And Peter said unto her: Why have you agreed together to tempt the spirit of the Lord? Behold the feet of them who have buried thy husband are at the door: and they shall carry thee out,
ο δε πετρος ειπεν προς αυτην τι οτι συνεφωνηθη υμιν πειρασαι το πνευμα κυριου ιδου οι ποδες των θαψαντων τον ανδρα σου επι τη θυρα και εξοισουσιν σε
5 Church Fathers comment on this verse
"How is it," he says, "that you have agreed to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out." First he impresses upon her that she has sinned. Then he shows that she will justly suffer the same fate as her husband, since she too sinned in the same thing.
The Apostle Peter does not ask for their death, as the foolish Porphyry slanders him. Rather, in a prophetic spirit he announces the judgment of God, so that the punishment of two persons may serve as instruction for many.
But at this time there occurred the sorrowful event of the moral fall of a Christian couple. A certain man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold his real property, as other Christians did, to give the proceeds to the apostles for the benefit of the whole Christian community.
Yet they brought the apostles only a certain part of the price, while keeping the rest for themselves. Before the apostles and the other believers, however, they presented themselves as people who had renounced all their property for the common good.
In the deed of Ananias and Sapphira, besides love of money, hypocrisy was also revealed. The first vice was especially dangerous for its own unhappy slaves. The latter, however, could affect the whole Christian community.
The spirit of hypocrisy, outward righteousness, and the desire to appear righteous before men were so characteristic of Pharisaic righteousness. These could have entered and taken root in the Christian community.
Until then, its members had been distinguished by sincerity of piety, by openness of conscience before every believer, and by unfeigned, selfless love for their neighbors.
It is now clear why the deed of Ananias and Sapphira was judged and punished so severely. In their persons, that spirit which had mastered them was being punished and decisively driven out of the Apostolic Church.
In his accusatory speech to Ananias, verses 3-4, the apostle Peter attributes the birth of this hypocritical intention in his heart to Satan. Yet man preserves the freedom of moral self-determination, despite Satan’s external actions upon his heart.
Therefore the apostle blames Ananias himself for allowing Satan to enter his heart with his tempting activity. At the same time, the apostle teaches that the Holy Spirit dwells in the Church of Christ.
Thus a lie before the Church is also a lie before the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God, and therefore the lie of Ananias and Sapphira is a great and unforgivable sin.
"To test the Spirit of the Lord": to test Him precisely by falsehood, by deceiving the community in which the Spirit of the Lord dwells, that is, the Spirit of God, or the Holy Spirit (vv. 3-4). It was an attempt to deceive the Spirit. The Spirit of the Lord knows not only human secrets, but also the depths of God (1 Cor 2:10). To attempt to lie before Him, as though to deceive Him, means to test whether He is truly all-knowing. "Behold, they are entering," and so forth: the young men who had buried Ananias were returning at that time. Peter uses this occasion to pronounce over the wife the same punishment that befell the husband. "They will carry you out" means that they will carry her out dead for burial. Whether Peter intended by his words to strike Ananias with death (v.
4), or whether this was the direct action of God, independent of Peter's will and intention, is not plainly seen from the text. But when Ananias had already been struck by death, the apostle, speaking to Sapphira, could already be certain that the same would happen to her as to her husband, because their sin was the same. He could therefore utter the dread words: "They will carry you out."
Explaining their guilt to Sapphira, the apostle says that they are tempting the Spirit of the Lord. That is, they are testing whether God knows all things or does not know them, as though He could be deceived.
Thus the chief cause, or foundation, of this act of Ananias and Sapphira was forgetfulness of God’s omniscience and His omnipresence. This also happened with our forefathers after they had sinned; see Gen 3:8.
“They forgot that God sees their deeds and thoughts. If they had kept in mind that God sees everything, both outwardly and inwardly, more clearly than all men, and even more clearly than they themselves, it would never have entered their minds to deal falsely before the apostles.
The eyes of the Lord, brighter than the sun, see into the hidden recesses of the heart. Neither night, nor sea, nor the depths of the earth hide anything from Him,” says Bishop Theophan.
“Remember this, and therefore order your inward and outward conduct. If the Omniscient One were a stranger to us, one might still be indifferent to His omniscience. But He is also the Judge.
By virtue of His omniscience, He often pronounces His judgment sooner than we expect.” Sapphira fell dead at the apostle’s feet because she was standing near him. But, of course, he did nothing to her.
Perhaps his dread word was only a threat on his part, meant to stir her to repentance. Yet because the Spirit of the Lord spoke through him, his word was like lightning. At the same time, it was prophetic.
He foretold the return of the young men who had buried her husband, and likewise foretold that they would bury her also.
Although the writer of Acts partly presents the matter as though the buriers were entering while the apostle was speaking, it is not evident that they saw her fall. Rather, when they entered, they found her already dead.
Some interpreters, however, suppose that Peter, speaking with Sapphira after the death of Ananias, could already have been certain that the same would happen to her as to her husband. Their sin was the same.
For this reason he could utter the dreadful word: “they will carry you out also.” “Notice this as well,” says blessed Theophylact, “that among their own the apostles are strict, but among outsiders they refrain from punishments.
The latter was necessary so that people would not think they acted by fear. The former was necessary so as not to allow converts to become sacrilegious, for this would have brought reproach upon their preaching.”
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 27 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS