And kept back part of the price, his wife also knowing it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet.
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Erasmus of Rotterdam
AD 1536
His intent was to divide the money and with one portion to purchase praise and the impression of piety, but to save the other portion for himself in case some need should arise.
By fraud kept part. Ananias, and his wife Saphira, had made a promise or vow, to put into the common stock the price of what they had to sell. When they had sold the field, they resolved by mutual consent to keep for their private use part of the money, and to bring in the rest, as if they had received no more. The whole price being promised, and by that means consecrated to God, St. Augustine calls it a sacrilegious fraud, and St. Chrysostom, a theft of what was already made sacred to God. (Witham)
