Kept Back by Fraud: Achan in the Land and Ananias in the Church
Old Testament: Josue 7:1, 11-12
But the children of Israel transgressed the commandment, and took to their own use of the anathema. For Achan the son of Charmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zare of the tribe of Juda, took something of the anathema: and the Lord was angry against the children of Israel. ... Israel hath sinned, and transgressed my covenant: and they have taken of the anathema, and have stolen and lied, and have hidden it among their goods. Neither can Israel stand before his enemies, but he shall flee from them: because he is defiled with the anathema.
Old Testament, also: 2 Machabees 3:27
And Heliodorus suddenly fell to the ground, and they took him up covered with great darkness, and having put him into a litter they carried him out.
New Testament: Acts 5:1-3, 5
But a certain man named Ananias, with Saphira his wife, sold a piece of land, And by fraud kept back part of the price of the land, his wife being privy thereunto: and bringing a certain part of it, laid it at the feet of the apostles. But Peter said: Ananias, why hath Satan tempted thy heart, that thou shouldst lie to the Holy Ghost, and by fraud keep part of the price of the land? ... And Ananias hearing these words, fell down, and gave up the ghost. And there came great fear upon all that heard it.
The connection
Israel had just crossed the Jordan, and Jericho had fallen. Everything in the city was anathema, devoted to the Lord, and the first sin in the Land was committed against it: "Achan ... took something of the anathema" (Josue 7:1). The Lord names what was done: "they have taken of the anathema, and have stolen and lied, and have hidden it among their goods" (7:11). Achan confessed that he had coveted "a scarlet garment exceeding good, and two hundred sicles of silver", and hidden them in the ground inside his tent (7:21). The Church had just received the Spirit, and "all things were common unto them"; the believers sold their lands and laid the price "before the feet of the apostles" (Acts 4:32, 35). The first sin recorded in the Church was committed against that offering. Ananias "by fraud kept back part of the price of the land", and brought the rest as if it were all (5:2). Peter names what was done: "why hath Satan tempted thy heart, that thou shouldst lie to the Holy Ghost ... Thou hast not lied to men, but to God" (5:3-4). Stolen, lied and hidden, as at Jericho. Ananias "fell down, and gave up the ghost", and "great fear" came "upon the whole church" (5:5, 11). Between the two stands Heliodorus, sent to seize the Temple treasury, which held "provisions for the subsistence of the widows and the fatherless" (2 Machabees 3:10). God struck him in the treasury itself, and he "suddenly fell to the ground" amid "fainting and dread" (3:24, 27). What is given to God for the poor is holy, and He guards it. The Apostolic Constitutions set Achan, "when he had stolen in Israel at Jericho", beside Ananias and Saphira, "who stole their own goods"; St John Chrysostom names Achan and Ananias together as warnings. St John Cassian calls the sin a plant that "first shot up in the persons of Ananias and Sapphira in the early Church" and was "cut off by the severity of the Apostle Peter". The Catechism names sacrilege, the profaning of things consecrated to God, a grave sin (CCC 2120).
Moral sense
Peter does not say Ananias had to give everything: "Whilst it remained, did it not remain to thee?" (Acts 5:4). The sin was not keeping part; it was pretending to give all. God does not ask for everything as a price, but He will not be lied to. Josue's word to Achan is still the way out of a hidden thing: "give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and confess, and tell me what thou hast done, hide it not" (Josue 7:19). Ananias had his breath taken from him; Christ laid His down: "No man taketh it away from me: but I lay it down of myself" (John 10:18).
Anagogical sense
Achan was buried under stones in the Valley of Achor, the valley of trouble (Josue 7:26). The prophet promised that the same valley would be given back "for an opening of hope" (Osee 2:15). The Church was purified by the fear, and "the multitude of men and women who believed in the Lord, was more increased" (Acts 5:14). The City at the end keeps the rule Jericho kept: "There shall not enter into it any thing defiled, or that worketh abomination or maketh a lie" (Apocalypse 21:27).
The Fathers
The Apostolic Constitutions, Book VII: "'Thou shalt not steal:' for Achan, when he had stolen in Israel at Jericho, was stoned to death; ... and Ananias, and Sapphira his wife, who stole their own goods, and 'tempted the Spirit of the Lord,' were immediately, at the sentence of Peter our fellow-apostle, struck dead." St John Cassian, Conferences XVIII.7: "that baleful plant revived and sprang up again which when it first shot up in the persons of Ananias and Sapphira in the early Church was cut off by the severity of the Apostle Peter." St John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles XII: "Do you see that this is the charge brought against Ananias, that having made the money sacred, he afterwards secreted it? ... Something of the same kind had happened upon a time in the Old Testament. The son of Charmi coveted the devoted thing: for observe there also what vengeance ensues upon the sin."
Warrant
Patristic. Acts does not name Achan, but St John Chrysostom joins the two himself, on this entry's own ground of a thing made sacred and then secretly taken: the charge against Ananias is "that having made the money sacred, he afterwards secreted it", and "Something of the same kind had happened upon a time in the Old Testament. The son of Charmi coveted the devoted thing" (Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles XII). Elsewhere the Fathers set Achan and Ananias side by side as examples of theft punished (the Apostolic Constitutions, Book VII; St John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Corinthians XI). The link rests on the Greek, and there it is close: nosphizomai, to keep back by fraud, stands in the whole Greek Bible only at Josue 7:1 (enosphisanto, of Achan), 2 Machabees 4:32 (of Menelaus, pilfering the Temple's gold vessels), Acts 5:2-3 (enosphisato, of Ananias) and Titus 2:10. Luke describes the first sin in the Church with the word the Septuagint used for the first sin in the Land. The link does not hold in Latin or Hebrew: the Vulgate reads usurpaverunt at Josue 7:1 and fraudavit at Acts 5:2, and the Hebrew of Josue has ma'al, trespass, for a verb with no counterpart in Acts. The two cases also differ, and the entry keeps the difference: Achan took what God had devoted, while Ananias kept back part of what was his own and lied that he had given it all. Heliodorus was brought to the entry by Dunk, from the Temple treasury of 2 Machabees 3; it supports the entry by theme rather than by word. The shared phrase gave up the ghost, which Dunk also noticed at Luke 23:46 and John 19:30, is the Douay's English and the Vulgate's (expiravit at Acts 5:5 and Luke 23:46, but tradidit spiritum at John 19:30), not the Greek's: Ananias exepsyxen, Christ in Luke exepneusen and in John paredoken to pneuma, handed over His spirit. The entry does not say what became of Ananias or Achan after death.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2120.
The verses
Josue 7:1 · Josue 7:11 · Josue 7:12 · 2 Machabees 3:27 · Acts 5:1 · Acts 5:2 · Acts 5:3 · Acts 5:5
