting God’s temporal kingdom over Israel.” — Benson.

“At the very time when Israel was passing through her first struggle with the Canaan ites, and executing God’s judgments on the abominations of the Amorites, exhibiting themselves as the holy people of Jehovah, Achau, out of the very midsfc*of Israel, laid unholy hands on the property. In the same manner it happened with t he first Church of Christ — the realisation of the idea of the people of Israel in contrast with a hostile and godless world.” — Baumgarien,

“Prophet of God! arise, and take
With thee the words of wrath divine;
The curse of Heaven to shake,
O’er yon apostate shrine.”

ETER is now introduced to us under a new character, as prominent actor and administrator in the first case of discipline which unhappily occurred in the Apostolic Church; a case which stands in Gospel story altogether isolated and unique; tragic in its awfulness; only paralleled by the blighted fig-tree in the Master’s allegorical teaching, and reminding more of the wind and the earthquake and the fire, which symbolised the Old Testament dispensation of terror, than “the still small voice” which was the meet exponent of the New.

We have just been contemplating our Apostle as God’s instrument in performing a miracle of healing. We are about to contemplate him as God’s agent in a miracle of signal judgment. “As he had first opened the gate to penitents (ii. 37, 38) he now closed it to hypocrites.” 1 “Alas I” as the great German commentator expresses it, “it is the first trace of a shadow which falls upon the pure, bright form of the young Church. n * The picture of the early Christians, brought before us at the close of last chapter, was one of unexampled generosity; a spontaneous outward expression of the life and love which pulsed in the hearts of that hallowed brotherhood. The disciples into whose lap the bounties of providence had been largely poured, were there represented as bestowing these for the support of their less favoured brethren. We are not by any means led to infer that these benefactions resulted from any apostolic injunction, implying some positive and authoritative obligation on the part of the early converts to part with their worldly all for mutual benefit. It is evident, indeed, from the sad story itself now to be narrated, that this was not the case. It is distinctly implied in the charge of Peter to Ananias, that such renunciation was altogether optional. It was a voluntary tribute offered by Christian affection on the part of those who had taken as their motto, “Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price.” Even during the period of the Divine Ministry, when it is evident the wants alike of the disciples and their Lord were supplied from a common purse, there was nothing either compulsory or permanent in such an arrangement. It was one plainly suggested by the exceptional circumstances of the case, and in carrying out which they might make what reservations they deemed proper. Hence we find, after the Resurrection, that the Apostles, in returning to their old occupations, had not surrendered their private property. They still

* Bib. Die, art. “Peter.” OUhftUien, in loco. had their fishing boats on the Lake of Tiberias; and as has been also noted,1 John the beloved disciple, in connection with the honoured charge that had been confided to him on the cross, speaks of” bis own home as if a dwelling-house, wherever it was, had still been retained by him, notwithstanding the temporary agreement for the supply of their common necessities.

Similar seems to have been the arrangement made, not as a matter of obligation and principle, but of expediency, after the Ascension. Indeed this community of goods, though partially appertaining to the Infant Church at Jerusalem, left no trace of its operation in any other of the Apostolic centres of influence. We see subsequently in the Epistles of St Paul, as negativing the theory of a compulsory common store, that the distinctive mutual relations of rich and poor are again and again set forth and defined. We know also that stated collections were made in Macedonia, Achaia, and elsewhere, for the poor saints at Jerusalem, and that for this end the brotherhood and sisterhood were exhorted to set apart so much on the first day of every week; the measure or proportion of the offering being u as God had prospered them;” an injunction which would not have been given had renunciation of property been imperatively required, or had it constituted a condition of membership in the New Society. It would be easy to show that such would not have been among the blessings of Christianity had any such permanent arrangement existed.2 -*

And now for the sad story which has led to these

1 Sec Dr Kitto.

* We hare a reference, in Acts zil. 12, to a house belonging to a disciple as s private possession. preliminary remarks in following the footsteps of St Peter.

Two disciples of the early Church are brought before us. Ananias (” The cloud of the Lord “), a designation not unfamiliar otherwise in Scripture, and Sapphira (or “the beautiful”), a name which, however euphonious in itself and attractive in meaning, has from its bad association perished, ever since, from Christian nomenclature. These wealthy, or at all events independent converts, following the example that had been set by others, sold their possession. As they enjoyed, in the first instance, an absolute control over their own lands, to part with them or no, as they thought fit; so, after the sale was effected, they had a discretiouary power to appropriate what portion they pleased of the price procured, to the common fund, stating the amount, and retaining the surplus for their own private use. But the delinquency which brought with it such appalling consequences was, that they made a false representation of the amount of pretended generosity. They alleged that the entire results without reservation were contributed, professing to give all to God; while by a daring insult to His omniscience, they clandestinely entered into a compact to retain for themselves a portion of the price. Their conduct does assuredly seem strange and inexplicable. How, first of all, with natures capable of such baseness, they could be found in a community whose principles and practice had nothing to allure the avaricious and covetous, whose maxim and watchword rather was “Deny yourselves, and take up the cross;” and then,

1 The word rendered in A. V. “possession “is translated in the Srriac, Arabic, and Latin Vulgate,” Land.” — Barnct. The word used in verse 3 it lopLop field.” See OUhauttn.

still stranger, that having accepted these tenets — submitted to that self-renunciation, they could stoop to equivocation and deceit so mean and so unworthy.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it 1” After finding among the intimate associates of the gracious and compassionate Jesus one whose inborn avarice could tempt hiin to plot the murder of the Innocent for the basest of bribes, need we wonder that liars should have crept into the circle of earliest believers?

With no previous data to found upon, we cannot attempt to analyse motive and character. Some have supposed that as moral delinquency often seeks to shelter itself under a pretext of piety and religious zeal, the better to deceive and blindfold a too confiding world; — in the very recklessness of their depravity this guilty pair may have sought to screen their faults and wickedness, by having the reputation of associating with those whose principles were beyond suspicion. But it appears to us unnecessary to resort to any such extreme supposition. They had very probably associated themselves with the new sect, if not from motives as disinterested as those which animated their fellow -disciples, yet at all events which could not be denounced as sinister or unworthy. The two evil spirits, however, Pride and Avarice, which have wrought such havoc in Christian communities, seem still to have survived in the breast3 of the unhappy pair after their outward profession of the new creed; and the baneful influence of these twin passions increased, until they came to rule them with demon power. Diotrophes, who loveth to have the pre-eminence, has manifested himself in varied type and phase in every age of the Church. Ananias and Sapphira were, on the one hand, desirous not to be behind any of their fellow-disciples in name and fame for a generosity which would lead to favour and distinction, influence and respect. Perhaps they were well known among the faithful for their ample means; their lands might be familiar to not a few, and they themselves would naturally suppose that by not following the generous example of others, their reputation would suffer. They might be suspected and branded as exceptions to general liberality, and at all events fail of securing general esteem. Barnabas the Levite of Cyprus, as we are informed at the close of the preceding chapter, had realised all his possessions in his native island, and won for himself a conspicuous place in the ranks of disciples by contributing the produce to the common chest Why may not they follow his example, emulate his generosity, and reap similar approval for kindred gifts? Tet while thus having their names, along with his, among the Church’s earliest benefactors, they will take care to purchase reputation on the cheapest terms they can, even though the arts of dissimulation and falsehood be called in as auxiliaries. It might be riskful and injudicious to reduce themselves to straits, when the community they had joined was as yet, as it were, upon its trial, and might be scattered and annihilated like other sects that had arisen before it They had not the simple, unquestioning faith of their other fellow-disciples, who had cast themselves implicitly on the God they served, and who in surrendering their little all, relied on the injunction of their great Master, 44 Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow will take thought for the things of itself.” By a prudent, worldly policy they calculated that in this comfortable secret hoard, the residue of their estate, even should the Gospel prove a failure, they would have some reliable provision for the wants of the future. Distrust, worldliness, avarice, thus combined with vanity and ostentation, to make shipwreck of faith and of a good conscience, by tempting to impious prevarication and fraud. “Between the two passions/1 says a writer, “the dexterity of hypocrisy suggested a compromise. Avarice was contented with the retention of a part, and vanity was gratified by the surrender of the rest under the pretext that it was the whole.... They wished to serve two masters, but to appear to serve only one.” 1 Their conduct was a spurious imitation, an unworthy counterfeit, of genuine liberality: base duplicity with a thin veneer of

assumed sanctity and generous deed. Nor was the least guilty feature its cool and calculating deliberation, The guilty act was no matter of momentary and reckless impulse, extemporised on their way to the place of meeting; but a carefully matured and concocted plan.

In all these nice and prudential calculations, however, they had omitted the paramount consideration of all, “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight, but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”

Without further attempting to scrutinise their motives, the plot had so far been successfully carried out and consummated. The sale had been effected. The parting with their land had probably been matter of notoriety, as any such occurrence would be among ourselves. Doubtless, they secretly congratulated themselves on the stroke of clever dissimulation. They may

Meyer. have looked forward to being received by the brethren with flattering encomiums for the substantial proof of their self-denial and generosity. But there was a modern Elijah standing waiting, as of old at the gate of Naboth’s vineyard, to unmask and denounce, in stern and awful words, the enormous crime. We gather from the sacred narrative, that Ananias had just entered the con* gregation of disciples by himself, unaccompanied by the partner of his guilt. Doubtless, he entered the, place of meeting with mingled feelings, expecting, on the one hand, as he tendered the produce of the sale, words expressive of grateful commendation that be too “had come behind in no gift,” but had, in common with others, provided for the needs of the fatherless and the orphan, and “made the widow’s heart to leap for joy.” Yet, too, how his unscrupulous deed must have been its own avenger and Nemesis, dogging his foot? steps, specially in the presence of the meek servants of Him “who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.” Peter at once confronts the presumptuous hypocrite with the sin of “lying to the Holy Ghost” — an endeavour to practise deceit on himself and brother-Apostles, in their official character, as the appointed human agents and ministers of that Divine Spirit who had supernaturally endowed and qualified them for their work. Ananias had known — in all probability he had himself seen: — the great outpouring at Pentecost, beheld the baptism of fire, and listened to the utterances in varied tongues. All these signs, subsequently followed by miracles, afforded undoubted evidence that the Apostles of the Crucified, in administering the affairs of the Church, were imbued with a heavenly power not their own; in other words, that they had be-TffE FIRST CASE OF DISCIPLINE. 355

come, in a sense higher than ever before or since, “temples of the Holy Ghost.” To attempt upon them, therefore, a scheme of systematic and deliberate deceit, under the mask of distinguished and disinterested goodness, was not only calculated to undermine their own influence, but it was offering an insult to the Divine indwelling Spirit, the Spirit of Truth; it was a bold and presumptuous trifling with His omniscience, equivalent to a challenge to the Great Heart Searcher to detect the fraud.

But Peter said,” Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own 1 and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God;’

In a moment, as if with a sadden lightning-flash, the convicted man is stretched a corpse on the floor of the assembly, struck down by the judgment of that God he had impiously defied. Death is appalling enough under Any circumstances; but death with a lie in its right hand, hypocrisy unmasked when standing on the borders of eternity, is surely a horror of great darkness. What must have been the feelings of the assembled Christians when they saw one who till now had been a .trusted and unsuspected brother; — who had been wont, doubtless, to join in the hymn of praise and share the memorial feast, arraigned and convicted as a perjured blasphemer? And no sooner has the dread truth of his flagrant guilt been flashed upon them, than they gaze on livid cheek, and glazed eye, and sealed lips. The trembling culprit has gone to have the sentence, pronounced on earth, ratified at a bar from which there is no appeal, and to meet a Being who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.” The hope of the hypocrite shall perish

Some rationalistic expositors would refer this sudden doom to purely natural and physical causes; that the horrors of detection, the fierce tone of Peter’s denunciation, the awakened pangs and remorse of conscience, precipitated some paroxysm or convulsion, destroying the vital powers, and causing immediate death. God, indeed, may possibly have thus employed natural means to effect His own righteous purpose. The sequel of the story, however, clearly indicates and implies a direct infliction of Divine retribution.

A few young men of the congregation, probably “occupying a position similar to that of the acoluthi or acolytes at a later period,”1 hastened outside to procure some death-clothes, in order to perform with all celerity the rites of burial In Eastern countries the burial takes place as soon as may be after life is extinct, at all events, before sunset on the day on which death has taken place. Instead of coffin or sarcophagus, a linen garment (sindon) was wound, generally with spices, around the body. Thus would Ananias, with no wail of mourners, no tear of affection, be borne by these youths outside the gates of Jerusalem, probably to some enclosure or cave in the burying-place of the Jews, on the slopes of the valley of Jehoshaphat.

A similar awful catastrophe, three hours following,

i Olshausen. 4 ‘Certainly,” it is added in a note, “there were in the Church at a very early period persons who were entrusted with the care <>f mere external matters, such as the cleaning of the places of meeting, and the like. These might also take charge of the interment of the dead.” — 2b. vol iv. p. 412. was to overtake a guilty accomplice and confederate. She who had shared with her audacious partner in concocting the fraudulent and blasphemous scheme, enters (all in ignorance apparently of his fate), the solemnised and horror-struck assembly. She would do so, expecting perhaps to find her husband the centre of an admiring crowd lauding his beneficence, doubtless hoping too to participate in the ill-deserved approbation. She sees nothing but the mute offering lying neglected where he had laid it at the Apostles’ feet, while the significant silence might almost have suggested to her the terrible truth. Peter in a moment charges her with complicity in the dishonourable transaction. We can picture too in thought the feelings and demeanour of the aggrieved Apostle. Though of a different kind, his emotions are probably as profound and thrilling as when he faced the assembled Sanhedrim and braved its fury. Yet doubtless he would feel and act as the representative and vicegerent of Deity, forgetting himself, in the awful message he had to deliver. The sin had indeed in one sense, as we have already said, been against him and his fellow- Apostles, ignoring their Divine credentials, and discrediting their sacred office. But theirs was a subordinate place in the indictment compared to the offence against the great God whose servants they were, and who had vouchsafed them such distinguished proofs of His presence and power. We may therefore well believe, that with deep sorrow of heart, obeying the promptings of the Divine Spirit within him, Peter would deliver, like one of the fiery prophets of old, his burden of woe, “Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much?” The abruptness of the query would have blanched the cheek of most, and covered them with confusion. But in no wise disconcerted, conscience seared as with a hot iron, Sapphira adheres with shameful effrontery resolutely to the bold fabrication, “Yea, for so much intensifying by her obstinacy the baseness of the committed crime, leading some to suppose that like another Eye she was the main instigator in the plot. In her case, at all events, there is no room left for doubt as to the result being a judicial infliction, an immediate judgment of heaven. “Then Peter said unto her, i How is it that ye have agreed to tempt the Spirit of the Lord 3 Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.’”

The same words which announced her widowhood, announced the appalling form in which the first visit would be made to her husband’s grave. In the case of Ananias, Peter had pronounced no doom. The miserable man of his own accord, as if struck down by a bolt from heaven, gave up the ghost; but in the case of Sapphira, he is the medium and mouthpiece of retribution. On listening to the sentence, the infatuated victim of her own sin “fell down,” and the newly-dug grave was afresh opened to admit her. The awful dirge and death-knell seems to sound over their common tomb, “Be sure your sin will find you out,” “The same unhallowed love of reputation, the same base hypocrisy, the same disregard for the All-seeing Eye of heaven influenced both! They were hateful in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.”1

It is abundantly manifest from this terrible episode, that special extraordinary gifts were communicated to the Apostles in the first ages of the Church, which have

l Professor Dick, 81. been subsequently withdrawn; not only supernatural power to enable them to perform miracles, but also a supernatural insight to “discern spirits,” a special power of scrutinising human thoughts, motives, and purposes, so as to render impossible deception and imposture. Nay, farther, that they were invested (according to the only interpretation which the much-disputed words will bear) with “the power of the keys;” authority to bind and to loose; to be the instruments not only of announcing temporal, but of inflicting Divine judgments for spiritual offences. “I Write these things,” says St Paul, “being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord hath given me” (2 Cor. xiil 10). Aud he previously has defined and signified what that power is, “To deliver such an one Unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. v. 5). It has been excellently observed with reference to this by a recent writer, that “the fact should never be overlooked that the men who used this language did so, because they were conscious of an implanted and supernatural might. Peter, like Bis Lord, could read the heart of Ananias, and could charge him at once with * lying to the Holy Ghost; ’ and his accusation was so terrible and so true, that the guilty man fell dead before him. Paul, when withstood by Elymas, could say to him, ‘The hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season.’ If any men were now to appear among us who could thus take away sight, or even life, by a word, we might listen to their behests as the Christians of Cyprus, or Corinth, or of Jerusalem lis* tened to the command of Paul or of Peter; but if we see poor ordinary human beings, often destitute of common sagacity, calling themselves ’ successors of the Apostles, and assuming, in virtue of that succession, to determine whether a dying man shall wake up in heaven or in hell, we feel that such pretensions are not only sinfully arrogant and false, but that they are also transparently foolish. The Apostles could show upon all fitting occasions that they possessed the ( power of our Lord Jesus Christ* (1 Cor. v. 4). To concede to them, therefore, some larger authority than belonged to ordinary human beings was right and proper — it was obviously reasonable; but to imagine the same prerogatives to exist where no such powers can be discerned, would be wholly contrary to reason. Paul himself appealed to this test, saying, ‘Truly the signs of an Apostle were wrought among you in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds’”1 (2 Cor. xii. 12).

This lamentable example of insincerity and hypocrisy we have now considered, inflicting as it did such a scar on the beauty of the primitive community — enough to “make devils triumph and angels weep” — was yet doubtless the means, in consequence of the signal vengeance it entailed, of protecting the morality of the infant Church, and vindicating its purity. The graves of these two hypocrites need no epitaph to read the perpetual warning, “Verily, there is a God that judgeth in the earth:” “The candle of the wicked shall be put out.” Moreover, it would tend to confirm and establish the authority that had been conferred on the Apostles, and form a new and incontrovertible credential of their mission. The rumour of such an appalling visitation must speedily have been carried

i Author of “Essajs on the Church,” p. 136. throughout the whole city; and these “terrors of the Lord “would constrain many, hitherto indifferent spectators, to turn with interest and awe towards the followers of the crucified Jesus of Nazareth:” Fear came upon as many as heard these things.” None arraigned the rectitude of the judgment, appalling as it was. Indeed, with the large body of the people the event seems to have ingratiated Peter and bis colleagues as the bold, heroic, faithful servants of the Most High:” The people magnified them; and believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.*