“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?”
Then Peter said, 'Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?' - Peter's diagnostic language ('filled your heart,' plērōsai tēn kardian) echoes the fullness of the Spirit in Acts 2:4, but here inverted as demonic fullness. The lie is specifically 'to the Holy Spirit,' making this not merely fraud against the community but blasphemy against the divine person. Peter's rhetorical question presumes that lying to the Spirit is a category error, a fundamental violation of covenant reality.
Church Fathers on Acts 5:3
But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Acts 5:3 Observe even in this, a great miracle performed, greater far than the former. Whiles it remained, says he, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own power? Acts 5:4 That is,
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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