NOTES for Act 5:1-11
The story of Ananias and Sapphira perplexes some readers of Acts. Indeed, if this is the punishment for any sin, even a relatively small one, can anyone hope for salvation at all? Yet this story offers the clearest illustration of what the Jerusalem community of the first Christians was in spiritual terms. Evidently, many who joined sold everything they owned and donated the money to the community's common fund. But judging by Peter's words to Ananias, this was not a mandatory condition of entry. “Does what is yours not belong to you?” the apostle asks him.
These words show that, on entering the community, each person was free to dispose of their property and determine the size of their own donation. The issue was not that Ananias had failed to give everything he had. It was that he lied, as his wife did a few hours later. “And God punished him for lying,” a pious reader might hasten to conclude. But it turns out not to be so simple. God sees the human heart, and if punishment were the issue, Sapphira would probably have fallen dead on the threshold without saying a word.
Nor would there have been any need to ask Ananias so many questions. This is not about punishment for lying, although beginning life in the community with deception and duplicity is, of course, hardly a good idea. Breaking a commandment is breaking a commandment. But behind the lie in this case is an obvious desire to look better than one really is, to play a role before the community that is not one's true self. That is entirely incompatible with the “one heart and one soul” the author uses to describe relationships in the earliest Jerusalem Christian community. The issue is the depth and conscious character of the intentions that shape a person's life.
It is also the quality of that life itself, the stream that the biblical books call “soul.” To live in the community, the spiritual quality of this life had to be high enough. Moreover, the community's life formed a single stream, “one soul.” A person, wishing to enter this life that is new to him, comes into contact with its stream. His own life instantly disintegrates, flies apart—the disparity between the stream of his life and that of the community is so great.
There, in the community, life is real, while his is imaginary: he does not want to be his real self, preferring to play a role. Such inner disintegration does not always affect a person's physical condition immediately, but if the difference is too great, it can. Then anything may happen, from fainting to instant death.
But there is no question of punishment here. If someone completely unprepared, and well aware of it, tries to climb a mountain summit accessible only to trained climbers, they cannot be unaware of how the attempt may end. If that person eventually falls into the abyss, there is no one to blame but themselves.